Is it one of those things where everybody has a different definition of what it is? I'll be honest it sounds like meme shit. Everybody gets free stuff? That's ridiculous who's going to pay for it? Explain yourselves
the real movement that abolishes the present state of things
>>2563413Well what's so bad about right now? I like not having to fight grug and his gang to get food.
Its when women get owned by the collective and are held in publicly owned facilities. Like Marx said.
>>2563417Wtf that's based as hell. Maybe this communism thing is alright. Now what else do we get?
>>2563413Wrong. Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm >>2563408>The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.~ KARL MARX
>>2563422So we all just return to monkey and live naked in the trees? I don't know if that's such a good idea
>>2563423What are you talking about, lol
>>2563420Oof that's a lot of reading. I'll get chatgpt to summarize that later
>>2563427You said we have to give up our stuff? I like my fridge and my pc and my bed
>>2563428You know I heard you guys were high and mighty and it seems that's true.
>>2563415>I like not having to fight grug and his gang to get food.even if you are physically alienated from the effects of war right now it doesnt mean capitalism doesnt generate it constantly with all the problems that come with it, its a race to the bottom
>>2563430No. Those are just personal belongings, not means of production and private property. Private property is land, industry, infrastructure. Means of production privately owned and protected by property rights by the state.
>>2563433Are you saying communism would end all wars? I guess we can't shoot each other if we give up our guns and stuff. I think people would just kill each other with rocks though
>>2563435So we give up on bridges and buildings and land? Well who gets it? We just abandon it?
im pretty sure this thread is supposed to be an exploration of what each person on leftypol believes communism is rather than a legitimate question
>>2563439Workers get it, they run the economy and govern themselves.
Communism is, according to Lenin, the electrification of the whole country. We've actually been living under communism for a while.
>>2563444Well how does that work? We all just agree to not steal anything? Who stops the first person from stealing if we govern ourselves?
>>2563443yeah well I came here to ask questions because I heard you guys were smart but I guess not
>>2563449you dont have to be "smart" to be a leftist, you just have to not be retarded.
>>2563452Isn't it your job to explain communism to people? Or do you guys just talk about it to larp and seem cool?
>>2563454We have explained it. Communism is mum-and-pop store owners get tortured by Red Guards. I'm not sure what you fail to understand.
>>2563456Why? What did they ever do to you?
>>2563408According to Lenin, liberals are right: socialism is the post office. From State and Revolution:
<A witty German Social-Democrat of the seventies of the last century called the postal service an example of the socialist economic system. This is very true. At the present the postal service is a business organized on the lines of state-capitalist monopoly. Imperialism is gradually transforming all trusts into organizations of a similar type, in which, standing over the “common” people, who are overworked and starved, one has the same bourgeois bureaucracy. But the mechanism of social management is here already to hand. Once we have overthrown the capitalists, crushed the resistance of these exploiters with the iron hand of the armed workers, and smashed the bureaucratic machinery of the modern state, we shall have a splendidly-equipped mechanism, freed from the “parasite”, a mechanism which can very well be set going by the united workers themselves, who will hire technicians, foremen and accountants, and pay them all, as indeed all “state” officials in general, workmen's wages. Here is a concrete, practical task which can immediately be fulfilled in relation to all trusts, a task whose fulfilment will rid the working people of exploitation, a task which takes account of what the Commune had already begun to practice (particularly in building up the state).
<To organize the whole economy on the lines of the postal service so that the technicians, foremen and accountants, as well as all officials, shall receive salaries no higher than "a workman's wage", all under the control and leadership of the armed proletariat–that is our immediate aim. This is what will bring about the abolition of parliamentarism and the preservation of representative institutions. This is what will rid the laboring classes of the bourgeoisie's prostitution of these institutions.…
<Here “quantity turns into quality": such a degree of democracy implies overstepping the boundaries of bourgeois society and beginning its socialist reorganization. If really all take part in the administration of the state, capitalism cannot retain its hold. The development of capitalism, in turn, creates the preconditions that enable really “all” to take part in the administration of the state. Some of these preconditions are: universal literacy, which has already been achieved in a number of the most advanced capitalist countries, then the “training and disciplining” of millions of workers by the huge, complex, socialized apparatus of the postal service, railways, big factories, large-scale commerce, banking, etc., etc. >>2563447Well most here are in favor of a planned economy with the help of technology and computers. No it doesn't mean people won't steal or will magically stop commiting crimes overnight.
the fate of worldwide communism hinges on me taking the bait from some disingenuous retard on a dying forum format
>>2563468So everybody gets paid the same? Well why would anyone go to school to be a doctor then? That's a lot of schooling
>>2563458Marx (pbuh) declared them bourgoeis and thus to be expunged.
>>2563470Okay what's a planned economy?
>>2563475Yeah well if you don't want to answer questions why are you in this thread?
>>2563482leftypol is incredibly slow its not exactly a magnificent feat to reply to a thread that happens to be first on the overboard :)
>>2563480When me and my buddies in the Sovnarkom design your daily allotment of goods and services. I'll assign you to nothing but canned slop if you don't obey me.
>>2563486It's no wonder it's slow if everyone here is as snobbish as you
>>2563487That sounds like slavery
>>2563490if you want to learn what communism is read the manifesto, itll explain it better than any of us can
>>2563492Sounds like somebody doesn't want access to a dental plan…
>>2563493Well that just sounds like you guys don't even know what it is. How do you expect people to get on board with this if you can't explain it?
>>2563498Give a chud a fish, etc etc
>>2563498communism is the abolishment of private property
>>2563496So you guys are really just expecting everyone to read pages and pages of political theory? Some movement you got there
>>2563501yes we expect people to read
>>2563500Yeah and what if I get my buddies together and we decide that property is private again? Who stops us?
>>2563501>post screenshot about communism not being about le rational debate<So you guys are really just expecting everyone to read pages and pages of political theory?illiterate tard lol, expected from someone who expects all their questions to be answered with one liners. maybe tiktok is more your speed?
>>2563502Is this the free stuff I've been hearing about? Alright so everybody gets free "basic needs" right? Is that just food? Does it include housing? Who exactly builds the houses and grows the food? Who pays them?
>>2563503Wew boy do you guys have an uphill battle
>>2563504a better question is how you expect to enforce your "private property"
>>2563505>surely these teens and grandmas and overworked 30 year olds will take time out of their day to read this manifesto sure thing bud
>>2563510welcome to the struggle
people dont like reading or educating themselves
>>2563511Well that's easy. Me and my friends would just shoot you if you come near
>>2563504Communism as a stable Mode of Production is just an end result of human development that won't come about for hundreds of years. Until then it will have capitalist influences, such as limited private property (in the USSR khokhozy weren't publicly owned) and the need for state enforcement of public property.
>>2563514and then youre breaking the law retard
>>2563517It's hard to listen to the words over the JAV I'm watching
>>2563516Hundreds of years huh. Well then why should any of us care? I won't live that long
>>2563517Is this a link? It's not working for me. Is it on youtube?
>>2563521You don't really need to care about what Communism will look like. Communists are more concerned over establishing a Socialist State.
>>2563519Didn't you guys say we govern ourselves? That means I am the law.
>>2563523What's a socialist state then?
>>2563525i can say im the law right now, doesnt make it true. same in your hypothetical
>>2563525Not when you contradict the will of the proletariat as a class.
>>2563527A state of and for the proletariat which takes the task of resolving capitalist contradictions (ie. Unemployment, unequal development between town and country, capitalist appropriation of surplus value, etc)
>>2563528Did you miss the part where we have guns? unless you have guns too why should we listen to you?
>>2563530why wouldnt we have guns
>>2563530What dumbass fantasy realm do you live in where states have no guns?
>>2563529What exactly is the will of the proletariat?
And so the socialist state is basically just like welfare for everyone right? Wouldn't that be really expensive?
>>2563537what the working class wants
>>2563535>>2563533Okay fine you guys have guns and we have guns. I guess it's a fight to the death then. I don't see how this helps anyone.
>>2563535its clear this guy has not engaged in any personal study past high school and certainly didnt attend college because if he did he would understand the communist manifesto
>>2563538Well how do YOU know what everyone wants?
>>2563540>I guess it's a fight to the death thenbecause you and your buddies decided you wanted to horde a section of land and kill anyone who went near it. you are the problem, just another criminal
>>2563543Well why would you fight us anyway? It's not like you get anything if you win right? I think I could convince more people to fight for me if I promise them a small strip of land or something
>>2563542i can assume people wouldnt like it when youre hunkered down somewhere shooting people as they come by.
>>2563541Is the communist manifesto really mandatory reading in colleges near you?
>>2563546Well I wouldn't shoot them if they joined my side. I promise them some land if they join my side and shoot you instead
This is like trying to get an 8 month old to eat brocoli.
Even Jordan Peterson read at least the Manifesto.
>>2563547Manifesto was written to be legible to mid-1800s factory workers, in a Europe where the average education level was elementary school and where even then attendance rates were ~50%.
>>2563548Retard. Military land grants aren't socialist. Lmao
>>2563548you and your friends share a TV
everyone benefits from the TV, they all get to watch it when they need to.
then some guy takes your TV and shoots anyone who tries to watch it
he says "ill give you the remote if you help me shoot all the people who want to share the TV"
It's amazing how Principles of Communism and the Communist Manifesto were written as brief pamphlets designed for barely literate workers to consume, yet modern ADHD zoomers like OP are too retarded to read them.
>>2563553I'm not really sure that analogy works because you can split land up but you can't split a TV up. Also it doesn't really make sense because if everybody gets to watch the TV whenever they want who decides the channel? Anyway I'm offering them some land if they fight and you're offering a promise they'll get to use the land sometimes. Do you honestly expect them to fight for you?
>>2563552>>2563556Alright alright I'll read the damn manifesto tonight jeez get off my back mom.
>>2563557>you can split land up but you can't split a TV upokay replace the tv with a cake it really doesnt matter, either way you look like a weird psychopath trying to horde something everybody benefits from
>Anyway I'm offering them some land if they fight and you're offering a promise they'll get to use the land sometimesyou realize this land is amongst countless other sections of land that benefit the populus, right?
people arent going to enter a losing battle with you just to own a small section of land that they already benefitted from in the first place. you are fucking stupid, please read and use critical thinking
high level Communism is a situation of socialized material abundance wherein class conflict has been abolished, and the state has withered away. at least according to Sinomarxists, there will still be contradiction in high level Communism, but no government, no economic inequality. I suppose the economy will have been replaced by Reddit up votes.
>>2563561Okay but if I share the cake I get less cake then if I just take it and shoot anyone who stops me. What if I really want a bigger piece of cake? I don't think that's unreasonable to want a big piece of cake
>>2563563If there's no government who stops me from taking all the cake?
>>2563566the other people who want some cake too
>>2563568So I'm just supposed to share my cake from now on? I can just never have a big piece of cake every again? That's so gay. How about this? I can convince enough people to help me enslave you guys and make you guys bake cakes all day long so my group gets all the cake they want whenever they want. I guess it's a shame you guys have to become slaves but my group ends up happier I think
>>2563571Isn't that the guy from that kids show? It's on the tip of my tongue but I can't remember the name. How nostalgic
>>2563578Ah that's it! Lazytown. I really should rewatch that show. I used to think the pink girl was so hot as a kid. I wonder if she's still alive
>>2563574
Well I'm not sure there's any other solution for people that want more cake. Maybe people could willingly give us their cake and take less but I don't know how many people would be okay with that
>>2563583I guess but if it means we all have to take the same amount of cake, I don't see how that's better than what we have now. I guess right now rich people have most of the cake but that just means we have to kill them and take it for ourselves.
>>2563585>I guess but if it means we all have to take the same amount of cakeIt doesnt.
>>2563477because you would get paid for going to school and training instead of paying to do it. In capitalist society doctor wages are only high to offset tuition costs and student loan debt. In Cuba you see there are more doctors per capita than any other country, but they make close to typical working class wages.
>>2563595Well the cake was really just a stand in for land I'm pretty sure. Isn't making private property everybody's property the whole point? What if I want a nice house with a big piece of surrounding land so I don't have to interact with people?
>>2563598So I'd get paid more up front through schooling and then get paid the same as everyone else when I actually become a doctor? Is that really worth it? I guess it might be if medical students got paid enough to go through their classes.
>>2563408Let's start with what communism is then:
<The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
<The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.
<The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.[…]
<The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.
<In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.[…]
<The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourer appropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.
<In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.
<In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.
<And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.
<By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.
<But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the other “brave words” of our bourgeois about freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself.[…]
<The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
<Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.[…]
<When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
<In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
<Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Chapter II: Proletarians and Communistshttps://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htmNow I will go to the explanation of the economy in communism in its lower stage so you can understand better:
<Let us take, first of all, the words "proceeds of labor" in the sense of the product of labor; then the co-operative proceeds of labor are the total social product.
<From this must now be deducted: First, cover for replacement of the means of production used up. Second, additional portion for expansion of production. Third, reserve or insurance funds to provide against accidents, dislocations caused by natural calamities, etc.
<These deductions from the "undiminished" proceeds of labor are an economic necessity, and their magnitude is to be determined according to available means and forces, and partly by computation of probabilities, but they are in no way calculable by equity.
<There remains the other part of the total product, intended to serve as means of consumption.
<Before this is divided among the individuals, there has to be deducted again, from it: First, the general costs of administration not belonging to production. This part will, from the outset, be very considerably restricted in comparison with present-day society, and it diminishes in proportion as the new society develops. Second, that which is intended for the common satisfaction of needs, such as schools, health services, etc. From the outset, this part grows considerably in comparison with present-day society, and it grows in proportion as the new society develops. Third, funds for those unable to work, etc., in short, for what is included under so-called official poor relief today.
<Only now do we come to the "distribution" which the program, under Lassallean influence, alone has in view in its narrow fashion – namely, to that part of the means of consumption which is divided among the individual producers of the co-operative society.
<The "undiminished" proceeds of labor have already unnoticeably become converted into the "diminished" proceeds, although what the producer is deprived of in his capacity as a private individual benefits him directly or indirectly in his capacity as a member of society.
<Just as the phrase of the "undiminished" proceeds of labor has disappeared, so now does the phrase of the "proceeds of labor" disappear altogether.
<Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.
<What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.
<Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.
<Hence, equal right here is still in principle – bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case.
<In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.
<But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only – for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.
<But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
<In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
<Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875)https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htmI'll leave you with a quote from Engels to help you:
<With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organization. The struggle for individual existence disappears. Then, for the first time, man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man, who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature, because he has now become master of his own social organization. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face-to-face with man as laws of Nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man's own social organization, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have, hitherto, governed history, pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, more and more consciously, make his own history — only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.
<Frederick Engels, 1880, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Chapter III: Historical Materialismhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm >>2563613What's with these retards who think they're so smart for using "Lower-state Communism" and "Higher-state Communism" instead of "Socialism" and "Communism" like everybody else post-Lenin
its when you boil the babies and the more babies you boil the more communist it is
Soviet power + electrification of a whole country.
>>2563616Got me thinking of the snobby Bachelor in Pathologic who sometimes just talks in Latin to pretend to be smarter than everyone else.
But, I will say, "socialism" and "communism" are vague and nebulous words outside of a given context.
Especially "socialism". And this has been the case for well over 100 years. So I encourage replacing them with something more specific… just not this upper and lower stage junk.
As for Lenin, I still can't get over their sloganistic crap like "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country." Absolute slopaganda. Anti-education. I seriously hope that this is just a poor translation and it comes off as some sort of metaphor in the original Russian.
>>2563622Swiftian socio-economics hasn't been tried yet.
>>2563625>Soviet power + electrification of a whole country.But Soviets had zero political power in USSR?
>>2563609So what I'm getting from this is we kill rich people or at least take away all their stuff. What I'm not getting is who distributes goods to people at the end of the day. Is it some council? Some elected representative? What's to stop them from becoming corrupt with that power and keeping more for them and their friends?
Also that final quote is interesting if a bit arrogant. I'm not sure it is possible for humans to forsake the instincts endowed to us by our ancestors and their ancestors. We've fought and killed each other for millenia as is our nature. It is the height of arrogance to presume we could rise above ourselves.
>>2563614If you guys were most of society we'd already be living under communism
>>2563585The point is post scarcity. You can have as much cake as you could eat, but not all of it. That would be restoring relations of private property.
>>2563604The entire thing is that it's post scarcity. You could be paid 400,000 million funbucks an hour, but 400 million funbucks will buy you the same cake as the guy with 12 funbucks.
No socialist society actually claimed to have entered high level Communism, the ones that claimed they were in a Communist society usually claimed they were in a primary stage. You really need massive, communal abundance for HLC to work.
>>2563641How exactly do trespassing laws work in this situation anyway? Do they just not exist? So I can walk into your house and jerk off like it's my house? Do they start at the door of your house? So I can hold a barbecue on your lawn as long as I don't go in your house?
>>2563644You keep saying that term "post scarcity". It sounds like something out of science fiction. There are only so many resources available to humanity. It's not infinite
>>2563654Well what happens when we have all our basic needs met? We're going to start FUCKING and having lots of babies. All those babies need food and shelter too. Eventually we'll have used up all the land on earth. Do you communists have a plan to colonize the moon or not?
>>2563647Personal belongings is not private property; the house is not a means of production. To put it another way, I'd have the right to grab the cake out of your fork or your hands and eat it if personal belongings didn't exist.
>>2563653The Soviet Union and China both claimed they were in a primary stage of Communism, which is distinct from HLC.
Abolition of class + superabundance + minarchy/anarchy = HLC.
>>2563649Not really, consider carbon budgets. For the longest time, we've acted like electricity and propulsion was dependent on fossil fuels. Now, there's cheap solar+batt, cheap EVs.
I'm a Marxist singularitarian, I think that technology, more specifically, AI and automation, are necessary for the reification of Communism. Moreover, in all developed countries birth rates are actually below replacement levels, and even in developing countries birthrates are plummetting.
Out here, you mainly have cybercommunists though who think existing technology is enough to realize HLC, but in contrast, the Marxist singularitarians think that proletarian control of AI and automation results in a clear realization of HLC, not least because it'll cause the breakdown of capitalism.
>>2563661So this whole communism thing relies entirely on technology that's still in its infancy? Pretty sketchy to be honest with you fam
>>2563659This is first grade trolling, no? First, the observed behavior is that barring Elon Musk, access to abundant resources doesn't lead to baby spam. Second, you're acting like the Soviets didn't have a space program.
More generally speaking, the entire point is that HLC is a goal, but not something wherein all the details have been worked out, otherwise we'd have revolted already.
The basic short-term demand, however, is proletarian or social control of the real mechanisms of power, the means of economic production, not shitty bourgeois democracy where you get to vote for Coke or Pepsi while the economic basis of society denies you real power.
Obviously, the guys sitting at the top of the heap hate it. They'll engage in ridiculous sophistry to make alternatives seem impossible, because it's what people in power do on average, try to preserve it. However, the other part of Marxist theory is the instability of capitalism; we could see mass immiseration directly from normal capitalist processes, or AI and automation kicks in, and the clammers take all the jobs.
Even if the Communist ideal doesn't seem convincing to you, the intrinsic instability of capitalism is a strong argument for Marxism; you either have proletarian control directly or through a vanguard party, or you're just drugged up hobos while elites party it up in a fully automated society.
>>2563664The classic Marxist theory was Marx's Meditation on Machines, i.e, without AI or automation, at some point, capital accumulation on its own would drive superabundance.
Consider this. You can, in theory, hammer a nail with your fist. You can also build a hammer, and drive it more efficiently and painlessly. You can also build a nail-hammering machine that further reduces the need for labor.
The classical idea is that at some level of capital accumulation, you naturally get superabundance simply because the machines are so efficient that the output of just, well, walking to the store, ends up powering an entire economy.
In the capitalist mode, what we see are newer needs and ways to waste the surplus production, including expensive, costly wars, because otherwise the capital investment will never pay itself off. In the socialist mode, it simply means a reduction to the degree of work. Do you really need five Teslas? No? Good! The factory laborers can take half the week off.
>>2563498It's not so simple as to be explained in a one liner. And nobody is writing allat when they can just tell you to read the defining texts
>>2563668Yeah that particular post was a little cheeky.
>More generally speaking, the entire point is that HLC is a goal, but not something wherein all the details have been worked out, otherwise we'd have revolted alreadyWell it's hard to get people on board with "we'll iron out the details later guys don't worry". In any case why shouldn't the average person's goal just be to kill rich people in a revolt and take their spot on the throne? Whoever takes the throne will arguably end up happier than whatever they'd get in the communist ideal
>>2563501Reading pages and pages used to be normal on the internet before social media. You are just brainrotted from the short form content slop that now dominates the mainstream internet.
>>2563675Why wouldn't the rich just use AI drones to kill us all once they have machines that'll do everything for them?
>>2563680Hmm…read communist manifestos or watch cute girls twerk it to the spongebob theme song remix. Hard choice for sure
>>2563679No one is actually telling you to revolt now. It's more about building Gramscian counter hegemony, proletarian power that exists relatively independent of the capitalist system.
The thing is, no Marxist revolt has succeeded the way the theory claimed it would. It's never been a first world, imperial core revolution; the closest would have been Imperial Germany and the Nazis seized power there before the KPD got their turn when the Red Army marched into Berlin.
In reality, if you were actively engaged in revolutionary violence in the Imperial core, you'd likely be quickly detected and arrested, or allowed to fester so that elites would have an excuse to clamp down on all socialist movements in their country. You work toward building strength, waiting until the system becomes unstable enough that a revolutionary outburst can actually succeed, or that when you have civil war, the Communists are best positioned to win.
And the point of MLs is that Communists don't have to be perfect. They just have to be better than what came before; if they become a bureaucratic bourgeoisie and counterrevolutionary, you're absolutely entitled to overthrow them.
The fundamental, basic difference between liberals and Communists is that liberals draw legitimacy from the demos, the citizens of a nation state, however unequal and subverted they may be. Communists draw legitimacy from the masses, the working people and downtrodden of society, which is a better sell than giving Musk or Bezos 2 billion votes owing to campaign finance fraud and media manipulation, or for that matter, the CIA and FBI's relative influence over establishment media.
And the biggest selling point at this stage is, the center isn't holding. The liberal center is breaking down, with the fascists and Communists rising as their main alternatives. If you can no longer believe in liberalism, because of all the manifest hypocrisies and it's actual democides of its own demos, then your choices are, fascism and Communism.
If you don't want to become a fascist, become a Communist. It's not perfect, but it is in fact working for a livable future, not liberal decadence now or fascist atrocity later.
>>2563570You are using a very simplified and dumbed down analogy, but I'll go with it. With how much we produce in the modern day, if everyone was to have resources split equally, you would get to have a whole cake. It's more than enough for your needs and should satisfy your wants too.
But if your fatass insists on hoarding a billion cakes, so many cakes that you and every member of your fatass family for generations could eat 10 cakes a day their whole life and still not run out, that becomes a problem. Why? Because the number of cakes isn't unlimited and as a result of your gluttony millions of people now have only part of a cake, or a tiny slice, or even no cake at all.
Applying this analogy to the real world, the fatass is the capitalists/billionaires/elites/whatever you think of them as. The people with a partial cake is us. You understand why it is in our interest to want equal distribution, right?
I am a communist merely because I am acting in my own self interest - more resources for me, for the people around me, less for the handful of rich who already have more than they could ever spend in a lifetime anyways.
>>2563423No it would be more like Star Trek. A post scarcity society, where private property wouldn’t make sense. It would be like trying to charge people for air. When Marx wrote the communist manifesto he was witnessing the rise of industrialization. It used to be special artisans that would produce say shoes that could only crank them out in small amounts. Then these factories come along and they’re cranking out shoes like crazy, all these small cobblers are now forced to close shop and end up working in these factories. This obviously creates contradictions, more shit is being created faster and for cheaper but everyone’s lives are getting worse. Even the factory owners eventually get fucked because they’re creating more stock than they can sell. So they got to spend money to destroy or store surplus. They have to profit so they can’t sell at a lose or even just give it away. Because it’ll saturate the market further. So we’re in this stupid situation where we all work to make commodities that go directly into a warehouse or just outright get destroyed. During this overproduction crisis the factory owner then begins reducing wages and doing layoffs. Which reduces the number of people future customers. This happens across the economy over and over. Capitalism is great at building factories and productive forces but the logic of the system ends up wasting a bunch of resources and then it destroys itself in the end because the only way to reset the monopoly board is burn down all the surplus. So capitalism sucks at managing capital because in the end it eats itself. The goal of communism is to figure a way out of this system. Everyone’s got different ideas on how it’ll look like, so my idea isn’t the end all be all. Knut most communist will be vague about what post capitalism means and what the administration of things would look like.
>>2563685They probably will. Or trigger a highly destructive war so that once it's over, most of the proles are dead and they can cavort with their robot sexbots.
As the others said above, Communism is simply a matter of self-interest. You either seize the means of production when opportune, or the means of production will seize your life.
>>2563629>I'm not sure it is possible for humans to forsake the instincts endowed to us by our ancestors and their ancestors. We've fought and killed each other for millenia as is our nature. It is the height of arrogance to presume we could rise above ourselves.You are greatly oversimplifying human nature. If our nature was just competition we would have never formed civilization in the first place or even tribes, we would be lone hunters who occasionally meet up to mate like big cat species. How old are you?
>>2563700The basic argument for instinct comes out to: when you get angry and want to kill someone, do you actually do it? When you see an attractive individual, do you actually rape them? Instinct is instinct, but humans also have self-control.
>>2563629Lmao “human nature”, is it you’re nature to drive a car? Is it your nature to make post on the internet? What you talking about?
>>2563695>if they become a bureaucratic bourgeoisie and counterrevolutionary, you're absolutely entitled to overthrow themSo I guess we'll be doing this a lot. Maybe we should put the AI in charge of distributing the food
>>2563696Well that gets me back to the other question then. Why not just take the throne? If it's just for selfish desires anyway what could be more selfish than becoming the king?
>>2563700I think if anything you're overcomplicating human nature. Almost everything we do is in some way trying to get other people to do as we see fit. It's practically all competition from top to bottom
>>2563698>most communist will be vague about what post capitalism means and what the administration of things would look like.Believe me I've noticed lol
>>2563702based chad gazing into the light
>>2563703It's human nature to impose our will onto our environment. Otherwise we'd still be hunting with pointy sticks
>>2563704Beijing is planning it, i.e, to automate away vast swathes of their bureaucracy.
And it's not actually a bad thing; if current MLs actually deliver the material base (factories, technology, etc) necessary for realizing HLC, but refuse to allow the state to wither away, just be anarchists, get rid of them, and implement actual HLC.
>>2563708It's not. Some societies are more competitive than others, some are actually communalist.
Consider the Japanese. Cooperation and competition are both human potentials, which can be modified by upbringing and culture.
>>2563717You know japan has had kings right? In fact don't they still have a monarchy in some form? I also think it's funny you draw a distinction between the social pressure of a collectivist society and the oppressive nature of a monarchy. It's still people getting other people to do what they want. That is human nature. The competition isn't for resources. It's for your mind.
>>2563714Yeah that’s even everything’s nature. We’re just the current top dog for now. I don’t see a point in burning all our resources away for some pissing match against nature itself. I like this anons post the best
>>2563695People see the writing on the wall and it’s gonna be bad time aheads. Communist, for how annoying they can be are good people in the end and even if the vision is fully complete or articulated. It’s far better than burning everything down so rich Zionist pedos can party while the world burns than retreat to their bunkers.
>>2563720Consider Bonobos, who are related to Chimpanzees and are arguably humanity 's closest relative. They spend most of their time fucking each other. Chimps spend a lot of their time going to war with each other, and are more warlike than us.
The entire thing is that the very idea of human nature is something you've imbibed, instinct exists, but it's socially mediated. Talking to me on the Internet is not actually part of human nature, you weren't born with the ability to use a keyboard, to read and write, or even speak English.
The biggest problem is that you mistake the specific cultural circumstances of your capitalist society for human nature; the drive to dominate and compete is a human potentiality, but it varies both on material base (what happens if you lose? Do you starve or feel bad?) and cultural superstructure (does society tell you to compete? Or does it tell you to cooperate?).
>>2563722Communism is the last option given that the alternatives are neo-Nazis and liberal brain wreckers.
If you want to shit on liberals in public, just say you're a Marxist. And it's fun how hypocritical they are when they end up being attacked from the left. Free speech, in liberal thinking, is great until they're losing.
>>2563722I don't deny that things suck for the average person today. My point is it's in our nature as human beings to tilt the scales in our favor. No matter the societal structure we formulate, there will always exist those who use their positions of power as leverage to get more of what they want. It's a fundamental part of what it means to exist within a group. So in essence hierarchy will always exist and with it inequality and eventually exploitation. Even giving the reigns of power to AI doesn't necessarily ensure equality. Who gets to build the AI? Who's able to possibly influence it to give them more and others less? Humans will always push the envelope. It's our thing
>>2563723What a convenient notion. Surely our current state of affairs didn't naturally progress from man's inherent nature. No it must have been the aliens that did it.
>>2563701>when you get angry and want to kill someone, do you actually do it? When you see an attractive individual, do you actually rape them? Yes lmao people do these constantly. In more developed societies we learn not to because of religious doctrine, social pressure, and laws enforced by violence
>>2563706Because not everyone can have the throne. And if I'm on the throne a lot of people will want to take me down, either for egalitarian reasons or because they want the throne themselves, so I need to constantly maintain my power and can't rest. So I'd rather live in communism.
To put it another way, Communism is sort of like a tech project, because we have alpha and beta versions, but we don't have the production variant.
If we HAD the production variant, we wouldn't be arguing about this, you'd have real HLC societies you can just point to and remark how everything is better there.
But the nice thing about a tech project is, if you pump in enough R&D dollars into it, it'll work.
The Soviets were the first to create a Marxist-Leninist state, and it actually collapsed because of bureaucratic rot; they had OGAS staring at them and their vanguard revealed themselves as managerial bourgeoisie when they nixed the project to save their jobs.
The Chinese are currently running a beta version, which is a socialist market economy intending to ape the benefits of social democracy, but with a Marxist-Leninist core.
If they survive, and don't crash, they'll probably get to simulated socdem, them they'll move onto actually beginning the transition to HLC.
The importance of simulating socdem is that it's not actually socdem, which we know is unstable, as welfare states get torn apart and raped, between neoliberalism and uncontrolled immigration. Because the actual core is Marxist-Leninism, there is the potential to move beyond the unstable form of social democracy and actually see what HLC might look like, experiment with it, and actually achieve it.
The basic question is, do you want to invest in Crypto, which is a pure tech scam, AI, which is a bubble, or communism, which hasn't been proven to be hopeless?
Consider a Pascal's Wager of Communism.
If you choose not to be a Communist, all the signs are there that things will get much, much worse. In the best case scenario, you'll be a middle-class fascist and the fascist system won't crash before you die. This is all you can hope for.
If you choose to be a Communist, however, there is hope, Gramsci: "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the spirit" that we will be able to transcend many of the social limits of the human condition. You can conduct Praxis, the application, validation, refinement, and sometimes refutation of theory, toward the Communist cause, and that is your investment.
Or, you can hope that when the liberal system crashes, you'll be a comfy fascist and the fascist system won't crash on your head before you die.
>>2563731Selfish AND lazy. What a combination. Oh I'm only teasing that's a fine way to rationalize your position
>>2563708This sounds like projection. If most of our nature is just trying to get other people to do as we see fit, why do those other people do as a handful of people see fit? Social constructs have constrained socially disruptive elements of human nature, like excessive competition, for a long time.
>>2563726Actually, it's crap because from a materialist (historical materialist) angle, it's a combination of human beings and their environment.
The basic argument goes, what is human society if you teleport it to Mars? Asphyxiated, because there is insufficient oxygen on Mars.
What if we didn't have nukes and fossil fuels? Likely, the European Enlightenment would have ended in a Malthusian crash due to insufficient energy inputs for fertilizer.
You're trying to argue that innate essence is what determines humanity, when humans in practice are the combination of their intrinsic biology, their historical development, and their environment.
What we're arguing basically comes out to, that in high-level Communism, human nature will be different precisely because human nature is the result of biology and environment. People will be more cooperative, because there would no longer be a need to compete for material necessities and many social necessities as well.
>>2563735>SelfishEveryone who's pragmatic and realistic is self-serving, but I am advocating egalitarianism for self serving reasons, and you are advocating inequality for self serving reasons. Who is the selfish one?
>lazyAre you saying I should want to work and be stressed all the time? Sounds pretty… contrary to human nature. Why would I want to constantly work to push down members of my own species when our environment is now far different from the one we evolved in, and it's no longer necessary to fight over scraps of food? There are sufficient resources for everyone, and it's merely a matter of distribution - how the hell did you arrive at "not wanting to be king = laziness"?
>>2563726It progressed from man's inherent nature and the environment, and the sky is blue. 100 or 1000 years ago the current state of affairs was different. This too will pass into a new stage of advancement. Is this a difficult concept to grasp?
I suggest if you're sincerely interested, try Mao's On Contradiction.
On Contradiction, On Praxis, Mao's genius is making it seem like common sense, but you know common sense isn't so common.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm>>2563736>why do those other people do as a handful of people see fitOh I love it when I see people ask the right questions. Power is given my child and thus requires the consent of the influenced. We've developed many ways of manufacturing consent. To tie this to the bonobo thing because I think it's funny, I recall watching a short documentary on bonobos. There was a clip of a female bonobo presenting her ass to a male in an attempt to influence him to give her some of his fruit. She knows simply taking it would likely lead to aggressive behavior and just her simply eyeing the food has made things tense. He accepts of course and fucks her then tosses her some fruit. She returns several times to get fucked and some fruit. She's leveraging her physical attractiveness to attain what she wants. It's in their nature as much as it is in ours. It's a product of evolutionary biology to learn to influence our environments.
>>2563737>What we're arguing basically comes out to, that in high-level Communism, human nature will be different precisely because human nature is the result of biology and environment. People will be more cooperative, because there would no longer be a need to compete for material necessities and many social necessities as well.I'm reminded of that line they always repeat in everyone's first economic class. Something about human desires being infinite. In any case what you're proposing seems awfully hypothetical and arguably contrary to what we've seen throughout most of human history
>>2563742You're framing it as domination, whereas you could also frame it as exchange. Everyone got what they wanted, the male bonobo got a fuck, the female bonobo got food.
Domination and influence is a subclass of exchange. One gets the impression you've never really loved or been loved in your life. Because love is as much a human potentiality as hate.
>>2563408when we share the toothbrush
Anyway I have to go to bed. I'd like to say this has been illuminating but it's now apparent communists are not a monolith and don't agree on basic concepts regarding the implementation of their own ideas. Despite my lack of more technical knowledge, I knew from the outset the question of communism vs capitalism would ultimately hinge on beliefs on the true nature of humanity. I think you'd be surprised to learn most people likely do not share your views on that topic. Thank you for humoring me and answering some basic questions. I do appreciate it. Feel free to keep posting and if I remember about this thread when I wake up I'll try to reply to some of you
>>2563743I think a big problem is, you don't realize how socialized you are. You make the assumptions of your dominant society, to behave and think in the mold your society wants you to behave and think.
For instance, what about Buddhists? Reducing desire. Likewise, if you have infinite desire, aren't you infinitely cock blocked? If you are truly infinitely cockblocked, shouldn't you be angry and frustrated all the time?
At any given time, you have finite desires, simply because of your cognitive limits, and limiting your desires is often as effective as satiating them.
In reality, you are told you have infinite desires so that you'll spend more than you need, put yourself into debt, and work jobs you hate to drive labor productivity.
I think the biggest benefit of Marxism to you is probably to realize that you've been lied to all this time (I guess I myself, if you have a fixation on domination and influence, have a fixation on lying as a constant of human interaction), that things don't have to be the way they are now, and that they can be different. Marx called it False Consciousness.
>>2563744Your mistake is in making a distinction between dominance and exchange. They're both merely an exertion of influence. The female bonobo could have just as easily chosen to fight the male bonobo for that fruit. She didn't because she knows she'd likely lose so she used a system of influence she was more adept in to achieve her aims. Anyway like I said I'm tired. I have to sleep. Goodnight
>>2563742>my childalright pseud, how old are you again?
>consent of the influencedso the majority of the population is "the influenced", which implies the majority of the population is not seeking to dominate others but rather accepting the social order, which implies we can simply change the social order.
>bonobo prostitutionscarcity conditions
>>2563746Does human nature really exist? Do you have the same human nature as a serial killer? If they don't have the same human nature you do, why should it be that you have the "true" human nature? Consider that most of the people of the world do not live in your society. Why should they have the same human nature as you? If, their observed desires and behaviors are different than yours, do they have the "real" human nature or do you have the real human nature?
Either one, you're a troll acting in bad faith, in which case we're just practicing our argumentation skills, or two, you're a naive kid, in which case I suggest you read more and get around more. Life is really more exciting than post-adolescent angst.
>>2563748We're basically arguing about categories. What you're revealing is that your assumptions are axiomatic, that is to say, held by faith as preassumptions. Consider the liberal philosopher of science Karl Popper, a totally different system than ours.
According to him, the scientific quality of a proposition is based on its ability to be falsified. So, I guess:
-What evidence would be considered sufficient to suggest that human nature doesn't exist or is highly malleable?
-What evidence would be considered sufficient to suggest that interactions between agents exist beyond influencing others for gain or domination?
It's when a vanguard political party overthrows the government and seizes the means of production and becomes the new government and absolutely nothing changes at all.
>the real movement that abolishes the present state of things
>the conditions of the liberation of the working class
>a mode of production with a "lower" and "higher" phase
>when a Marxist-Leninist party is in power
take your pick
>>2563415Maybe turn on the news sometime buddy, maybe look at the world a little bit. Many people in this world are fighting grug for food every day
>>2563771Scam image FAKE picture. There thousands of toothbrushes, each following the timezones in longitudinal laps across the worlds. It was efficient.
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