Seeing as there is a horrific lack of understanding of what various left wing ideologies actually stand for (not just on the forum, but in society generally) I think it might be a good idea to start examining seminal texts of the left and discussing their implications.
The first one is probably the Bible of left wing though, the Communist Manifesto:
I think its best to focus on one question, if you dont mind:
Is society still divided along class lines?
I’m not sure that it ever was, at least not in the way that Marx would have us believe it. Its true that some people are wealthier than others, but Marx wans us to think those who have more wealth can only get it by ‘exploiting’ everybody else. By that logic, anybody who isnt a ‘Capatalist’ must live lives of poverty(or near poverty), which is simply not true. Even Marx himself(not in the Manifesto, but in other writings) recognized the existence of the ‘middle class’ of professional('white collar) workers, skilled labor and indipendent business owners as a weakness of his philosophy, and claimed that it would shrink and eventually dissappear as the Capitalists took more and more wealth for themselves. In reality the reverse has happened.
There are, however, places where you CAN see the clear distinction between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ Marx described: Places with totaltarian governments like the Soviet Union or North Korea, where government officials and their friends and family live lives of obscene luxury while everybody else starves.
Those thoughts should get some conversation started.
Depends what you mean by ‘class’. Are there differing levels of attainment in society dependent largely on the natural abilities of a particular SES group? Sure.
Is this division due to ‘exploitation’? No. Absolutely not, generally speaking it’s just differences in cognitive ability manifesting themselves in an economic way.
Slightly related, see this paper - It’s pretty interesting:
“The study of wills reported in A Farewell to Alms implied that economic competition could change the genetic composition of the English population over time. This study of rare surnames shows that indeed economic success in 1600 by a man could permanently increase the relative frequency of his surname, and by implication of his genes. This does not demonstrate that these genetic changes had significant impacts in changing the behavior of the average person in England by 1800. But Clark (2008) shows that economic success in modern societies has its roots a significant genetic component.”
The Proleteriat can never constitute a nation in any real sense (i.e. organize themselves out of spontaneity), time and time again racial agglomeration has been shown to be far more pronounced than class based agglomeration, you need only look at the US Census to see that.
As for Communism being a violent ideology, of course it is. It states mass violent appropriation of property by the lower orders is part of the inevitable passage of History.
This is a very interesting question and is open to speculation as it has been for over a century. By its very nature, is communism revolutionary? Must there be a revolution by the proletariat in order to bring about this historical inevitability and can it be called inevitable if revolution is demanded in order for it to take place? The definition of a revolution is a breaking away from status quo. A sharp departure. However, we are lead to believe by Marx and those who follow his teachings that history has been a lead up to this point. They believe that communism is the next evolutionary chain in the span of history. Communism demands not only that capitalism exist economically but also socially. So wouldn’t retarding capitalism be diminishing the start of communism? That would incline an individual who is seeking communism to help capitalism reach its apex. That is where you get social democrats at the turn of the 20th century. Individuals willing to work inside the supposed bourgeoisie government in order to bring about reforms aimed at a sort of unpolished communism. There are others though who demand revolution in order to establish communism. Which to me would be odd because class consciousness is supposedly a force already imbued inside the working class. They just have yet to discover it. It is suppose to be a self-discovery. It would seem that some want to foist this revolutionary act onto individuals in order to bring about an artificial awakening. It portrays a kind of paternal status among communist intelligesia, like vanguardism during the Lenin regime. Anyways, I think that is one of the problems that broke up the communist golden age of the early 20th century. It was so popular then but there were multiple sects with contradictory clauses over what course to pursue. That and I think there was a sentiment of realizing that Marx’s immiseration clause wasn’t working out like they thought it would. People were getting better off when they were suppose to be doing worse and worse. This event made many question whether or not revolution would come because of disillusion with the capitalist system. If reform would be better then waiting. Anyways, you could probably write a whole term paper on this subject. The short answer is that it depends on your viewpoint.
‘Is society still divided along class lines?’
In pure communism, no.
‘How can the proletariat constitute a “nation”?’
Not necessarily a nation, but a class. A people established by economics conditions who’s domain spans the globe.
I think the most provocative part of the manifesto is where marx consciously makes a distinction between the lumpenproletariat and the regular proletariat and implies a certain distaste towards the former. That is, marxism-communism isn’t really about helping the poor but it is about something else -helping the wage laborer perhaps or those who will be poor.
I read the communist manifesto for the first time today after seeing this topic, and I have to say I found it unbeleivably frustrating and tedious, and in places bordering on silly. It is just one long baseless assertion and appeal to emotion.
Of course. Any theory of property incorporates the use of violence. Property is the boundaries of legitimate violence, Marxism draws the boundaries in a way that is in diametrical opposition to the natural order but as a theory of property it cannot escape the reality of human violence.
The State still exists, so, yes.
Though if one accepts the Hoppean theory of natural elites, there would exist identifiable “classes” in any society, though these classes would not form a basis for partiality and privilege.
I have no idea and I don’t care. Marx’s writing and ideas are contradictory, confusing, opaque and muddled. I have no idea what he’s talking about at least half the time. This, to me, is never the sign of a great intellect. Quite the opposite, the greatest intellects are those whose thoughts are so lucid as to make their meaning inescapable and their conclusions uniformly enlightening. This describes Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Hans Hoppe, and so on. Those who write in the occultic style of Marx invariably have something to hide. If you’re just expositing the truth, why is there something to hide?
All statist ideologies are violent. They rely on taxation, conscription and coercion in general.
Communism usually kicks the violence up several notches, because the illusion of freedom in society is taken away completely, and people aren’t even allowed to exercise autonomy over their lives on the most basic level… Their material desires.
Society never was divided neatly into exploitative capitalists and oppressed workers with a bit of bourgeois butter spread inbetween.
Society is, as it always has been, divided into a ruling statist clique, a pseudo-intellectual propaganda class, a sadistic brutalising class, and a general livestock class.
How can anyone constitute a “nation”?
What is a ‘nation’, and why should we believe in it?
The revolution is violent. The question is never answered. The utopia never happens.
As I understand it, Engels explained that the revolution in-of itself wouldnt create a utopia. There would have to be a period of time he called teh ‘Tyrany of the masses’ when a leader/select group of leaders would ‘show’(read: force) the newly ‘freed’ proletariat how to build a Communist utopia. This would be a period of a totatalarian state, but eventually(Engels believed) the state would wither aways unnecessary, presumibly when everybody understood how to run a communist state and realized just how wonderful it is.
The early years of the Soviet Union, especially under Lenin were an attempt to institute this so-called ‘tyrany of the masses.’ And we all know how well that worked out…
That intermediary part is not a political idea. It’s just a vague prediction. The only part of the Communism idea that actually dictates what to do is the revolution. But because there is no solution to follow it the revolution continues until weariness reaches a climax and it collapses. Communism is pure revolution and nothing more.
