What Is A Communist?

I sometimes point to the early Israeli Kibbutzim as better examples of Real Communism, but I don’t know that much about Communism or the Kibbutz movement. How wrong am I?

The CCP say they’re ‘socialist with Chinese characteristics’. I think they would generally argue something along the lines of that they’re currently a state controlled, limited market economy where the capitalists and firms are firmly shackled and subordinate to state power

True communism for them is the desired end goal, but in order to get there they first need to pass through a form of a capitalist stage to accelerate development (Marx actually had a lot of positive things to say about capitalism and its ability to achieve technological and social progress over feudalism. But he also pointed out it had many intrinsic flaws and contradictions that would ultimately cause it to collapse). China tried to leap directly into communism, and it didn’t work. So now they’re trying to get through a version of limited capitalism.

Will it work? I don’t know. But the CCP would argue they’re being entirely consistent with the supposed ‘laws’ of historical epochal development. Communism is the end goal, but they don’t pretend it’s what they have yet.

Whatever you say, commie!

We need to abandon the ‘isms’ and ‘ists.’ They prevent clearer, more nuanced thought.

Noam Chomsky – not that he’s a god or anything – but Chomsky used to say that even if internally a given country is more ‘communist’ nevertheless internationally the way things work is obviously much more ‘capitalist’ – and certainly transactional.

The ‘means of production’ include a lot more than factories that can conceivably be taken over by the workers. Naomi Klein built her entire capitalist career and life on this notion by writing about one or two situations in which it actually happened – with no subsequent follow-up.

The powerful ‘own’ and control the natural resources that are required for productive means.

The ‘communist’ – ‘capitalist’ divide on the international scale is akin to the ‘left’ – ‘right’ divide within countries. Both are used by the rich and powerful to their own ends.

Either ‘system’ – each of which manifests differently depending on underlying conditions and innumerable human-envirnomental variables – either system may seem to ‘work’ for a time for enough people that we become comfortable using these otherwise broad, generic terms.

[quote]
Communist revolutions end badly, I believe, because they are based on faulty ideas. The problem is that Marxists misunderstand the source of capitalism’s social ills. It all goes back to Marx himself.

Marx pinned the ills of capitalism on private property. I think this was a mistake. The real cause of most social ills, I believe, is not private property. It’s hierarchy. Why? Because hierarchy concentrates power. And concentrated power is the despot’s best friend. Concentrated power, I believe, leads to social ills like totalitarianism, inequality, mass violence, and oppression. True, private property is intimately linked with hierarchy and power. But, as communist states demonstrated, we can have hierarchy without private property. This is Marx’s fatal error.

So here’s what goes wrong with communist revolutions. Distracted by private property, Marxist revolutionaries make the problem of hierarchy worse than it was under capitalism. They abolish private property, thinking this will solve the problems of capitalism. But to achieve their goals, Marxists create a vanguard party that eventually becomes a single-party state.

So in the name of creating a more just and equitable society, these revolutionaries concentrate power. They replace capitalist hierarchies with an even larger communist hierarchy. Yes, private property is gone. But the problems of hierarchy are even worse than before. It’s an ironic twist. Marxist revolutionaries aim for a socialist utopia. But what they get is a totalitarian nightmare. And it’s all because they focus on private property and neglect the problem of hierarchy.
[end quote]

source: https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2019/05/29/the-allure-of-marxism-and-why-its-a-mistake/

I’m a commie he’s a commie, everyone you know’s a commie, don’t cha know?

That about explains it.

Once upon a time on a planet far away there lived two legged creatures alongside four legged creatures, the latter of whom struggled for food, shelter and a place to procreate.
Their two legged counterparts did the same while naming, defining, justifying and solidifying their actions as they fucked each other over.

Name it frame it talk about it—it comes down to you.
It’s up 2U.

Probably most of the indigenous nations of the North Americas could be considered ‘communist,’ if we define that as ‘the workers owing the means of production.’ Although, apparently ‘own’ was not in their vocabulary if it pertained to anything other than personal effects, certainly not to land, trees, minerals, etc. But the people worked for themselves, or, rather, their ‘tribe.’

These terms, communist, socialist, democratic, authoritarian, capitalist, fascist, seem to be useful today as weapons to be hurled at ‘enemies’ or as chain-mail to protect ‘friends.’
We in the West comfort and elevate ourselves by using the ‘democracy’ label to describe our system of governance, and the label of ‘capitalist’ to describe our economy. They are the best of all possible systems, we intone. Over and over and over. (Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord hear our prayers ……. ) But, obviously, there are doubts and and suspicions that matters are not going well for many of us, under this, the best of all possible systems.

And why do we separate these two entities, democracy and capitalism? (Or communism and capitalism?) Are not a system of governance and an economic system inextricably intertwined? Is it even possible, anywhere, anytime, to have the two, governing system and economic system, separate? Because one props up and justifies the other.

If we take a clear-eyed look at our system (the one system that rules us all) in the US (and Canada and, maybe, the UK and EU), and try to dissect it, carefully and analytically, we might discover that we have developed some awful hybrid, offspring of ‘democracy’ and ‘capitalism,’ something as yet unnamed and undescribed, that we have let loose upon the Planet.

I would say that this was the original meaning of the word. But since the meaning of a word is what people believe it is, nothing else, it now means someone that believes in bureaucratic dictatorship.

All words tend to change their meanings – see semantic change – but political words change them fast. Not only that there is a fight going on all the time, which the strongest wins, but also because the content change when people with the label in question start to practice their ideas. They never succeed a hundred percent, and people will see more to the practice and the result than to the intent.

re: Marx as Class Traitor: quite a few of Karl’s editorials for the New York Daily Tribune/ Herald Tribune always struck me as being from a distinctly haute bourgeois perspective and designed to amplify Bourgeois-reader paranoia regarding The Proletariat. Karl certainly remained bourgeois in his prejudices and used the n-word (English version) in his letters; he also hated it whenever someone compared him, physically, to Frederick Douglass.

In the interest of various well-funded realpolitik projects, I think almost anyone can have their actual history tweaked ‘n obfuscated to fit the character they have been tasked to play.

Karl’s Uncle: “How’s that iconic work, designed to undermine everything that I and all of your peers and family hold dear, on behalf of the masses we all sort of abhor, going?” Karl: “Slowly but surely, Unca Lion! I’ll need a bit more cash, though!” Unca Lion: “Say no more!”

So much of these “historical” narratives have to be treated forensically, knowing what we now know. Imagine how the Palestine Genocide will be “remembered” 200 years from now, if the Killers get their way? Do you expect it to be an accurate account? Nettie will be the revered Ataturk of “New Jerusalem” or whatever they will call it then.

Forget the lore (I know the lore! There’s no Apostate like a True Believer with newly-opened eyes). Why is Marx so thoroughly lionized by Capitalist Media? Is this how Capitalism treats its Nemeses? Why was Fidel Castro equally-weirdly popularized? How is it that the CIA couldn’t nail a banana republic’s famously accessible Comandante, after more than 60 tries, but did JFK in broad daylight, and got away with it, in one go? How many people unnderstand that the Bay of Pigs fiasco is problematized by trhe location of Guatanamo Bay? The US somehow couldn’t invade a tiny island they already had a massive military persence on?

I mean: we can all agree that our Psychopathic Overlords have no problem with mass murder (consider the case of small time genocidaire Madeline Albright), effortlessly manipulating the “news” and “history” to facilitate their favorite sport, right? But somehow seeing them as World Class Liars is beyond the pale… ?

People hate it when I direct them to Abraham Lincoln’s racist writings (available in his online archive), and the mountains of evidence of the awfulness of Mr. Gandhi, too. Just use your knowledge of Humanity to separate the Hollywood narratives from the Truth.

NB: This is what put me on this track: about 8 years ago I was seated at an outdoor cafe with a friend who was/is such a Communist that he has a full-sized hammer-and-sickle flag on his living room wall. We were reminiscing about Castro’s lore… mostly the Marita trope and the CIA assassination attempts. The occasion was Castro’s death… it was November 2016. I think it was the day after Castro died. Friend was retelling the Marita myth that we all knew so well… and just by hearing this myth spoken, out loud, the penny dropped for me and I realized the narrative sounded just like the Hollywoodized Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Edison myths. I realized it was UTTER bullshit. Then I started reading… not Internet Pages… old books. I read primary sources. Nothing added up. By the time I saw Fidel’s Ed Sullivan interview (Ed refers to the revolutionaries as “youngsters”), “in the jungle,” after the “Revolution,” I was ready for it. Or the ridiculous Lisa Thompson “love affair” trope. All utter and staged nonsense for a then-very-unsophistcated audience.

You can have Famous People and you can have genuinely Noble Heroes, too, but you aren’t going to get both in one package.

Not under THIS regime.

Actual events have a richness, foreground and background, but history is composed of mere traces and shadows. The only advantage the historian has in telling the story is know the next chapter or three.

That Marx has been elevated to Olympus by posterity is less important than the simplifications — first of his own life and then of the vast discordant chorus of his contemporaries. Ideologues, individually, are wondrously contradictory. Marx now stands in for a dozen or more 19th century figures in the imaginations of 21st century pundits, who represented a group of revolutionary socialists of marvelous multipolarity.

I do not have much patience with the flippancy of “never tried real communism” school of thought. It has been tried many times since before the Diggers first dug 17th century English hillsides. Operationalizing the intentions of a utopian intentional community resolves contradictions without erasing human ambivalence and there’s the rub.

Operationalizing socialism as bureaucratic state capitalism with elaborate formal planning made some sense. Anarchists operationalizing syndicalism made sense. Mondragon with its mix of Catholic social theology, worker coops, junior college and syndicalism works (or worked and then evolved under pressure from a global capitalist ecology).

The knowledge that’s missing here is “where did DemSoc countries come from?” The answer is very simple: if you are a manufacturer and want to export, you need to suppress the cost of living for your laborers.

If they spend a lot of money on food, you break the farm cartel. If they spend a lot of money on rent, you break the landlords. (In Britain, the same people.) If they spend a lot of money on transportation, you build cheap trolleys. If they tithe a large amount, you break the Church.

Now, you need people to promote your point of view about economics. Adam Smith made his bones as a economist who hated landlords, so he was paid to propagandize against landlords.

@Steven Augustine

All I see here is a complete refusal to actually engage with ideas or theories. You appear to believe that if you character assassinate a historical figure enough their ideas will just magically disappear or be rendered invalid and so you don’t have to debate them. That’s not actually how intellectual inquiry works.

That’s assuming the assassination even landed, which, nah, try again. There are things to criticize about someone like Gandhi, but at the end of the day, no, there is not ‘mountains of evidence of his awfulness’.

@bruce wilder

These days the only people who actually know anything about Marx are the same small number of people who have actually read Marx. And to read Marx is to be well aware of the varied landscape of contemporary leftist debate he existed in, because at least half his writings are him beefing with other strains of leftist thinking.