Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
It's like saying "cancer cures have never been tried". There needs to be political, economic and social development towards a communist state. If capitalism has no conditions for failure neither does communism. It has only so far failed to usurp capitalism.
Semantics, if a country is working towards that end it is still correct English to call them socialist/communist. You could argue that calling them 'socialistic' or 'communistic' might be more accurate but it makes no difference. I know you say it hasn't been tried yet, but since they are trying technically it counts as far as grammar is concerned. Furthermore, when you say it hasn't been tried you sound like a contrarian nerd and you only give support to right wing arguments about communism always failing, which isn't true, in effect reifying capitalism.
seems to me there's a difference; socialist states attempt to achieve a communist world (via the Marxist conception of the withering away of the state)
Doesn't Marx say that the state will wither away due to increasingly developed material conditions and means of production, which are necessary for real liberation?
He does talk about how material conditions need to be developed. Withering away happens once class antagonisms no longer exist, eg when classes no longer exist, which definitely requires some amount of abundance.
my murky understanding is that it has to do with base and superstructure; the material realities create changes in culture and social relations that then reproduce and influence the material conditions, like a feedback loop. from what I can grasp, the idea is that the "amplitude" of those changes would gradually reduce and the RPMs slow down as socialist policies eliminated material disparities and reshaped those social relations.
does that make any sense? I'm still learning this stuff
EDIT: I don't know if he ever specifically anticipated something like international capital reaction, does anyone else?
Yeah, and by developing industry, manufacturing, production etc they are changing the base/superstructure equation and thus the threshold for liberation/necessity of the state
No Marx and Engels say that a dictatorship of the proletariat to hold down the proletariats adversaries whilst creating the material and spiritual conditions for the withering away of the state once a new generation has been raised in these new conditions without exploitation of man by man
We know from the 20th century experience that this could take hundreds of years given capitalist encirclement, capitalism resilience and the fact the colonial countries are the ones that benefit the most
Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
Marx, Critique Of the Gotha Programme
Now, since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle, in the revolution, to keep down one’s enemies by force, it is utter nonsense to speak of a free people’s state; so long as the proletariat still makes use of the state, it makes use of it, not for the purpose of freedom, but of keeping down its enemies and, as soon as there can be any question of freedom, the state as such ceases to exist.
engels
In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy; and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at the earliest possible moment, until such time as a new generation, reared in new and free social conditions, will be able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap-heap.
Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
Well they are attempting exactly that, it is the development of productive forces that liberates the people and it is that progress that reduces the scope of the state, you cannot have one without the other. It is a vulgar interpretation to say because they haven't disbanded all polities yesterday that they aren't Marxist or communist.
The problem is that people use that as a way to scoff at or disown real socialist projects that very much did succeed at massively improving the lives of hundreds of million of people despite having to build up from the ashes of underdeveloped, wartorn states while under constant attack from the capitalist hegemons.
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they'd still exist under a state, so not really
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It’s almost like Marx said there’s going to be a transition period to becoming a fully communist state. Purity testing at its finest right here.
Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme
So why does the parent comment have a bunch of upbears? “Must be the libs” or is it something else?
It's like saying "cancer cures have never been tried". There needs to be political, economic and social development towards a communist state. If capitalism has no conditions for failure neither does communism. It has only so far failed to usurp capitalism.
Semantics, if a country is working towards that end it is still correct English to call them socialist/communist. You could argue that calling them 'socialistic' or 'communistic' might be more accurate but it makes no difference. I know you say it hasn't been tried yet, but since they are trying technically it counts as far as grammar is concerned. Furthermore, when you say it hasn't been tried you sound like a contrarian nerd and you only give support to right wing arguments about communism always failing, which isn't true, in effect reifying capitalism.
seems to me there's a difference; socialist states attempt to achieve a communist world (via the Marxist conception of the withering away of the state)
Doesn't Marx say that the state will wither away due to increasingly developed material conditions and means of production, which are necessary for real liberation?
He does talk about how material conditions need to be developed. Withering away happens once class antagonisms no longer exist, eg when classes no longer exist, which definitely requires some amount of abundance.
Thank you, it's like in the German ideology when he says that the steam engine and spinning Jenny were responsible for the abolition of slavery.
my murky understanding is that it has to do with base and superstructure; the material realities create changes in culture and social relations that then reproduce and influence the material conditions, like a feedback loop. from what I can grasp, the idea is that the "amplitude" of those changes would gradually reduce and the RPMs slow down as socialist policies eliminated material disparities and reshaped those social relations.
does that make any sense? I'm still learning this stuff
EDIT: I don't know if he ever specifically anticipated something like international capital reaction, does anyone else?
Yeah, and by developing industry, manufacturing, production etc they are changing the base/superstructure equation and thus the threshold for liberation/necessity of the state
No Marx and Engels say that a dictatorship of the proletariat to hold down the proletariats adversaries whilst creating the material and spiritual conditions for the withering away of the state once a new generation has been raised in these new conditions without exploitation of man by man
We know from the 20th century experience that this could take hundreds of years given capitalist encirclement, capitalism resilience and the fact the colonial countries are the ones that benefit the most
Marx, Critique Of the Gotha Programme
engels
Engels, Civil war in france
Well they are attempting exactly that, it is the development of productive forces that liberates the people and it is that progress that reduces the scope of the state, you cannot have one without the other. It is a vulgar interpretation to say because they haven't disbanded all polities yesterday that they aren't Marxist or communist.
I think I misinterpeted your first comment and we've been agreeing with each other the whole time. my bad
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Obviously not true, the Chinese social credit system is the most famous example of an attempt to replace money
The problem is that people use that as a way to scoff at or disown real socialist projects that very much did succeed at massively improving the lives of hundreds of million of people despite having to build up from the ashes of underdeveloped, wartorn states while under constant attack from the capitalist hegemons.