Let's clear up some misconceptions about socialism and communism.
What is socialism?
❌ Social Welfare Programs
❌ State-Run Enterprises (UPS, Fire Department, etc.)
❌ Full State Ownership Of The Economy
❌ Full State Control of The Economy
❌ When The Government Does Stuff
✔️ State Owned Economy With Workplace Democracy by The Working Class and General Public Under The Dictatorship of The Proletariat
✔️ Social Ownership of The Means of Production With Democratic Control over The Means of Production
✔️ Industrial Democracy W/ some form of Common Ownership of Enterprise
✔️ "From each according to their ability, to each according to their work"
✔️ A system where no one who is able bodied (especially capitalists) can live off of, or make a fortune off of the labor of another.
What is Communism?
❌ A one-party state
❌ Authoritarianism
❌ Dictatorship
❌ Totalitarianism, Some Orwellian Dystopia
❌ Any Form of State
❌A society where no one owns personal possessions (Laptops, houses, cars, etc.)
✔️ A society which abolishes private property (Private ownership of enterprise, in a word, the abolition of the entitlement to what one does not produce)
✔️ A society that deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.
✔️ A stateless, classless, moneyless society embodying the principle of "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs."
✔️ A society where there is no exploitation by economic means, nor oppression by a state
✔️ The doctrine for the liberation of the proletariat
✔️ Inevitable
What did Karl Marx study and write most about?
❌ Communism
❌ Socialism
❌ The State
❌ Poetry
✔️ Capitalist Economics
✔️ Human Society and History (including, mind you, human nature) If you search all 50 volumes of Marx's works, you will find less than 7 pages describing what a communist society would look like, when asked, he would always say, "I don't have a crystal ball" The overwhelming majority of his works are a detailed study and critique of how capitalism works.
When and where did Karl Marx believe the first successful socialist revolutions would take place?
❌ The most backward countries on earth (Russia, China, Albania, Cuba, etc.)
❌ At the beginning of capitalist development and at the end of feudalism (Russia, China, etc.)
✔️ In the most advanced capitalist countries in the world
✔️ At the end of capitalist development, building off of capitalism as capitalism built off of feudalism (the modern era, not 1917)
Why then, was Marx wrong?
❌ He did not understand the inner contradictions of the capitalist system
✔️ He lived before the time of imperialism, whose conditions brought the first socialist revolution in the world to Russia, and subsequent revolutions
(Now from a Trotskyist perspective)
What, then, was the USSR?
❌ An ideal example of socialism
❌ A socialist economy in the proper sense
❌ A purely state-capitalist economy (technically in some ways, but not really)
❌ A failure of socialism, or communism
✔️ A failure of Stalinism
✔️ A degenerated workers state where democratic control of the economy was replaced by that of a small bureaucratic elite (Stalinism)
✔️ A betrayal of the original democratic ideals and gains of the October Revolution
Why was this?
❌ Human Nature
✔️ An almost inevitability due to 1.) The backwardness of Russia 2.) The fact that international revolution (which Lenin and Trotsky both believed to be the sole hope of the RSFSR) 3.) The failure of 'Socialism in one Country' (Stalinism).
Why has every socialist revolution not attained favorable results?
❌ Human Nature
❌ The superiority of Capitalism
What is socialism?
❌ Social Welfare Programs
❌ State-Run Enterprises (UPS, Fire Department, etc.)
❌ Full State Ownership Of The Economy
❌ Full State Control of The Economy
❌ When The Government Does Stuff
✔️ State Owned Economy With Workplace Democracy by The Working Class and General Public Under The Dictatorship of The Proletariat
✔️ Social Ownership of The Means of Production With Democratic Control over The Means of Production
✔️ Industrial Democracy W/ some form of Common Ownership of Enterprise
✔️ "From each according to their ability, to each according to their work"
✔️ A system where no one who is able bodied (especially capitalists) can live off of, or make a fortune off of the labor of another.
What is Communism?
❌ A one-party state
❌ Authoritarianism
❌ Dictatorship
❌ Totalitarianism, Some Orwellian Dystopia
❌ Any Form of State
❌A society where no one owns personal possessions (Laptops, houses, cars, etc.)
✔️ A society which abolishes private property (Private ownership of enterprise, in a word, the abolition of the entitlement to what one does not produce)
✔️ A society that deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.
✔️ A stateless, classless, moneyless society embodying the principle of "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs."
✔️ A society where there is no exploitation by economic means, nor oppression by a state
✔️ The doctrine for the liberation of the proletariat
✔️ Inevitable
What did Karl Marx study and write most about?
❌ Communism
❌ Socialism
❌ The State
❌ Poetry
✔️ Capitalist Economics
✔️ Human Society and History (including, mind you, human nature) If you search all 50 volumes of Marx's works, you will find less than 7 pages describing what a communist society would look like, when asked, he would always say, "I don't have a crystal ball" The overwhelming majority of his works are a detailed study and critique of how capitalism works.
When and where did Karl Marx believe the first successful socialist revolutions would take place?
❌ The most backward countries on earth (Russia, China, Albania, Cuba, etc.)
❌ At the beginning of capitalist development and at the end of feudalism (Russia, China, etc.)
✔️ In the most advanced capitalist countries in the world
✔️ At the end of capitalist development, building off of capitalism as capitalism built off of feudalism (the modern era, not 1917)
Why then, was Marx wrong?
❌ He did not understand the inner contradictions of the capitalist system
✔️ He lived before the time of imperialism, whose conditions brought the first socialist revolution in the world to Russia, and subsequent revolutions
(Now from a Trotskyist perspective)
What, then, was the USSR?
❌ An ideal example of socialism
❌ A socialist economy in the proper sense
❌ A purely state-capitalist economy (technically in some ways, but not really)
❌ A failure of socialism, or communism
✔️ A failure of Stalinism
✔️ A degenerated workers state where democratic control of the economy was replaced by that of a small bureaucratic elite (Stalinism)
✔️ A betrayal of the original democratic ideals and gains of the October Revolution
Why was this?
❌ Human Nature
✔️ An almost inevitability due to 1.) The backwardness of Russia 2.) The fact that international revolution (which Lenin and Trotsky both believed to be the sole hope of the RSFSR) 3.) The failure of 'Socialism in one Country' (Stalinism).
Why has every socialist revolution not attained favorable results?
❌ Human Nature
❌ The superiority of Capitalism
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