RE: The Problems of Social Democracy
If you want to know what I think why don't you ask me instead of telling me what I think.
Like I said, communism is stateless. Any nation that has a state is obviously not communist. What you're calling communist countries are actually "socialist" nations. Some people will argue that they were not socialist because the means of production were not owned by the workers, whereas others will argue that they were socialist because the state controlled the means of production for the workers. These nations were controlled by communist parties who implemented socialist systems because they thought it would allow them to reach communism faster than capitalism would and in a fairer manner. That doesn't make them communist countries. Hence the name of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
What those attempts proved is that you shouldn't try to implement socialism in a feudal society with no tradition of democracy and insufficient material conditions to support such a society. Kautsky, basically the heir to Marx, said all this to Lenin at the time and pointed out all the things that were wrong with the Bolshevik revolution and pretty much everything Kautsky said was proven correct.
The social and material conditions of society are completely different today than they were 100 years ago and any attempts at implementing socialism or communism today would have vastly different results. For example, a change to workers owning the means of production would be a complete waste of time today as we're on the cusp of labour being automated. We can also implement proper direct democracy today using the Internet. Just because something didn't work out in the past because we weren't technology advanced enough, doesn't mean it won't work in the future when we are technologically advanced enough. If you can't understand that then that's your problem.
Now, if you want to get into a mud slinging match about the number of people who died under various systems, then capitalism is the clear winner by miles.
I have talked to enough Communists to know there is very little logic involved. Besides debating Communists is useless because even when they contradict themselves they simply redefine words to make them fit their argument. Critical Theory 101, everything is subjective and redefined at will. It has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with emotion and narcissism.
You can argue all you want, but just because your supposed perfect ideal of Communism hasn't been completed doesn't erase the fact that every time it is attempted it ends in horrible genocide. Marx was a piece of shit that didn't follow any of the ideals he preached. You can go on and on about how it will be different this time, but it never is no matter how many times Communism is tried. Blame Capitalism all you want, but unlike Communism, Capitalism has saved countless lives and raised the standard of living for billions of people.
It is not perfect and has its own corruption, but Communism will never be anything more than a parasitic and destructive force on Capitalism and the real producers who make our modern standard of living possible. Capitalism can exist without Communism, but Communism can not exist without Capitalism.
Nice rant there buddy, perhaps next time you could even make it relate to at least one thing I said.
If you had any ability to think logically, you would understand that all systems get replaced with better ones as technology progresses. To think that capitalism is going to remain forever is completely illogical and goes against the entire history of humanity. It's a completely delusional idea.
Look at the technology that is being developed. Both physical labour and mental labour is being automated. It only a matter of time before machines can do everything humans can do.
Please explain how capitalism works in a world where nobody has a job.
Of course you do plenty of mental gymnastics like most Communists do, so naturally in your mind nothing I said was at all related to what you said. Who said Capitalism was a perfect system that will never change or be replaced? Not me. Let us put aside for a moment that Capitalism has functioned in one form or another for all of human history. One thing is for certain though, it will not be improved upon by Communism.
As far as technological advancement, it is going to be a very long time before humans are completely phased out of all physical and creative production. Frankly what is most likely to happen is people like you will push Communism and the state will once again like every other time Communism was tried, start mass depopulation using the control created from the dependence created on the state.
Since the elites have increasingly less dependence on the masses in order to produce for them, we become more of a threat than an asset every day. In order to calmly herd us on to the cattle cars they will use utopian ideologies much like your own in order to create more dependence and control over the population until resistance is nearly impossible. Furthermore even if your plans work like you say they will, I don't consider your trans-humanist technocratic dictatorship to be an ideal to be striven for.
Of course it will. A classless society is far better than a class-divided one. A society where states are no longer needed is better than one were they are needed. An egalitarian society is better than an elitist one.
If by " a very long time" you mean the next few decades then sure.
So, your argument in support of capitalism is that capitalists are going to enslave us all?
I never mentioned anything about a technocratic dictatorship and that's definitely not part of my plans at all. Where do you get such idiotic nonsense from? When everyone is capable of having their own reality and can do whatever they want in it, you don't need governments any longer and you definitely don't need some arsehole dictator trying to tell you what to do.
See the problem is you think you are advocating for what is best for the people but what you are really advocating for is a system INVENTED BY THE ELITES to strip everyone of their property, their rights, and their independence, and history shows this. If a "classless" society means everyone is equal in poverty and dependence, then no, it is not better. As if a classless society is even possible. The fact of nature is that some people are in fact smarter and more skilled than others, that means some people WILL ALWAYS rise above the rest. The ONLY way to stop this is to have a government holding these people down so everyone can be in this "classless" society you fantasize about.
Capitalism isn't going to enslave us all, THE ELITES will. The same elites that invented Communism as a tool toward those ends.
You can jibber on about how we don't need government all you want, that doesn't make it go away.
Don't be so ridiculous. Communism has nothing to do with talking away a persons personal property, their rights or their independence. That's just the idiotic bullshit propaganda you've been fed by capitalists. Communism is about doing away with private ownership of the means of production. It's about making society fairer and providing equal opportunities to everyone. It's about ending class division and ending the rule of the majority by a handful of elites. It's about giving everyone an equal opportunity to participate in the democratic governance of society through direct democracy.
A 'classless' society doesn't mean that though. It's about enriching the vast majority at the expense of the few elites by ending the exploitation of workers by abolishing private ownership of the means of production. It's about preventing those with vast sums of wealth from using that wealth to make shit loads more wealth without even having to lift a finger whilst those who do the actual work get paid the least amount their employers can get away with paying them.
That has nothing to do with class. Class is about your relationship to the means of production. If you don't own any means of production and have to sell your labour in order to survive then your working class - a proletarian. If you own means of production, employ other people to work it but also work it yourself - you're bourgeoisie. If you own means of production but don't work it and employ other people to do all the work, if you make money simply from using money then you're a capitalist.
Whether some people are smarter, more skilled and make more money than other is completely irrelevant. Communism doesn't seek to pay everyone the same amount regardless of what work they do - that's just capitalist propaganda and if you bothered to do any actual research on the subject you would know that.
No, that's just you showing your ignorance on the subject and regurgitating bullshit propaganda.
Ans those ELITES are called capitalists. If you think capitalists invented communism then you're quite obviously batshit crazy.
I never said we don't need government now, I said we won't need to be governed in the future. Right now, we definitely need governance as if we didn't have it, capitalists would simply exploit the shit out of everyone in order to make as much profit as they possibly could.