Communism, nor socialism did not exist in the USSR. The USSR was a state capitalist country where a wealthy elite controlled and owned all resources. Communism is a stateless society where there is no elite at all and no central planning or authority. Socialism is a system where there is a democratic system whereby the people elect those who will make economic decisions and everyone has an equal voice in economic issues.
The Economy of the USSR is actually pretty similar to that of the USA, with a wealthy, powerful elite that controls all of the resources (capitalism). There is very little difference between state capitalism and corporate capitalism, both lead to massive consolidation of wealth and capital. In the US, the corporations maintain their dominance by controlling resources and capital people depend on, and controlling markets, this is maintained by factors such as size advantages, economy of scale, and other monopolistic-oligarchistic practices. The Corporations also have their own security forces which could even protect and assert their control over these resources. The only limit on corporate, unelected power is a democratic government, corporations would vastly expand their power in the case that democratic government is weakened or abolished, and that is the goal of the Republican party, to overthrow democratic government in the US and usher in the Corporations as absolute unelected economic royalty.
Communism as i said is a stateless, anarchic system. It is the opposite of corporate capitalism or state capitalistm found in the USSR, or today in North Korea. I do not sure Communism would work as, while most people are really wonderful, eventually an evil few would try to consolidate resources and begin to build up aggregations of resources, along with a security force to maintain such control, these things usually lead to the formation of a absolute monarchy. Free market mom and pop type capitalism in absense of a democratic government is almost exactly the same as communism, and would fail for the same reason that communism can often fail, that out of the decentralisation some evil individuals will try to decentralise and consolidate power.
A democratic state is necessary to guard against the antidemocratic consolidation of power by such evil, power hungry people. Democratic states rarely form spontaneously, the trend in centralisation by a want-to-be elite is to get power and keep it. Creating a democratic state by filling the power void can pre-empt the formation of monarchies however. And the more democratic government is weakened, the more the non democratic capitalist systems will take its place. In the US today, we have an already established anti democratic agalmation of power and the more the democratic government is weakened, the more of democracy itself that we lose as the corporations become even less regulated and their powers become more boundless.
Marx was properly correct in his diagnosis of the problems of capitalism, in that it is utterly repressive and seeks to exploit common workers to enrich an elite. Capitalism also seeks to manipulate or totally destroy democratic government, as democratic government limits corporate power, eliminating democratic government would infinite expand corporate power and turn corporations into economic monarchies. We have the fact that is the fact that capitalism is an emerging economic monarchy that often fights a war with or totally defeats or pre-empts formation of democratic states. Despite what people in the US believe, our capitalist system is not associated with democracy, it is a anti-democratic system where a few control many via vast control of resources. Power corrupts people and therefore it is wise through democracy to distribute power authority, both politically and economically, this means higher income taxes on the wealthy and limits to resource ownership that assures resource and income distribution are more equal.
Marx however, was overly optimistic and believed that capitaists could be easily defeated or that a communist anarchy was a natural and unavoidable outcome, when instead communism creates a power void that is ripe to be filled by evil persons who consolidate power, including their military and violent means. The only way to really permenantly secure peoples rights and freedoms is to have a democratic state created to protect people, including their economic rights via rights to resources, food, water, land etc, prevent large consolidation of capital by private entities and regulate corporations. Democratic government and safety net systems should exist alongside democratic, employee owned corporations, in a form of market socialism where you have many corporations, all equal share employee owned (a form of socialism), competing in a market system. The democratic government, regulates things to make sure that these corporations operate under laws under democracy, rather than becoming apex states themselves. This fills the power void and pre-empts corporate oligarchies, plutocracies, state capitalism, and economic royalty.
Due to the degree that nUS corporations have been able to buy the government off and therefore corrupt and destroy democraric government, corporations have become above the law and unelected apex states that are challenging democracy. We need to restrict and limit corporate power, placing it under firm regulation of democratic government, and we need to end the corporate campaign donations to politicians (bribes). so that corporations are no longer able to manipulate elections.
What you're describing is a problem with democracy and the constitution, not capitalism or communism. A suitably constructed constitution could ensure the survival of the mom-and-pop store economy (which I favor). Instead, what we see is the centralization of power by two different elites, the political and the corporate. They have their own rhetoric, but it's much the same: give me your work/money/life and I (the government/big corp) will take care of you.
If the constitution (and this goes for many countri
Please don't invent new definitions for socialism. There is absolutely nothing in that economic structure that requires it to be a democracy. You're blending and confusing economic systems with political systems. The USSR's economic system was quite socialist, even if their government system was a totalitarian, single-party limited republic. The key hallmarks of socialism are a command economy in which the government owns the means of production.
The key hallmarks of socialism are a command economy in which the government owns the means of production.
The key hallmark of socialism is that workers own the means of production. From there you can go two routes - either say that they should own them directly, which would be anarcho-syndicalism; or else set up a state that does it indirectly in their name (and presumably in their interests) - which is Marxist statist socialism. Anarcho-syndicalism does not require a command economy.
Point granted-- though I have a lot of trouble envisioning how the pure form of anarcho-syndicalism would function in a practical sense, with all anarchist systems relying so heavily on individual virtue and self-restraint...free communism would be so incredible to have, but human envy and greed always seem to derail such systems on any sorts of large scale, since their trusting altruism is too easily taken advantage of.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's supposed to be the pinnacle of socialism, whereas
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's supposed to be the pinnacle of socialism, whereas Marxism-Leninism socialism is supposedly more of a training-wheels sort of arrangement that establishes the order and trains the populace, and then can transcend to the higher form after the class warfare is extinguished and the classes all learn to cooperate and work for mutual benefit, regardless of what their roles are.
Pretty much. Communism was always supposed to be the pinnacle in orthodox Marxism (and Marxism-Leninism), and also stateless - but, unlike syndicalists, communists recognized that stateless society was not a viable short-term goal. Therefore, statist socialism (rather than communism) was to be instituted to secure an ultimate victory in class warfare, and then to raise the following generations in such a way that communism would eventually become possible.
There was one other thing. It was assumed that commu
I am using the original definition of the term. You have redefined the term socialist. Socialism is a worker democracy. It does not intrinsically include any requirement that government must own the means of production. In a situation where government owns the means of production and it is not democratic it is called state capitalism.
From whence did you obtain this "original definition" of yours? Who may it be attributed to?
There can be multiple situations where the government owns the means of production. The primary one is socialism, and it owns the means of production "in trust" for the workers (who supposedly elect and control their government). What distinguishes socialism from other such systems is also that the socialist system has to assign value to work; workers, as a collective, generally can't assign their own value when th
Socialism has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with "command economy". Furthermore, it's WORKERS owning the means of production that is characteristic of socialism, not "gubermunt".
You might wish to educate yourself before opening your pie hole. But, of course, this is slashdot, so uninformed anti-socialist rants get "5, Informative". Pathetic.
If you're going to berate a poster for inventing new definitions for socialism, then you should realize that the one you yourself are using is a novel invention by Lenin. Marx himself used the terms "socialism" and "communism" interchangeably to refer to a democratic, stateless socio-economic system where labour would be voluntary and there would be free access to goods and services. The idea of a central state with a command economy was Lenin's idea, and he redefined "socialism" to refer to it.
The University of California Statistics Department; where mean is normal,
and deviation standard.
Marx was indeed, partly correct (Score:4, Insightful)
Communism, nor socialism did not exist in the USSR. The USSR was a state capitalist country where a wealthy elite controlled and owned all resources. Communism is a stateless society where there is no elite at all and no central planning or authority. Socialism is a system where there is a democratic system whereby the people elect those who will make economic decisions and everyone has an equal voice in economic issues.
The Economy of the USSR is actually pretty similar to that of the USA, with a wealthy, powerful elite that controls all of the resources (capitalism). There is very little difference between state capitalism and corporate capitalism, both lead to massive consolidation of wealth and capital. In the US, the corporations maintain their dominance by controlling resources and capital people depend on, and controlling markets, this is maintained by factors such as size advantages, economy of scale, and other monopolistic-oligarchistic practices. The Corporations also have their own security forces which could even protect and assert their control over these resources. The only limit on corporate, unelected power is a democratic government, corporations would vastly expand their power in the case that democratic government is weakened or abolished, and that is the goal of the Republican party, to overthrow democratic government in the US and usher in the Corporations as absolute unelected economic royalty.
Communism as i said is a stateless, anarchic system. It is the opposite of corporate capitalism or state capitalistm found in the USSR, or today in North Korea. I do not sure Communism would work as, while most people are really wonderful, eventually an evil few would try to consolidate resources and begin to build up aggregations of resources, along with a security force to maintain such control, these things usually lead to the formation of a absolute monarchy. Free market mom and pop type capitalism in absense of a democratic government is almost exactly the same as communism, and would fail for the same reason that communism can often fail, that out of the decentralisation some evil individuals will try to decentralise and consolidate power.
A democratic state is necessary to guard against the antidemocratic consolidation of power by such evil, power hungry people. Democratic states rarely form spontaneously, the trend in centralisation by a want-to-be elite is to get power and keep it. Creating a democratic state by filling the power void can pre-empt the formation of monarchies however. And the more democratic government is weakened, the more the non democratic capitalist systems will take its place. In the US today, we have an already established anti democratic agalmation of power and the more the democratic government is weakened, the more of democracy itself that we lose as the corporations become even less regulated and their powers become more boundless.
Marx was properly correct in his diagnosis of the problems of capitalism, in that it is utterly repressive and seeks to exploit common workers to enrich an elite. Capitalism also seeks to manipulate or totally destroy democratic government, as democratic government limits corporate power, eliminating democratic government would infinite expand corporate power and turn corporations into economic monarchies. We have the fact that is the fact that capitalism is an emerging economic monarchy that often fights a war with or totally defeats or pre-empts formation of democratic states. Despite what people in the US believe, our capitalist system is not associated with democracy, it is a anti-democratic system where a few control many via vast control of resources. Power corrupts people and therefore it is wise through democracy to distribute power authority, both politically and economically, this means higher income taxes on the wealthy and limits to resource ownership that assures resource and income distribution are more equal.
Marx however, was overly optimistic and believed that capitaists could be easily defeated or that a communist anarchy was a natural and unavoidable outcome, when instead communism creates a power void that is ripe to be filled by evil persons who consolidate power, including their military and violent means. The only way to really permenantly secure peoples rights and freedoms is to have a democratic state created to protect people, including their economic rights via rights to resources, food, water, land etc, prevent large consolidation of capital by private entities and regulate corporations. Democratic government and safety net systems should exist alongside democratic, employee owned corporations, in a form of market socialism where you have many corporations, all equal share employee owned (a form of socialism), competing in a market system. The democratic government, regulates things to make sure that these corporations operate under laws under democracy, rather than becoming apex states themselves. This fills the power void and pre-empts corporate oligarchies, plutocracies, state capitalism, and economic royalty.
Due to the degree that nUS corporations have been able to buy the government off and therefore corrupt and destroy democraric government, corporations have become above the law and unelected apex states that are challenging democracy. We need to restrict and limit corporate power, placing it under firm regulation of democratic government, and we need to end the corporate campaign donations to politicians (bribes). so that corporations are no longer able to manipulate elections.
Re: (Score:2)
What you're describing is a problem with democracy and the constitution, not capitalism or communism. A suitably constructed constitution could ensure the survival of the mom-and-pop store economy (which I favor). Instead, what we see is the centralization of power by two different elites, the political and the corporate. They have their own rhetoric, but it's much the same: give me your work/money/life and I (the government/big corp) will take care of you.
If the constitution (and this goes for many countri
Re:Marx was indeed, partly correct (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
The key hallmarks of socialism are a command economy in which the government owns the means of production.
The key hallmark of socialism is that workers own the means of production. From there you can go two routes - either say that they should own them directly, which would be anarcho-syndicalism; or else set up a state that does it indirectly in their name (and presumably in their interests) - which is Marxist statist socialism. Anarcho-syndicalism does not require a command economy.
Re: (Score:2)
Point granted-- though I have a lot of trouble envisioning how the pure form of anarcho-syndicalism would function in a practical sense, with all anarchist systems relying so heavily on individual virtue and self-restraint...free communism would be so incredible to have, but human envy and greed always seem to derail such systems on any sorts of large scale, since their trusting altruism is too easily taken advantage of.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's supposed to be the pinnacle of socialism, whereas
Re: (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's supposed to be the pinnacle of socialism, whereas Marxism-Leninism socialism is supposedly more of a training-wheels sort of arrangement that establishes the order and trains the populace, and then can transcend to the higher form after the class warfare is extinguished and the classes all learn to cooperate and work for mutual benefit, regardless of what their roles are.
Pretty much. Communism was always supposed to be the pinnacle in orthodox Marxism (and Marxism-Leninism), and also stateless - but, unlike syndicalists, communists recognized that stateless society was not a viable short-term goal. Therefore, statist socialism (rather than communism) was to be instituted to secure an ultimate victory in class warfare, and then to raise the following generations in such a way that communism would eventually become possible.
There was one other thing. It was assumed that commu
Re: (Score:2)
I am using the original definition of the term. You have redefined the term socialist. Socialism is a worker democracy. It does not intrinsically include any requirement that government must own the means of production. In a situation where government owns the means of production and it is not democratic it is called state capitalism.
Re: (Score:2)
From whence did you obtain this "original definition" of yours? Who may it be attributed to?
There can be multiple situations where the government owns the means of production. The primary one is socialism, and it owns the means of production "in trust" for the workers (who supposedly elect and control their government). What distinguishes socialism from other such systems is also that the socialist system has to assign value to work; workers, as a collective, generally can't assign their own value when th
Re: (Score:2)
Socialism has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with "command economy". Furthermore, it's WORKERS owning the means of production that is characteristic of socialism, not "gubermunt".
You might wish to educate yourself before opening your pie hole. But, of course, this is slashdot, so uninformed anti-socialist rants get "5, Informative". Pathetic.
Re: (Score:2)