I'm not studied on Communism either, but I'm pretty sure that Marx's ideas also included the idea of violent revolution of the workers. Those who know, correct me if I'm wrong. I was under the impression that this basic concept was what kicked off the enthusiasm for what would later become Soviet-style Communism.

Anyway, regardless, I just wanted to point out the core fundamental flaw in Marxism, which is his idea of historical materialism, which is itself based on the flawed concept of 'dialectic' reasoning. Dialectics is an intuitive way of describing phenomena as opposing 'thesis' and 'antithesis' (think of yin and yang for an Eastern example of dialectic thought), giving rise to a greater 'synthesis'. For example, you might describe Neopolitan ice cream as the synthesis of vanilla (thesis) and chocolate (antithesis). Notice that the synthesis needs a little magical glue (strawberry) to achieve its greater status. This glue is the typical wishful thinking of intuitive reasoning. It is the thing that makes the contradiction (thesis + antithesis) make sense, e.g. what it is that makes the Trinity a 'valid' concept in the minds of Christians. In other words, it is bullshit. So, Thesis + Antithesis + bullshit ---> Synthesis.

Also notice that the choice of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis is pretty much arbitrary, and with a little creativity you could figure out how Neopolitan is the thesis, vanilla the antithesis, and chocolate the synthesis. Or you could dump Neopolitan and have pistachio be the synthesis. Point being it's all make-believe. And that's the foundation of Communism, just like so many other dogmas.

I find it very difficult to believe that you are genuinely inquisitive concerning any alleged flaws in a political system that you have already cursorily dismissed.

You know how sometimes we get visitors to the RRS site pretending to be curious about atheism only to find out that they would never abandon theism for reality?

Substitute different ideologies and you'll have my answer to your incitement of a thread wholly devoted to spreading your dogma of capital-libert-canuck-arianism.

Besides that...

Which communism? Socialism, Marxism, Maoism, Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, or the kind that every time the government wants to do something for the rich or the poor it gets labeled as communism or socialism by people who really don't give a shit what either word means?

My response is one that carries with it a double standard of sorts. I genuinely want unity between atheists worldwide despite the differing 'denominations' of atheism espoused by people. e.g. strong atheists, brights, humanists, non-theists, skeptics, etc. However, we know that isn't 100% possible because of other beliefs we hold. e.g. "I'm an atheist, but I'm not a [fill in the blank with stereotype].

The same thing holds true with socialism. The difference is in the 'NOTS'.

My short answer: Any system using currency or bartering as a means of interaction between people(parts of the society) is NOT socialism. Coupled with that is any system consisting of anything other than direct/real democracy on a manageable scale is NOT socialism.

Quick quiz to see if you might be a socialist:

Housing, food, health care, transportation, and education are:

A. Rights

B. Privileges

C. Expensive

D. Necessary, but not for everyone.

E. None of the above, I don't know, or I don't give a shit.

Your skepticism is understood & appreciated.

Yes, I've been a detractor of communism for as long as I've been socially conscious. However...

...A certain crisis in the world (and the many arguments it's caused me to have with my parents, whom are staunch capitalists, and a few of my friends whom are very socialist) is having me at least re-examine my thoughts. To be fair, I was never a strict proponent of capitalism either; it simply seemed to have been the system most capable of withstanding the test of time.

The ideology penned down by Marx in the Communist Manifesto. I thought I was fairly clear about that?

Okay. So I was more or less correct?

Here is my question (and I am not posing it rhetorically): How can you prevent such a system from degenerating into totalitarianism and (eventually) breaking-down entirely?

If have legislation that sanctions (say) what everyone is to be allocated as a right, how are you going to prevent people from breaking this system on their own through barter/exchange of some commodity they've been allocated? For example, if you give everyone a house and a car, there will likely be some people who would prefer to have a extra house instead of car + house. How can you stop that person from trading a car for a house?

Perhaps more problematically: Some people enjoy making things. I enjoy writing stories and drawing pictures, for example. After someone has made a painting or created a book, often they enjoy sharing their work (personally, I like to give-out some of my artwork here or there as gifts). If someone has a painting or book they were given, and sees another original creation they like, how do you prevent that person from using their gifts to barter with? Or maybe my vehicle breaks down or my plumbing gets clogged - how do you prevent people from offering 'gifts' to the service workers who fix the problem in order to get special treatment?

Or are these not problems, in your opinion? If they aren't, why?

Hm. Well, I'd say 'A' (...in fact, every item on that list is a right in Canada, with the exception of housing).

Honestly, this does bring us back to the issue of overpopulation, doesn't it?

“You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labor.”

— Karl Marx, La Liberté Speech

My point was not whether he advocated it as a quick way of revolution, but whether he advocated it at all. IMHO, any movement that advocates violent revolution is pretty much doomed to become the new oppressor that has merely displaced the old oppressor. The only way forward on this planet, especially with our increasing power of destructive technology, is non-violent social change. That Marx did not perceive this is just one mark on his record.

Again, you misread me. That was not a critique of historical materialism per se, it was a critique of dialectical reasoning, upon which historical materialism is founded. The flaws in historical materialism are in its specific predictions (e.g. the notion of progress). The flaws in dialectical reasoning are in its general method (i.e. making shit up to justify your intuitional leaps). Historical materialism has its flaws because it relies on the flawed method of dialectical reasoning.

Oh, do enlighten us, great master. What is the *proper* conception of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis?

I arrived at my critique of dialectics on my own, I was not taught it. It is based both on my own experiences with dialectical thought, and on my interactions with people who use it as a form of reasoning and drawing conclusions about reality.

Don't get me wrong. I really enjoy using dialectical thought for generating imaginative speculations. My critique is of dialectical *reasoning*, not just dialectical thought. The idea that you can use dialectical reasoning to base political and social action on is the problem. I have no problems with imagination and speculation; I do it all the time. I do have problems with people trying to force their imaginative speculations into social policy, especially if they choose violent revolution as the means to achieve it.

It is simple:

#1 Dialectical reasoning is the foundation of Marx's philosophy. He borrowed from Hegel and threw in his own interpretation of it.

#2 He used it to develop the philosophy of historical materialism, which is flawed precisely because of its broken foundation.

#3 Communism is based on historical materialism, which even got good-and-baked into dialectical materialism (the idea that reality is fundamentally dialectical, rather than that dialectics is just one way of describing reality).

#4 This inevitably, as do all philosophies based on baked-in intuitional reasoning, turned into a dogma over the years.

The roots run deeper than that. There are many ways to solve the problem of exploitation. Communism chose a particular solution. The reason it chose that solution is due to the form of reasoning they (Marx and Engels) used to arrive at their conclusions. That form of reasoning is called dialectics.

I agree, these are problems. And yet, I am not a communist. I see a different way to solve these problems, because I did not use dialectical reasoning to arrive at my conclusions. I used skepticism, rationality, logic, and scientific reasoning to arrive at my conclusions. Where my intuitions lead me astray, I strive to correct them by self-critical examination. I use intuition to play with and to imagine and speculate. But I know its dangers, and I know that it can easily lead to dogma.

Communism is not the only alternative to capitalism. That is a common assumption of many communists (and many capitalists, too!), but it is false.

These problems you are illuminating are not the foundation of communism. They are problems. They are the facts, as it were. Communism is the theory (or rather I should say it is the hypothesis). The theory has its own foundation, separate from the facts, and that is dialectical thought.

I agree and sympathize. Capitalism sucks ass. But Communism is not the logical alternative. To use dialectical language, if Capitalism is the thesis, Communism is neither the antithesis, nor the synthesis. It is merely one alternative, and not a very good one at that.

kevin, one of the main problems here is messy terminology.  marxism was neither the first nor the last "communism."  in my following posts, i'm assuming you mean, more or less, "marxism."  by "marxism," i'm referring to the writings of marx and, to a lesser degree, engels.  i'm not taking into account "social democracy" or "marxism-leninism," roughly the ideologies of the second ("socialist" ) and third ("communist" ) internationals, respectively. 

this is a very, very, very vague sentence.  what do you mean by "proletariat"?  neither the proletariat nor the bourgeoisie are classes that existed from time immemorial, according to marx.  the bourgeoisie arose from the ashes of feudalism, when skilled and semi-skilled workers moved to the towns from the country and, along with the merchant class, successfully challenged the guild system.  the proletariat arose later, with the division of labor in both society and production, and the resulting decline in skilled labor and artisanship.

i have no idea what you mean by "molded around." 

a slave as such is not a proletarian, because a proletarian sells his or her labor as a commodity.  a slave is physically already a commodity.  he himself sells nothing.

yes, more or less, but it's important to remember that marx was not an idealist, not was he sentimental.  he was very utilitarian: the capitalist age was entirely necessary for human development, particularly the development of the means of production, and in that sense it was "good."

perhaps in certain circumstances, though ultimately the goal was always total seizure of power by the proletariat, by any means necessary.

i'm really curious as to where you got this.  once again, this might be expedient in certain circumstances, perhaps at the beginning of a more or less peaceful transition to socialism.  it isn't about controlling people's "wealth."  "wealth" is only accidental.  the real aim is to put the means of production directly into the collective ownership of the proletariat.  according to general marxist theory, this will optimize production purely for the needs of society, and eliminate wasteful producton for the creation of surplus capital and the capacity for purchasing luxuries for only a few.  one wouldn't have to worry about limiting one person's wealth because one person would not own the means of production.  before you cry "state bureaucracy," this is not a necessity of marxism either (and was trotsky's main criticism of stalinism).  in fact, as near as we can tell, marx advised the rule of workers' communes, sort of like the old russian soviets before state centralization.

kevin, you're stepping into the same trap as the stalinists and many of my fellow marxists: there is no monolithic "marxism" (much less "communism" ).  marx altered his perceptions a lot because he was constantly abreast of current events.  he was notorious for never turning in his manuscripts to the publisher because he was never finished modifying them.  the communist manifesto was a document for a particular time and place, a temporary superstructure built over the foundation of the class struggle.  if leninists and stalinists took it (or rather their their interpretation of it) as a bible, that's not my problem, nor karl kautsky's, nor rosa luxemburg's, nor julius martov's, nor ernest mandel's, nor isaac deutscher's.  when i argue marxism, i almost never reference the manifesto.  marx and engels dashed it off as an afterthought, but marx never finished capital, nor the follow-up works he had planned. 

you can call this "shifting the goal posts" if you like, but the only time i've ever argued with you or anyone else on this site about marxism or communism was when someone, a., grossly oversimplified it, or b., attributed something to the theory that was just way off the mark.  my main problem with many people debunking marxism is that they're totally unfamiliar with marx and thus unfamiliar with the complexities and shifts in his theoretical writings.  they create a straw man.  it would be like me boldly trying to call einstein a bullshitter when i hadn't read anything of his beyond a quote or two in a high school physics textbook.  even worse, some people talk glibly about marxism's legacy when they have no idea of anything beyond the diatribes of jingoist pundits.  they have no idea how much marxism not only influenced the soviet union, but also the european union, as well as scandinavia.  in fact, i would say marx was a greater influence on the latter, because they were willing to be as pliable as marx himself, rather than grinding a dogmatic ax.  they know (or think they know) all about stalin, mao, pol pot (usually those three are shoved together as if it were one name), but i'll wager are totally unfamiliar with eugene debs, alexander dubcek, oto sik, deng xiaoping, paul mattick, raya dunayevskaya, c.l.r. james, etc. 

as i've said before, of all the writers published in the soviet union, marx was one of the most heavily edited and censored (so was lenin, for that matter). 

The aftermath of the American revolution was another oppressive government, yes. Less oppressive than the British, perhaps, but they still had slavery, women couldn't vote, they still wiped out natives, etc.

The point I'm making is that if you don't want to replace one oppressive group with another, then you need an alternative to violent revolution. Violent revolution just kicks out one group and puts in another. But to change the actual structure of the system to be *more* inclusive, you need to change people's minds rather than just killing or ousting them.

Imagine if the black population fought back against racism and won a violent revolution. Would the winners have learned anything in the process? Would they subsequently set up a system where blacks and whites have equal rights? Very unlikely.

Instead, the non-violent civil rights movement made steady progressive changes in the hearts and minds of the people, and the culmination of that effort was the incredible non-violent election of a black man to the presidency.

That's how real progressive change is made. And in a world where technology is becoming increasingly more powerful and at the same time easier to acquire, the viability of violent revolution is getting lower and lower.

If I'm personally to support a cause, it must be explicitly non-violent. I don't have a problem with reasonable self-defense. I'm not a complete pacifist. But we can no longer expect to violently replace one system with another and expect that to lead to peace.

As I perceive it (and maybe there's a minority sect that could prove me wrong), Communism is fundamentally not committed to non-violent social change. Communists (that I've talked to) see violent revolution as a legitimate way to get things done. I don't. And that's why I'm not, and almost certainly will never be, a Communist.

You misquoted me and responded to the weaker version of my statement. Marx certainly did *not* perceive that violent revolution is illegitimate, as I've explained it. The fact that he didn't perceive this is a mark on his record. Compare with people like Gandhi.

Again, you are not responding to what I'm actually saying.

Historical materialism, as Marx espoused it (even if he didn't explicitly call it 'historical materialism'), has some pretty fundamental assumptions that it is based on, and those assumptions derive from dialectical reasoning. The easiest assumption to point out is the assumption of progress in history. Specifically, the idea that one form of society will get replaced by a 'better' form of society, in an inevitable succession. This comes directly from the idea of thesis + antithesis = synthesis. If history follows this pattern, then there's only one direction to history, a succession of syntheses.

In reality, history follows a more evolutionary pattern of branching and adapting societies. Certain conditions can cause massive regression, rather than continual progression. The Dark Ages can be viewed as a mass-extinction event, wiping out much of the 'progress' of the time.

Marx viewed the capitalist phase as inevitable, for example. He also saw the revolution of the working class as inevitable, based on the same reasoning.

My point is simply this: If your method of reasoning is based on a flawed method of using intuitions to justify your conclusions, then whatever system you develop out of that will only be as good as your intuition. And since we know intuition is flawed, your system will be flawed.

Did Marx use any scientific investigation to justify his ideas, or did he rely on his intuitions, however insightful they may have been? Did he use statistical analysis in any of his work? Did he ever rigourously test his ideas? I am unaware of it if he did.

In North America perhaps we have a surplus of everything. The argument quite breaks down when we look outside our own backyards, though, doesn't it? Do we have enough raw material and gasoline to provide 6-7 billion people with a sedan, a two-bedroom house, a fridge full of food and a small closet full of clothing?

Of course we don't.

I agree that the waste over here is disgusting; I would never agree, however, that even with the greatest of reasonable efficiencies could we maintain a surplus for every person on Earth (unless the population backed-down. Which, although I sincerely wish it would, am dubious of it doing).

No, but using a plunger to unclog a toilet requires significantly less skill than, say, installing a new water line, doesn't it? If you're arguing that we could reach a point where we would never require skilled laborers I'd have to laugh at you - an individual human being does not have an infinite capacity for aquiring skills; in fact, there is much research that indicates that we're mostly stuck with what we learn up into our early twenties. Beyond that, learning entirely new fields of expertise becomes orders of magnitude more difficult.

I imagine you would agree that trying to teach every person every single talent from tailoring to plumbing to microbiology to engineering while they are still in their learning prime would be outright impossible.

If this isn't what you are suggesting, feel free to ignore the above - but in that case, you should know very well where the plumbers in my scenario came from: they were people in my community who learned how to do what they do for their own benefit. Perhaps (even likely) it's the case that they get enjoyment out of making other people happy with their talents; however, it's stretching credibility to suggest that wouldn't enjoy doing things more when their work is recognized and appreciated through some form of reciprocity.

I would disagree with your first statement, actually. Competition can be an excellent way of galvinizing support for your work, if you prove to be the better plumber, and it builds awareness of your trade & business. And there is no such thing as 'something that cannot be used' (well, in conventional terms, anyway). The use of a painting is in making your home look more impressive. The use of a book is to entertain you, or educate you, or make you look smart by having a shelf full of them, etc.

...And then you've created a bartering system, haven't you? He educated you, you gave him something pretty in return. It could be argued that perhaps this wasn't 'necessary' - that perhaps the plumber gives-out free lessons because he enjoys doing that - but along the line, reciprocation (like you just described) is likely to occur. What happens after that? The plumber likes the people who reciprocate more than he likes the people who don't, and he helps them more than he helps the rest. Over time, competition is built-up again.

I mean, how do you think markets/marketing began in the first place? Do you honestly think somebody sat down one day and 'invented' capitalism in the same way Marx penned-down his ideas on communism?

That's not what happened at all!

Societies evolved over time from bartering hunter-gatherer communities.

I did not say this. Now, I will definately argue that 'everyone wants to make babies' is a correct assertion (and is therefore not really comparable to 'everyone wants to rape, steal and kill', which is untrue)  that has been proven empirically, and popularized in books like 'Selfish Gene', but I think you're correct - without a monetary system, people would still have self-control.

Where the problem lies is when we want to do big, technical things like make homes and vehicles and roads. Somebody has to do that, and they have to have a reason for doing it. The reason does not have to be, 'So I can make a lot of money so I can be a big shot in my town', but I've yet to see an argument for a realistic, workable system that does not veer either in this direction or towards totalitarian dictatorship.

Josh, if things had gone terribly wrong during the Cold War, societies had been annihilated and we were now struggling to survive in a barren and lawless wasteland, I would still have to pay for those things we agree are rights. I would just have to pay in calories and time rather than money, and frankly, I prefer to spend the latter.

Sorry if I break the flow of this conversation by asking this, but, do you know of anything else the drives progress and innovation faster than competition? I am in business for myself and I quite appreciate competition for the exact reason that it motivates me to produce the best work possible. Also, besides direct governmental interference, how would you prevent monopolies from emerging?

In speaking of alleged dogmas, I believe one need only read the abject hopelessness of the three posts prior to this one.

I read: Capitalism is the only way and will always be the only way.

Whether this be a false analogy or not is up to the reader, but I have often asked theists if they could conceive of a universe devoid of god. I wonder if capitalists can conceive of a world without greed and money.