"Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen!" With
these words Karl Marx perhaps summarized best what Communism is,
succinctly expressing the goals of the communist movement. While
Communism is an older and much broader movement than the work of Marx
and his followers alone, we are all none the less united around the
central idea that our shared productive capacity should be directed
towards the common wealth and that each person should have the
opportunity to maximize their ability and potential, and to contribute
accordingly.
This stands in stark contrast of what might be described as "From each
according to their privilege, to each according to there usefulness to
the privileged," otherwise known as "Capitalism" Where a privileged
elite produce nothing, yet control the distribution of all wealth and
direct our shared productive capacity towards their own enrichment,
while everybody else produces everything, yet receives only as much as
the privileged give them, according to their usefulness to the
privileged, and only infrequently any more than their own subsistence or
replacement costs.
Given the choice between a society that allows everyone the chance to
develop to their full potential and a society where opportunity is
determined by class structure and privilege, in other words a choice
between Communism and Capitalism, who would chose Capitalism?
Given the choice between a society that directs its productive capacity
towards creating real social value and building common wealth and a
society that directs its productive capacity towards the enrichment of
the few, in other words a choice between Communism and Capitalism, who
wouldn't want to work towards Communism?
Yet, few people today openly identify as Communists, many even believe
that using this word somehow works against them, as if the elite who
will resist all efforts to reduce their privilege will somehow be caught
off-guard and be tricked into a more equal society if we just outsmart
them with some clever new terms.
To paraphrase Juliette, What's in a name? That which we call Communism,
by any other name, would be suppressed just the same.
The fact is that any proposal that seeks to create more equality will
be automatically called "Communism" by reactionary forces who who have
invested considerable wealth and effort trying to sully the term.
A similar discussion has taken place among members of the Pirate Party.
As Rick Falkvinge reports from the the discussion in founding the
Spanish Partido Pirata "Either we call ourselves the Pirate Party, and
get to define what the name stands for, they reasoned, or we’ll be
called the Pirate Party anyway, without control of what the name stands
for."
Those who wish to preserve the privilege of the elite will call us
Communists no matter what. If we are timid about being called
Communists, and try to shy away from the name, all that will do is
strengthen the attacks against us, it will make it seem like being a
Communist is somehow shameful, something to be denied, something to
hide. It will make it seem that we call ourselves something other than
Communists only to keep people from knowing the truth about our sinister
Communism.
As in the discussion that Falkvinge reports, we thereby relinquish the
ability to define what Communism means, and what it means to be a
Communist. We also let our accusers off the hook. By pretending not to
be Communists, we allow them to never explain what it is they think is
wrong with Communism and why it's a bad thing. By pretending we are not
Communists, we allow them to effectively employ a guilt-by-association
fallacy to discredit us as Communists without ever needing to make a
logical arguments against our views.
We should be under no delusion, the same propagandists that have made
communism a bad word in many uninformed minds, will do likewise to any
new terms that seek to deny privilege and power to the elite. This is
clearly evident in how the words "welfare" and even "liberal" have
become terms of derision in US politics, for instance. This is also
brought to the level of absurdity when right-wing commentators label
even the most timid parliamentarian reformists as "Communists." Such
fallacy is displayed at it's most vulgar with common feminist-baiting
trolls likes "feminism is just Communism in drag." We have all seen
plenty of this.
By saying "Yes, I am a Communist.", we turn the tables. Not only that,
we open the door to a far more interesting and rich discussion, a
discussion that is made unnecessarily shallow when we hide our Communism
behind neologisms. Communists have been producing theory for hundreds of
years, a rich stock of insight where many core questions have been
investigated, disputed, and a wide variety of tactics, tendencies and
views have emerged, including Marxian, anarchist and co-operative
tendencies, which each having quite different views on how communism is
to be achieved. Views we do well to consider and contrast.
To be Communist simply means that you believe in equality, that you do
not believe that a society that allows one class of people to exploit
another is the best that we can achieve, and therefore, that you believe
that democracy and equality must be respected in all human relations,
not only in government, but also in economic and domestic life as well.
Communists believe we are equals politically, equals in the workplace,
and equals in the home.
Communism has never been achieved. So we do not yet know what a
Communist society would look like in detail. Even the leaders of
so-called Communist countries such as the USSR or China have never
claimed to have achieved Communism. They have only claimed to be working
towards it. And yet, this is perhaps the most common reason cited to
avoid the use of Communism, because many of the attempts to realize it
have gone wrong, have failed, and have even produced results directly
contradictory to the aims of Communism.
Far from being a reason to avoid it, the mistakes and failures of the
past are perhaps the strongest reason why we should continue to use the
word. We know that attempts to achieve Communism could lead to negative
consequences.
When we pretend that the ideas being explored are wholly new, when we
employ neologisms and we make-believe that we have escaped from the
political realities faced by those before us, when we allow ourselves
the hubris to believe that our own theories and models are so new and
novel that they do not have the same limits and risks of those of the
previous revolutionaries, we invite failure and disaster.
When we use the word Communism, we do so without delusion, we already
know it can go wrong. Thus we can learn from, and build upon the
mistakes and failures of the past. Any idea can go wrong, any course of
action, no matter how noble its ideals, can lead to unintended
consequences. Simply using a different term does not protect us.
Instead of clouding the discussion with neologistic delusion, lets
acknowledge the history and embrace the future of Communism. To
appropriate the reasoning of the founders of the Partido Pirata, let us
call ourselves Communists, and define what the name stands for,
otherwise we’ll be called Communists anyway, and give up control of what
Communism means.
If you believe in working towards a society where everyone is treated
as an equal, an equal under the law, an equal in the workplace and an
equal in the home. If you believe in working towards a society where the
free development of each is the condition of the free development of
all. If you believe in working towards a society that applies it's
wealth to empower the many and not only to enrich the few, join me in
standing up and saying "Yes, I am a Communist" and lets work out what
that means together.
I'll be Stammtisch tonight as usual at 9pm or so. See you at Cafe
Buchhandlung. Aparently, it's a Fasching party at Cafe Buchhandlung!
Where a costume if you're up for it.
- http://bit.ly/buchhandlung
--
Dmyri Kleiner
Venture Communist
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