Michael Torrie <[email protected]> writes:
> On 05/06/2010 03:05 PM, Levi Pearson wrote:
>> predicts its eventual failure through a revolution of
>> the proletariat (working class) and transition through a form of
>> government called Socialism to a form of government called Communism.
>
> I was always taught in school that Communism as a government was simply
> a means to achieve pure socialism, which would seem to be a form of
> anarchist-utopia with no government. From what I can tell Communism has
> very little to do with Marxism, which, as charles points out isn't a
> political/economic pov but rather a philosophical thing.
There's a lot of vagueness in the terms 'socialism' and 'communism', but
Marx's ideal socieity was indeed a stateless (anarchist) system and
emphasized individual freedom. He felt that to get there from
capitalism, however, there had to be a revolution and an intermediate
system of government which he described as a dictatorship of the
proletariat (as opposed to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which is
what he considered capitalism to be).
Some of Marx's writings were philisophical, in the sense that they
defined a way of looking at history in terms of class conflict, but a
lost of his output was most definitely in the political/economic
sphere. I mean, 'Das Kapital' set forth an economic critique of
capitalism, and he co-wrote 'The Communist Manifesto' with Engels.
Communism has *lot* to do with Marxism, it's just that Marx was more
oriented towards criticism of the current situation than describing his
ideal.
> Indeed the left/right thing is far more complicated than just socialism
> vs capitalism. Both socialism and capitalism can exist under anarchism
> or totalitarianism. Highly recommend www.politicalcompass.org as a good
> introduction to the complexities of the political spectrum.
That's a great site, especially if you're unsure of where you stand in
the political spectrum, but it's not very useful if you want to
understand what the term 'Marxism' means, or how Marx influenced the
world.
--Levi
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