On 5/6/2010 3:05 PM, Levi Pearson wrote: > Where do you get the idea the Marxism is defined as total > authoritarian state economic control? I would say that Marxism is > defined by a critique of capitalism that describes how it divides the > people into social classes based on who controls the means of > production, and 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.
My understanding of Marxism was that he only defined social and government roles on an economic scale. The economy is completely regulated by government, undermining Capitalism and setting up pure Communistic system, which places him extreme left. Contrast this with Capitalism, where economic control is completely deregulated, and defined by the private and public sector- the right side of the economic scale. > Marxist Socialism is indeed defined by state control of the economy, > but he intends it to be a temporary state, controlled by the > proletariat, to keep the economy functioning as the capitalist class > structures are dismantled. Marxist Communism, his end goal, is a > stateless, classless, democratic society where everyone gets a vote in > economic decisions. He was actually pretty vague on how this would > actually work, but I don't think "total authoritarian state economic > control" is a fair description of it. This is how I understand it to be as well. My terminology spoke strictly in the economic sense, and not the social sense. I guess I'll have to pull out my political science book again, but Karl Marx said nothing of social regulation: fascism versus anarchy. He only wrote strictly of economic power. As you even mention, Marxism was defined to be stateless and classless. -- . O . O . O . . O O . . . O . . . O . O O O . O . O O . . O O O O . O . . O O O O . O O O
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