The transition from capitalism to socialism will nearly always be through revolution. It simply isn’t feasible to ask the ruling class to give up the very system that entitles them to their plunder, elections are carefully controlled so as to not allow genuine socialist or communist victory. Even when communists like Allende won in countries like Chile, they are couped, just like the US is attempting against Maduro. Revolution is authoritarian, it’s the forceful will of the majority against the minority. As Engels put it:
Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is. It is the act by which one part of the population imposes its will on the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannons — by the most authoritarian means possible; and the victors, if they do not want to have fought in vain, must maintain this rule by means of the terror which their arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if the communards had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach them for not having used it enough?
Historically, revolution has unfolded the same way, as the majority enforcing its will upon the minority. The French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cuban, Korean, etc have all been such examples. They have been enormously liberating for the working classes, and terribly authoritarian towards capitalists, landlords, fascists, colonizers, etc. I’m not going to erase that that violence happened, but I’m not going to minimize that these were and are popular movements supported by the broad majority either. None of these countries are utopias, but all are real, with real working class victories.
Socialism is a mode of production, characterized by public ownership being the principle aspect of the economy. The western European countries don’t have socialism, they have social safety nets within the boundaries of capitalism. They fund these safety nets with the spoils of imperialism, ie international plunder of the global south, not through their own labor. The USSR, PRC, Vietnam, etc are socialist, not western Europe, and moreover do not depend on imperialism for their safety nets. Western Europe is not moving onto communism because it isn’t even socialist yet, and is under the dictatorship of capitalists.
Communism is a mode of production where all of production and distribution has been collectivized and run according to a common plan. It’s stateless, classless, and moneyless. It is post-socialist in that socialism is where production and distribution are gradually collectivized, erasing the basis for class, and the basis of the state as a consequence. Personal property remains, ie you can keep your toothbrush, but production and distribution are collectivized.
I appreciate the write-up, thank you! I feel like a lot of this is semantic differences. I’ve always thought of socialism as any public funds used specifically to help citizens (e.g. social security, medicare, unemployment, UBI, etc) and Communism to be the public owning and running the means of production, and distributing goods thereof, and the stateless, classless, moneyless society to be the ideal utopia it aspired to (similar to Star Trek). From your comment, I see that what I call Communism, you call Socialism (which explains a lot of confusion from discussions in the past with self-described Communists I’ve known), and the nameless Star Trek post-scarcity system you would call Communism.
Do you think it is possible to slow-roll the transition peacefully, though? If, for example, instead of the government bailing out industries, they bought out industries on the cheap, slowly growing and monopolizing like Google or Amazon have? Or do you think the rich would simply block that from happening?
The transition from capitalism to socialism will nearly always be through revolution. It simply isn’t feasible to ask the ruling class to give up the very system that entitles them to their plunder, elections are carefully controlled so as to not allow genuine socialist or communist victory. Even when communists like Allende won in countries like Chile, they are couped, just like the US is attempting against Maduro. Revolution is authoritarian, it’s the forceful will of the majority against the minority. As Engels put it:
Historically, revolution has unfolded the same way, as the majority enforcing its will upon the minority. The French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cuban, Korean, etc have all been such examples. They have been enormously liberating for the working classes, and terribly authoritarian towards capitalists, landlords, fascists, colonizers, etc. I’m not going to erase that that violence happened, but I’m not going to minimize that these were and are popular movements supported by the broad majority either. None of these countries are utopias, but all are real, with real working class victories.
Socialism is a mode of production, characterized by public ownership being the principle aspect of the economy. The western European countries don’t have socialism, they have social safety nets within the boundaries of capitalism. They fund these safety nets with the spoils of imperialism, ie international plunder of the global south, not through their own labor. The USSR, PRC, Vietnam, etc are socialist, not western Europe, and moreover do not depend on imperialism for their safety nets. Western Europe is not moving onto communism because it isn’t even socialist yet, and is under the dictatorship of capitalists.
Communism is a mode of production where all of production and distribution has been collectivized and run according to a common plan. It’s stateless, classless, and moneyless. It is post-socialist in that socialism is where production and distribution are gradually collectivized, erasing the basis for class, and the basis of the state as a consequence. Personal property remains, ie you can keep your toothbrush, but production and distribution are collectivized.
If you want a good introduction to Marxist theory, I wrote an intro Marxist-Leninist reading list. Feel free to check it out!
I appreciate the write-up, thank you! I feel like a lot of this is semantic differences. I’ve always thought of socialism as any public funds used specifically to help citizens (e.g. social security, medicare, unemployment, UBI, etc) and Communism to be the public owning and running the means of production, and distributing goods thereof, and the stateless, classless, moneyless society to be the ideal utopia it aspired to (similar to Star Trek). From your comment, I see that what I call Communism, you call Socialism (which explains a lot of confusion from discussions in the past with self-described Communists I’ve known), and the nameless Star Trek post-scarcity system you would call Communism.
Do you think it is possible to slow-roll the transition peacefully, though? If, for example, instead of the government bailing out industries, they bought out industries on the cheap, slowly growing and monopolizing like Google or Amazon have? Or do you think the rich would simply block that from happening?