What if Communism really hasn't been tried? Marx did outline very specific conditions

PGA Weblog ^

[ProgressingAmerica]

I recently posted the article from the Founder of Fabian Socialism in America titled Where Socialism Was Tried and I got to thinking, what about Communism? Well, here's what he's written:

In broad outlines Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production can be designated as progressive epochs in the economic formation of society. The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production — antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonisms, but of one arising from the social conditions of life of the individuals; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism.

And we know what Marx considers to be the solution to this 'antagonism' - the dictatorship of the proletariat. Communism can't just be formed anywhere. It has to be done with the right conditions, the right way and in the right country. In short, the United States. Because of the specificity of conditions, Communism is probably the most utopian of all the ideologies of centralized planning. Here's a brief outline:

At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.

Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed.

I hear Obama in that, particularly the last line. But nonetheless, if it's seemed to you that communists have had their eye on the USA the way a wolf looks at a lamb, then this may explain it for you. It's because we have that superstructure, we are a 'capitalist' country. The ideal country, the one that will prove Marx right, is the United States. A little bit more:

Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.

When our massive 'capitalist' country implodes and goes into revolution, then they can start their "fundamental transformation" of everything, not just the modes of production. That's what he's saying. But society has to go through all of the various stages of development and reach 'antagonism'(free markets) before it can be done the right way and go into Communism. America is realistically the only one that ever has reached this stage following the "correct" evolution.

Here's how I think this works: (1)Economies go up and down, that's normal. (2)A believer in some form of planning takes advantage of a down, and makes it worse as centralized planning has disastrous effects upon economies(such as the housing bust, or the Carter years) and you end up in a true economic crisis. (3)Then, a strong-man comes in(who happens to be a hard core communist) and proposes to save the day. A "rising star" like Van Jones.

I say all of that because Marx' theory misses the boat: Free markets don't implode, the built in corrective mechanisms work. Free markets have to be forced by government to implode. If they can force it to implode(as Obama is clearly doing) then we can reach the worker's paradise.

[kempster]

I had a public school teacher who read this list to us in high school civics class at the time. I appreciate you posting the link. I have been looking for it for years.

[GenXteacher]

You are welcome. I find it useful- I spend a good bit of effort bashing communism in class.

[Lurker]

Outstanding post. Thanks for reminding me why I hang out here.

[Lurker]

We're doomed unless we can reverse the process. I'm not sure we can before it's too late.

Don't worry. We can't.

Get yourself ready for what's coming. It won't be pretty. We are going to need people like you.

[Triple]

Agreed - see tagline of many years...