Create Your Own Government!

Hands said:

They're similar, but socialism is fairly different. Socialism in it's purest form revolves around public ownership. The state owns the means of production and the people own the state. Capitalism can exist within Socialism and vice versa, however capitalism cannot exist within Communism.

The socialism we have now in the west is quite limited, although a lot of European countries and Great Britain have a lot of socialist elements.

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I know what the difference is xD
It's the difference that leads me to say what I do.

BadSheep said:

All from the Communist Manifesto (which i have downloaded and read more or less)... should i cite page numbers and provide a link to the pdf? I dont mean to plagiarize here. And ya, i got nothing from Das Kapital because its a pain to read and I'm not gonna be that guy to cite a source about literature without being at least somewhat familiar with the piece first.

Destruction of property and physically attacking humans:

"Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master‡ and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."

"At first the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages."

"Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots"

"In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat."

I think its clear that the communist revolution is violent and deadly. As for Marx calling off all of the bourgeois:

1) Learned in my political theory class Marx advocated the killing of all o the bourgeois

2) "The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country"

"The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image."

-Meaning the bourgeois spread their mindset to the population, including the proletariat. They infect society. If the revolution does not kill all of the bourgeois, this mindset can and will spread.

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I take a very different reading than "kill off rich people" (which you've suggested) or even "kill rich people". All I think he's really saying is that any major social upheaval will be violent, and would likely be similar to a civil war.

Does that delegitimize such struggles, that they so often come with violence? I don't think so. I don't blame the post-colonial nations of Africa and Asia for overthrowing the yoke of their European masters - heck, even your country was born out of violent struggle. And even since that, the issue of slavery had to be fought for over violent struggle.

To boil down his reasoning (probably too simplistically), all he's saying is: 1) the capitalist system is oppressive and exploits a vast expanse of the population, 2) the capitalist class is powerful and has their interests entrenched in the state as it is which they control, 3) the only way to eliminate, and if you will, emancipate the working class from the exploitation of the bourgeoisie is to violently overthrow the capitalist system, for 4) how could you meaningfully change the system when your exploited class does not have meaningful control of the system?

I don't think it has anything to do with "kill off these people because of their socio-economic status", but everything to do with "we must consider violent means because the capitalist system is powerful and would subvert or co-opt peaceful means". Let's think about it, even if there was a communist revolution, how many of the bourgeoisie would actually die? At the end of the day, it's still going to be the working class people who fall in the largest numbers, since they will be the ones on the frontlines of violent struggle. Whether as soldier or protester, they always have been.

@Gimmepie and @Hands

According to Marx, socialism is the transition from capitalism to communism, where under socialism, there is a large government central planning and removing private property until total communism is achieved. Because people are happy, the government falls away and everyone lives in perfect harmony under communism.

Now, socialism is similar, but instead of a transitional state, socialism is the public ownership of the means of production directed by a government.

Capitalism and socialism are totally contradictory. One cannot exist within the other. If you are referencing social semocracy or democratic-socialism, that is private ownership with a lot of government regulation, wealth redistribution, etc. But there is no public ownership in democratic-socialism.

It is interesting to note that democratic-socialism does have aspects that Marx would describe as transitional to communism (from the Manifesto):

-"2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax."
-"3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance." <- There is an inheritance tax, but inheritance has not been abolished, nor do I believe it will ever be. On a side note, I am not sure if this is the best idea for transitioning to communism because right-wing individuals such as John Stuart Mill have advocated for the same thing on the ground of private property rights.
-"5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly."
-"10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c."

@Kanzler

It is not to kill off people of that select socio-economic status, but rather because those same individuals are exploitive, and encourage a culture that opposes communism. For communism to be sustainable, like Marx said, there cannot be a culture of production, consumption, and exploitation promulgated by the bourgeois.

Even if communists would not kill ALL of the bourgeois, either they would have to kill enough of them to stop the spread of their culture, or many bourgeois would die in the fighting. In fact, bourgeois culture even spread to the labor aristocracy, or proletariats that acted like bourgeois and had a higher income because of their better skill. Bourgeois are not going to stand idly by and let their life, property, and everything taken from them.

Colonialism in Africa and Asia was invasive and forceful upon the populations. Europeans often conflicted and openly fought the people in Africa and Asia. On the other hand, capitalism is a mutually beneficial trade. Although there were MANY issues with the capitalistic system during the Industrial Revolution as a result of artificial monopolies being created through large subsidies to industry, so the workers did have less negotiating power. In addition, the government outlawed unionization in many cases (though much was repealed) and favored large industry and factories over farmers, leading to terrible pollution that destroyed crops and created terrible living conditions. Allowing factories to dump excess waste into rivers and streams certainly did not help either.

So under what Ill call a free market (without these government mandated or created conditions), Marx and communism would oppose the bourgeois in such a system. This includes the petty bourgeois. And to call a mutually beneficial trade free of monopoly "exploitation" is ridiculous. In this case, Marx would be advocating for violence and civil war without a just cause (though to him it would be).

I think a degree of discussing the workings of different political/economic systems is warranted here in the context of discussing each other's ideal forms of government/test results actually.

So to transition the conversation a bit from communism to another topic, I think a discussion about the role of government in economics would be interesting.

1) What is the role of government in economics?
2) What form of government best suits your ideal economy?
3) Do different forms of government produce different types of economies?
4) How does culture (if at all) and government relate to a different types of economies?

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Oh look, center-left. How not surprising.

I imagined something that could never exist (I don't see how a true democracy with public education works out), so this is a little off, but w/e. I might redo this later.

Decidueye said:

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Oh look, center-left. How not surprising.

I imagined something that could never exist (I don't see how a true democracy with public education works out), so this is a little off, but w/e. I might redo this later.

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What couldn't exist exactly? And how does a true democracy with public education not work out?

BadSheep said:

What couldn't exist exactly? And how does a true democracy with public education not work out?

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I don't really know, it just seems like something as big as that would need a strong central government to maintain. Same with healthcare, etc. I tend to think that democracy as a concept is slightly flawed because there needs to be some maintenance.

On the economic topic...

1) What is the role of government in economics?
To monitor, but not interfere if not necessary. If someone starts, say, buying out every supplier, producer, and retailer of eyeglasses (an absolute necessity for many people), than they need to step in. However, I believe some things, especially valuable non-renewable resources, should be directly controlled to avoid some corporations using them up too quickly.

2) What form of government best suits your ideal economy?
Republic probably. a WORKING republic. The central government needs to be there and not be grumpy about everything.

3) Do different forms of government produce different types of economies?
I don't really know. It is really how said government is run that decides the fate of the economy

4) How does culture (if at all) and government relate to a different types of economies?
I'm not sure here, so... pass.

Decidueye said:

I don't really know, it just seems like something as big as that would need a strong central government to maintain. Same with healthcare, etc. I tend to think that democracy as a concept is slightly flawed because there needs to be some maintenance.

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What do you think is flawed about democracy?

Decidueye said:

2) What form of government best suits your ideal economy?
Republic probably. a WORKING republic. The central government needs to be there and not be grumpy about everything.

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A republic is not a direct democracy as you put in your graph. Do you believe in a stronger federal government or decentralization?

BadSheep said:

What do you think is flawed about democracy?
A republic is not a direct democracy as you put in your graph. Do you believe in a stronger federal government or decentralization?

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I love the concept of Democracy, which is why I selected it there, but a Republic seems more feasible (although the standard "I don't feel represented" logic still applies). Everyone having a say is fabulous, but when what people say is morally or ethically wrong, there is a problem. It seems like it would work better in small environments like a city-state when those existed.

Decidueye said:

I love the concept of Democracy, which is why I selected it there, but a Republic seems more feasible (although the standard "I don't feel represented" logic still applies). Everyone having a say is fabulous, but when what people say is morally or ethically wrong, there is a problem. It seems like it would work better in small environments like a city-state when those existed.

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Personally, I dislike democracy and republics. I dont like people having a say. People are selfish, stupid, and not qualified to choose leaders of their countries. Their leaders are incentivized to have high time-preference rates, which encourages larger national debts and short-term instead of long-term economic stimulus. It decreases savings, etc. Plus you have a whole tragedy of the commons scenario.

Even the most ardent supporter of democracy, Rousseau, said that democracy can only work on a small-scale to prevent the total violation of property rights and one group from looting another group.

I'm going to close up this event now. I have something else in mind to fill the void though don't worry!