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> Elimination of exploiting classes and abolition of family are two things that certainly require massacring people. If you see any other realistic means of ach

> Elimination of exploiting classes and abolition of family are two things that certainly require massacring people. If you see any other realistic means of achieving these two points of Communist Manifesto, am all ears. I mean if you want to strictly adhere to the Communist Manifesto then you're probably going to end up with strike and violence in some form. That still doesn't mean you have to massacre people to evenly distribute property and wealth. That could be done through a judicial system if a government was so inclined. It just so happens that autocrats prefer massacring people. That has been true of capitalist dictatorships as well as communist ones. Communist dictatorships killed far more people to be sure. If you want to look at Communism as a very strict system that can only exist in the way that Marx conceived then yeah you'll probably end up with bloodshed. But every sort of political system has a number of different interpretations and modes of implementation. The Communist governments we've seen thus far have taken a few different forms so it's entirely possible that a more benevolent form of Communist government will take root somewhere. I just don't think mass killings is a key component of Communism as a system. Mass killings were how Communist autocrats seized power and maintained power.

varjag 9y ago
> That still doesn't mean you have to massacre people to evenly distribute property and wealth. The point of Communism isn't to evenly distribute property and wealth. It's to eliminate property ownership completely, and prevent further accumulation of wealth by individuals. The commune part of Communism. > I just don't think mass killings is a key component of Communism as a system. It's not an end goal, but an unavoidable instrument if you want to rob people of their property or destroy their families. Historically, there was not much voluntary cooperation.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > The point of Communism isn't to evenly distribute property and wealth. It's to eliminate property ownership completely No, just non-public ownership of the means of production (at least in Marxism and those forms of Communism whose approach on this point follows Marxism, which is not all of Communism); this is a frequent point of confusion in criticism of Communism because Communist literature and theory uses a different definition of “private property” than non-Communists are used to, which both leads to both accidental confusion of people not familiar with this fact, and intentional misrepresentation by dishonest critics who are fully familiar with the difference but expect that their audience is not.
  - varjag 9y ago
    I need some really substantial Marx citation on that, because in the Communist Manifesto, chapter II, he says: > In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. Marxist view of property is that as a manifestation of capital, which can be converted between freely. If you allow private property, you allow its inevitable emergent concentration (e.g. via bourgeois family), and hence amassing of capital and means to exploit other people.
    - UncleMeat 9y ago
      Private property and personal property are distinct in socialist and communist thought.
      - varjag 9y ago
        I would still insist on a Marx quote where he draws the distinction. Not a late 20th century interpretation with benefit of hindsight.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        The distinction between property generally and bourgeois property, and the statement that Communism aims for the elimination of the latter and not the former is in the paragraph of the Communist Manifesto immediately preceding the one your quote is drawn from. “The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property.” Again, “private property” in Communist theory is narrower than the usual capitalist understanding; particularly, neither consumer goods nor money insofar as it cannot be exchanged for a proprietary interest in the means of production in a society which has progressed to the socialism stage as envisioned by Communism are necessarily included in “private property”. (And, even personally held means of production that cannot be converted to bourgeois property because of controls on engaging wage labor are frequently not sought to be banned in practice—which may be contrary to Marx’s statement on private property, but is consistent with the focus on borgeois property which is explicitly it's underlying motivation.)

varjag 9y ago

> That still doesn't mean you have to massacre people to evenly distribute property and wealth. The point of Communism isn't to evenly distribute property and wealth. It's to eliminate property ownership completely, and prevent further accumulation of wealth by individuals. The commune part of Communism. > I just don't think mass killings is a key component of Communism as a system. It's not an end goal, but an unavoidable instrument if you want to rob people of their property or destroy their families. Historically, there was not much voluntary cooperation.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> The point of Communism isn't to evenly distribute property and wealth. It's to eliminate property ownership completely No, just non-public ownership of the means of production (at least in Marxism and those forms of Communism whose approach on this point follows Marxism, which is not all of Communism); this is a frequent point of confusion in criticism of Communism because Communist literature and theory uses a different definition of “private property” than non-Communists are used to, which both leads to both accidental confusion of people not familiar with this fact, and intentional misrepresentation by dishonest critics who are fully familiar with the difference but expect that their audience is not.
- varjag 9y ago
  I need some really substantial Marx citation on that, because in the Communist Manifesto, chapter II, he says: > In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. Marxist view of property is that as a manifestation of capital, which can be converted between freely. If you allow private property, you allow its inevitable emergent concentration (e.g. via bourgeois family), and hence amassing of capital and means to exploit other people.
  - UncleMeat 9y ago
    Private property and personal property are distinct in socialist and communist thought.
    - varjag 9y ago
      I would still insist on a Marx quote where he draws the distinction. Not a late 20th century interpretation with benefit of hindsight.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        The distinction between property generally and bourgeois property, and the statement that Communism aims for the elimination of the latter and not the former is in the paragraph of the Communist Manifesto immediately preceding the one your quote is drawn from. “The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property.” Again, “private property” in Communist theory is narrower than the usual capitalist understanding; particularly, neither consumer goods nor money insofar as it cannot be exchanged for a proprietary interest in the means of production in a society which has progressed to the socialism stage as envisioned by Communism are necessarily included in “private property”. (And, even personally held means of production that cannot be converted to bourgeois property because of controls on engaging wage labor are frequently not sought to be banned in practice—which may be contrary to Marx’s statement on private property, but is consistent with the focus on borgeois property which is explicitly it's underlying motivation.)