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I've never formally learned Political Science so I could be off-base here, but doesn't it go like this? Socialism: the workers own the means of production Com

by alehul 8y ago

I've never formally learned Political Science so I could be off-base here, but doesn't it go like this? Socialism: the workers own the means of production Communism: the state owns the means of production* *Granted, what I was taught in history is that socialism is viewed as a halfway point where communism is the ultimate goal, and that communism should involve ownership by the workers rather than the state— pretty much always, however, the state ends up with ownership (otherwise it's hard to maintain order in a by-intrinsic-nature oppressive society). If I'm wrong, please feel free to critique and offer some readings? :)

danielam 8y ago
You have socialism and communism reversed.
hopler 8y ago
Start by looking up the words in one of the many free online dictionaries. Both mean state control of the economy. One of them means paying people what the state thinks they need and requiring them to work how the state thinks they can, as opposed to other strategies like competitive market forces.
vidarh 8y ago
The Soviet Union, and all of these other states explicitly claimed not to be communist exactly as justification for the existence of a strong state, and to argue that the differences and oppression was "necessary" to lead their countries towards a hypothetical future communism. For a very good reason: One of Lenins big theorethical claims to fame is a work (State and the Revolution) where he argues strongly for Marx view that under communism the state is superfluous and will "whither away". Whether or not one agrees that these countries were socialist (depends greatly on ones definition of socialism, but e.g. Marx argued that socialism was not a single ideology, but used it as a vague catch-all term and proceeded to criticise forms of socialism he saw as flawed or outright oppressive and reactionary; Engels later pointed out that they could never have written a "Socialist Manifesto" in 1848 because the term was used by too many people they strongly disagreed with, and was not radical enough), or whether or not they were trying to achieve communism, all of them at one time or other argued they were far away from achieving communism. Point being that you have your terms reversed at very best. Communism implies the class struggle has ended, and a central idea of Marxism is that the state only exists as a political power for one class to oppress another, and that as a consequence ending the class struggle would make the state superfluous. Under a purely Marxist view "the state" owning the means of production might represent a reasonable immediate outcome of a socialist revolution. With the caveat that in his works on the Paris Commune, Marx hailed the Commune as a demonstration of how a workers state could be the outcome of destroying the capitalist state, and criticised the Commune mostly for one thing: For not going far enough in destroying the older state to replace it with directly elected and recallable delegates. But there are many other socialist ideologies as well, that do not ascribe to state ownership of the means of production - Marx wrote about some of them himself in the Communist Manifesto and elsewhere, it's not quite right to delineate them that way either. Marx never did. In fact that separation of socialism and communism comes from the Bolsheviks seeking to justify their oppressive state with a "but we've only reached socialism so far" defense.

by alehul 8y ago

danielam 8y ago

You have socialism and communism reversed.

hopler 8y ago

Start by looking up the words in one of the many free online dictionaries. Both mean state control of the economy. One of them means paying people what the state thinks they need and requiring them to work how the state thinks they can, as opposed to other strategies like competitive market forces.

vidarh 8y ago

The Soviet Union, and all of these other states explicitly claimed not to be communist exactly as justification for the existence of a strong state, and to argue that the differences and oppression was "necessary" to lead their countries towards a hypothetical future communism. For a very good reason: One of Lenins big theorethical claims to fame is a work (State and the Revolution) where he argues strongly for Marx view that under communism the state is superfluous and will "whither away". Whether or not one agrees that these countries were socialist (depends greatly on ones definition of socialism, but e.g. Marx argued that socialism was not a single ideology, but used it as a vague catch-all term and proceeded to criticise forms of socialism he saw as flawed or outright oppressive and reactionary; Engels later pointed out that they could never have written a "Socialist Manifesto" in 1848 because the term was used by too many people they strongly disagreed with, and was not radical enough), or whether or not they were trying to achieve communism, all of them at one time or other argued they were far away from achieving communism. Point being that you have your terms reversed at very best. Communism implies the class struggle has ended, and a central idea of Marxism is that the state only exists as a political power for one class to oppress another, and that as a consequence ending the class struggle would make the state superfluous. Under a purely Marxist view "the state" owning the means of production might represent a reasonable immediate outcome of a socialist revolution. With the caveat that in his works on the Paris Commune, Marx hailed the Commune as a demonstration of how a workers state could be the outcome of destroying the capitalist state, and criticised the Commune mostly for one thing: For not going far enough in destroying the older state to replace it with directly elected and recallable delegates. But there are many other socialist ideologies as well, that do not ascribe to state ownership of the means of production - Marx wrote about some of them himself in the Communist Manifesto and elsewhere, it's not quite right to delineate them that way either. Marx never did. In fact that separation of socialism and communism comes from the Bolsheviks seeking to justify their oppressive state with a "but we've only reached socialism so far" defense.