I've been thinking this over in my head for a few years now it all started when I was in high school. I had a friend with an unshakable belief in communism. I pondered why this supposedly well educated young man from an affluent family believed in this terrible and discredited ideology and then I looked back on all the infamous communist leaders marx, ingels, lenin. Then after years of research I came up with this theory what if all this talk of workers rights was just a smokescreen, you see communism isn't a utopian philosophy(even though it is meant to appear that way) communism is merely a way for the powerful to remain powerful. Look back on the history of communism, lets go back to its infancy. Karl Marx was born into a affluent well respected family he went to expensive schools he was well educated. Now as the communists would have you believe Marx was troubled by the so called exploitation of the working man and woman however I have another theory Marx was not appauled by the exploitation of the worker but rather the new power that the working man was beginning to develope you see the industrial revolution was actually the first time wealth was beginning to reach the common man, it was the first time that common people could provide for their families off the masters vast estate for the first time a person could effectively leave the master or lord who had virtually owned his workers however when the workers got a better oppurtunity by leaving the country estates and going to the cities to worl in factories and being payed directly for it. The power in society was beginning to shift from Marx's class to the common man. Now look at Communism through history who has been its leaders has it been the poor working class man or has it been the well-educated and the affluent. Did Communism make life better for the average Joe or worse? I think the answer is obvious. Communism was all about power and the powerful it was all about the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few and the domination of the rest.

Actually, it all depends on who is in power.

True "Communism" would result in a level of Direct Democracy which would remove the "power" being in the hands of a "few".

You would also have "Unions" of Farmers, builders, etc, all working towards a "fair" price. The problem was many of the Socialist and Communist ideology was abused, by a few people who were able to get in the right place at the right time.

If anyone knows how to bring direct democracy to a large nation efficiently, Im all ears.

However you are correct, communism requires democracy.

It is fairly simple, you just have to 'scale' it up to a larger Nation. The only problem is, is to put the 'funds' aside for the 'first' few years which you introduce the process. Although if you look at California that is what the last vote was. It was a case of direct democracy in action.

In the U.S. you would have to do it at;
Federal Level
State Level
County
Town.

However, the 'Federal' vote would be rare.



Yes, yes it does.

I understand the original post.

I was a "left radical" in college, helping to lead leftist/anarchist demonstrations on campus. Getting jailed, etc.

Then, one of my friends who had ceased such activities and I were talking once. I complained about the group not helping make bail. He pointed out that I was the only one who had to work his way through school, the only one whose parents didn't give him a car for college, etc.

He, a "real" economic critic, pointed out what a front leftism really is. How the people who scream loudest in the congress for "tax the rich" are Rockefeller and Kennedy. It is all a populist act, and they have the laws designed so that they are not "legally rich," while millions of small-time shopowners pay self-employed tax rates, always in the highest brackets.

Not only is communism a scam, liberalism and conservatism are, too.

If I remember right, Kerry and his wife are actually wealthier than the Bush family.

And both of them richer than you!

.

And this is your experience, most of the Socialists which I have met are not well off at all. Most of them are Working to Middle Class and because you have experienced different doesn't mean you can generalise to all of those who support Marxism/Communism.

It is as bad as claiming all Republicans supported the War in Iraq...etc...



Which is highly against the Socialist agenda...

The taxation system placed on a sliding scale, like Marx suggest is a good idea however the brackets for the tax are wrong. What worked 50years ago doesn't now and it is the Middle to Working class being punished for this. However it always will be...what problem is a 70% tax on you, if you earn $10million? You still have 3million to live off...where as most people are loucky to hit $20,000...



Kerry has nothing to do with any of this...

Liberalism and Conservatism have nothing to do with Communism.

The first two, should primariyl be based around moral views and Communism should be based around economic views...

The point of my anecdotal narrative was to testify as someone who HAS seen an inner elite who drive not only the communist fringe, but the whole of the left. Most of the ones being led are working class and hard pressed. My contention is that the leadership is a cabal of elite sellouts, who generally co-opt the grassroots movements, or circumvent them.

just like with unions. The guys on the line who do the work are not the same as the reps who negotiate with management over a round of golf.

Yes it does depend on who attains power. And who is that usually. Past history tells me that it is always a well educated elitist class that once in power its primary mission is expand or at least maintain that power.



In true communism maybe, however true communism requires a certain amount of steps to attain. Marx called for revolutions in stages I believe. And that requires a power structure. And the people in power remember IMO have no intention of ever giving it up and I think history has proven me correct.



Yes again just another fantasy for the common people to work for. Look at the history of communist were ever unions started they were ruthlessly suppressed. And the fair price was just another tool of control.



Your making it sound like communism just got off to a bad start and then was hijacked by a few bad people. It wasn't just plain happen stance that communism turned out the way it did. It was by design. From the very beginning you had the elite class giving the orders. And once in power the elitist class institutionalized their power and never had any intention to give it up.

IF you really read Kapital (I read only the first two volumes; skimmed some of the rest), you see that the ultimate goal of Communism is supposed to be a stateless society.

A stateless society, achieved in stages.

He and Engel were both influenced by the (then recent) American and French Revolutions. The American revolution was a bourgeois revolution; slaves weren't freed--the entreprenurial class simply overthrew the British Gentry.

The French revolution began as a bourgeois, but the lower classes, the wage slaves, rebelled in their turn against the bourgeoisie, and set up a true proletarian revolution. But because they lacked a "class consciousness," they allowed themselves to be re-enslaved by the bourgeoisie.

Marx was looking for a permanent workers' state in Germany, not Russia. When asked, Marx had said that Russia needed to develop a middle class before revolution could begin. . .

Lenin actually set up workers' soviets in Russia, which was supposed the be the stage that would prevent the bourgeois counter-revolutionaries from retaking the state. But they had to be suppressed in the twenties, because they sometimes chose to re-instate personal property, and sometimes backed the menshaviki (majority socialists) over the Leninists.

The idea was that there was "one more" revolution needed to reach a truly stateless society: the soviets themselves were supposed to rise up and destroy all other forms of social organization, including church, family, military, etc.

Lenin said that this couldn't take place while Capitalist states still existed. The Russian state was necessary, to "protect" the nascent worker's paradise, until all privacy was toppled.

A non communist would say that Lenin betrayed the revolution, placing his "intelligensia" permanently at the top of soviet society.

Just like every other revolution in history.

That's what I see as the basic inconsistency at the heart of communism: at some point, the power-holders are expected to magically "give up" power in the name of collectivism.

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