Originally posted by Scribble
Communism has never worked, it has only ended in disaster, starvation and mass-murder. Anyone wearing a communist symbol is saying that they approve of the many atrocities committed in its name, whether they know that or not. Communism at its very heart is about violent overthrow of society, theft of personal property, and the execution or subjugation of the middle and upper classes. Among many other things.Sure, Nazi symbols are more obvious in their intent, but that actually makes Nazism much less dangerous than communism. You know where you stand with a Nazi. Communism has become 'chic', making it a much more viable threat in its insidious nature.
Please excuse the delayed reply, I had some appointments. I will try to lay out some of my thoughts on the subject, I know some people are not interested in a nuanced discussion of Marx's philosophy and the history of real world communism, but you seem like you would engage in good faith.
To your point that Marx thought socialism would inevitably lead to Communism, you are correct. However we should look at what Marx actually meant with communism, to him communism was a transition of the economic and political system into a class-less, state-less, money-less society. If we compare that to "real existing communism" we can certainly see that they are not in line with this definition. The Soviet Union was an immensely classist system, with the functionaries of the party being as advantaged as billionaires in capitalist systems, if not more. It was a society that used money for many aspects and the state was immensely powerful. So I do think we need to be careful not to mix Marx's ideas too much with what developed often many decades after his work.
Now to address his idea of what communism is itself. Do we think this is a realistic goal? To me, I have to say, I'm not convinced. It seems very utopian to me, and I can't easily conceive of it working barring some sort of Star Trek like abundance. I'm also not sure whether it is necessarily something we should aspire to, I do think some hierarchies, as long as they can be questioned and changed, are valuable to human organization.
To me Marx did mainly two things, 1) a very poignant critique of the capitalist system, with the emergence of a new dominant class dichotomy and 2) a misguided determinist historical philosophy which has proven so far to have been wrong. And I think we can see that value of the critique in the engagement it caused in many great thinkers of the 20th century, whether that is Max Weber, Talcott Parsons, Pierre Bourdieu, or Lord Dahrendorf.
But back to "real existing communism". I agree that there were immensely monstrous communist regime's and certainly all communist countries were deeply flawed. I generally think that communist countries existed on a spectrum of awfulness however. And I would extend that to capitalist countries as well. All capitalist countries are deeply flawed, the worst ones have done monstrous deeds in their history and they exist on a spectrum (same for hybrid systems as well). Certainly if we judge all the atrocities under Soviet Russia it seems fair to do the same for the Paragon's of Capitalist states, the United States and the United Kingdom. And there have been immense atrocities under those systems from the genocides against the native population, Slavery as an institution, the exploitation of the working classes (well illustrated in The Jungle for the United States and the Road to Wigan Pier for the United Kingdom), the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, the destabilization and sponsorship of terrorism in South America and the Middle East. The monstrosity of these capitalist countries is immensely high as well.
Furthermore Communism and Socialism are certainly not the same in how they are used today. We have social democratic countries like Sweden that call themselves socialist and we have authoritarian countries like China (which I would posit again has an economic system that is best described as state capitalism) that view themselves under the same banner.
I think many people can agree that the excesses of capitalism that we have witnessed particularly in the last 40 years have been deeply inhumane and have brought suffering to untold millions through the destruction of the welfare states, deregulation and the undermining of labour organization and worker's rights. And so it seems understandable to me that people are against these changes that were forced on us only relatively recently. Whether that means that all capitalism would have to be dismantled I am not convinced. I view myself as a traditional Social Democrat, which means that I can see some role of private capital in a well run economic system, but certainly not the hegemonic power it has over the economy and politics now. So as a traditional Social Democrat I also have to recognize that my policies far further left than the what is politically talked about in the West's Overton Window.
It also means to me, and I think that most people that call themselves socialist (barring some that role play as China and Soviet Union apologists, which I find unseemly) agree, that many of the liberal victories that we made in the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism are immensely valuable, and if anything should be extended (i.e. being born poor should not noticeably cut your freedoms compared to a child born to a billionaire, and that the democratization of the political system should be extended to more aspects of life where you are affected, e.g. the workplace or schools)
I hope I was able to make some of my thoughts clear. Please don't feel like you have to respond in kind if you don't have the time.