Communism Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==== Marxist concepts ==== ===== Class conflict and historical materialism ===== {{main|Class conflict|Historical materialism}} At the root of Marxism is historical materialism, the [[materialist]] conception of history which holds that the key characteristic of economic systems through history has been the [[mode of production]] and that the change between modes of production has been triggered by class struggle. According to this analysis, the [[Industrial Revolution]] ushered the world into the new [[Capitalist mode of production (Marxist theory)|capitalist mode of production]]. Before capitalism, certain [[working class]]es had ownership of instruments used in production; however, because machinery was much more efficient, this property became worthless and the mass majority of workers could only survive by selling their labor to make use of someone else's machinery, and making someone else profit. Accordingly, capitalism divided the world between two major classes, namely that of the [[proletariat]] and the [[bourgeoisie]]. These classes are directly antagonistic as the latter possesses [[private ownership]] of the [[means of production]], earning profit via the [[surplus value]] generated by the proletariat, who have no ownership of the means of production and therefore no option but to sell its labor to the bourgeoisie.<ref>{{cite book |last=Engels |first=Friedrich |author-link=Friedrich Engels |date=1969 |chapter="Principles of Communism". No. 4 – "How did the proletariat originate?" |title=Marx & Engels Selected Works |volume=I |location=Moscow |publisher=[[Progress Publishers]] |pages=81–97}}</ref> According to the materialist conception of history, it is through the furtherance of its own material interests that the rising bourgeoisie within [[feudalism]] captured power and abolished, of all relations of private property, only the feudal privilege, thereby taking the feudal [[ruling class]] out of existence. This was another key element behind the consolidation of capitalism as the new mode of production, the final expression of class and property relations that has led to a massive expansion of production. It is only in capitalism that private property in itself can be abolished.<ref>[[Friedrich Engels|Engels, Friedrich]]. [1847] (1969). "[https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm#015 "Was not the abolition of private property possible at an earlier time?]" ''[[Principles of Communism]]''. ''[[Marx/Engels Collected Works]]''. '''I'''. Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 81–97.</ref> Similarly, the proletariat would capture political power, abolish bourgeois property through the [[common ownership]] of the means of production, therefore abolishing the bourgeoisie, ultimately abolishing the proletariat itself and ushering the world into [[Communist society|communism as a new mode of production]]. In between capitalism and communism, there is the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]]; it is the defeat of the [[bourgeois state]] but not yet of the capitalist mode of production, and at the same time the only element which places into the realm of possibility moving on from this mode of production. This ''dictatorship'', based on the [[Paris Commune]]'s model,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Priestland |first=David |date=January 2002 |url=https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/13937520.pdf |title=Soviet Democracy, 1917–91 |journal=[[European History Quarterly]] |location=Thousand Oaks, California |publisher=[[SAGE Publications]] |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=111–130 |doi=10.1177/0269142002032001564 |s2cid=144067197 |access-date=19 August 2021 |via=Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung |quote=Lenin defended all four elements of Soviet democracy in his seminal theoretical work of 1917, ''State and Revolution''. The time had come, Lenin argued, for the destruction of the foundations of the bourgeois state, and its replacement with an ultra-democratic 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' based on the model of democracy followed by the communards of Paris in 1871. Much of the work was theoretical, designed, by means of quotations from Marx and Engels, to win battles within the international Social Democratic movement against Lenin's arch-enemy Kautsky. However, Lenin was not operating only in the realm of theory. He took encouragement from the rise of a whole range of institutions that seemed to embody class-based, direct democracy, and in particular the soviets and the factory committees, which demanded the right to 'supervise' ('kontrolirovat') (although not to take the place of) factory management.}}</ref> is to be the most democratic state where the whole of the public authority is elected and recallable under the basis of [[universal suffrage]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Twiss |first=Thomas M. |title=Trotsky and the Problem of Soviet Bureaucracy |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]] |pages=28–29 |date=2014 |isbn=978-90-04-26953-8}}</ref> ===== Critique of political economy ===== {{main|Critique of political economy}} Critique of [[political economy]] is a form of [[social critique]] that rejects the various social categories and structures that constitute the mainstream discourse concerning the forms and modalities of resource allocation and income distribution in the economy. Communists, such as Marx and Engels, are described as prominent critics of political economy.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Murray |first=Patrick |date=March 2020 |title=The Illusion of the Economic: Social Theory without Social Forms |journal=[[Critical Historical Studies]] |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=19–27 |doi=10.1086/708005 |issn=2326-4462 |quote='There are no counterparts to Marx's economic concepts in either classical or utility theory.' I take this to mean that Marx breaks with economics, where economics is understood to be a generally applicable social science. |s2cid=219746578}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Liedman |first=Sven-Eric |date=December 2020 |title=Engelsismen |url=https://fronesis.nu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/FR02808.pdf |journal=[[Fronesis (magazine)|Fronesis]] |language=sv |page=134 |quote=Engels var också först med att kritiskt bearbeta den nya nationalekonomin; hans 'Utkast till en kritik av nationalekonomin' kom ut 1844 och blev en utgångspunkt för Marx egen kritik av den politiska ekonomin |number=28 |trans-quote=Engels was the first to critically engage the new political economy his 'Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy' came out in 1844 and became a starting point for Marx's own critique of political economy.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=István |last=Mészáros |date=2010 |others=transcribed by Conttren, V. (2022) |chapter=The Critique of Political Economy |title=Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness |volume=1 |location=New York |publisher=[[Monthly Review Press]] |pages=317–331 |chapter-url=https://osf.io/65mxd/ |doi=10.17605/OSF.IO/65MXD}}</ref> The critique rejects economists' use of what its advocates believe are unrealistic [[axiom]]s, faulty historical assumptions, and the normative use of various descriptive narratives.<ref>{{cite book |last=Henderson |first=Willie |title=John Ruskin's political economy |date=2000 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=0-203-15946-2 |location=London |oclc=48139638 |quote=... Ruskin attempted a methodological/scientific critique of political economy. He fixed on ideas of 'natural laws', 'economic man' and the prevailing notion of 'value' to point out gaps and inconsistencies in the system of classical economics.}}</ref> They reject what they describe as mainstream economists' tendency to posit the economy as an ''[[a priori]]'' societal category.<ref name="Reading Capital">{{cite book |last1=Louis |first1=Althusser |url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1968/reading-capital/ch02.htm |title=Reading Capital |last2=Balibar |first2=Etienne |publisher=[[Verso Editions]] |year=1979 |pages=158 |oclc=216233458 |quote='To criticize Political Economy' means to confront it with a new problematic and a new object: i.e., to question the very object of Political Economy}}</ref> Those who engage in critique of economy tend to reject the view that the economy and its categories is to be understood as something [[transhistorical]].<ref>{{Citation |last1=Fareld |first1=Victoria |title=From Marx to Hegel and Back |date=2020 |page=142,182 |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Academic]] |doi=10.5040/9781350082700.ch-001 |isbn=978-1-3500-8267-0 |last2=Kuch |first2=Hannes |s2cid=213805975}}</ref>{{sfn|Postone|1995|pages=44,192–216}} It is seen as merely one of many types of historically specific ways to distribute resources. They argue that it is a relatively new mode of resource distribution, which emerged along with modernity.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Mortensen |title=Ekonomi |journal=Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap |language=sv |volume=3 |number=4 |pages=9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Moishe |last=Postone |title=Time, labor, and social domination: a reinterpretation of Marx's critical theory |year=1995 |isbn=0-521-56540-5 |pages=130, 5 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |oclc=910250140}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Jönsson |first=Dan |title=John Ruskin: En brittisk 1800-talsaristokrat för vår tid? - OBS |date=7 February 2019 |url=https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1244376 |url-status=live |access-date=24 September 2021 |publisher=[[Sveriges Radio]] |language=sv |quote=Den klassiska nationalekonomin, som den utarbetats av John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith och David Ricardo, betraktade han som en sorts kollektivt hjärnsläpp ... |trans-quote=The classical political economy as it was developed by John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith, and David Ricardo, as a kind of 'collective mental lapse' ... |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200305082621/https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1244376 |archive-date=5 March 2020}}</ref> Critics of economy critique the given status of the economy itself, and do not aim to create theories regarding how to administer economies.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ramsay |first=Anders |date=21 December 2009 |title=Marx? Which Marx? Marx's work and its history of reception |url=https://www.eurozine.com/marx-which-marx/ |url-status=live |access-date=16 September 2021 |website=[[Eurozine]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180212144158/http://www.eurozine.com/marx-which-marx/ |archive-date=12 February 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Ruccio |first=David |date=10 December 2020 |title=Toward a critique of political economy |website=MR Online |url=https://mronline.org/2020/12/10/toward-a-critique-of-political-economy/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201215173028/https://mronline.org/2020/12/10/toward-a-critique-of-political-economy/ |archive-date=15 December 2020 |access-date=20 September 2021 |quote=Marx arrives at conclusions and formulates new terms that run directly counter to those of Smith, Ricardo, and the other classical political economists.}}</ref> Critics of economy commonly view what is most commonly referred to as the economy as being bundles of [[metaphysical]] concepts, as well as societal and normative practices, rather than being the result of any self-evident or proclaimed economic laws.<ref name="Reading Capital"/> They also tend to consider the views which are commonplace within the field of economics as faulty, or simply as [[pseudoscience]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Murray |first=Patrick |date=March 2020 |title=The Illusion of the Economic: Social Theory without Social Forms |journal=[[Critical Historical Studies]] |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=19–27 |doi=10.1086/708005 |issn=2326-4462 |s2cid=219746578}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Patterson |first1=Orlando |last2=Fosse |first2=Ethan |title=Overreliance on the Pseudo-Science of Economics |url=https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/02/09/are-economists-overrated/overreliance-on-the-pseudo-science-of-economics |url-status=live |work=[[The New York Times]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150209225723/http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/02/09/are-economists-overrated/overreliance-on-the-pseudo-science-of-economics |archive-date=9 February 2015 |access-date=13 January 2023}}</ref> Into the 21st century, there are multiple critiques of political economy; what they have in common is the critique of what critics of political economy tend to view as [[dogma]], i.e. claims of the economy as a necessary and transhistorical societal category.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Ruda |first1=Frank |last2=Hamza |first2=Agon |date=2016 |title=Introduction: Critique of Political Economy |url=http://crisiscritique.org/political11/Introduction-2.pdf |journal=[[Crisis and Critique]] |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=5–7 |access-date=13 January 2023 |archive-date=16 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211116135722/http://crisiscritique.org/political11/Introduction-2.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref> ===== Marxian economics ===== {{main|Marxian economics}} Marxian economics and its proponents view capitalism as economically unsustainable and incapable of improving the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate for [[falling rates of profit]] by cutting employee's wages, social benefits, and pursuing military aggression. The [[communist mode of production]] would succeed capitalism as humanity's new mode of production through workers' [[revolution]]. According to Marxian [[crisis theory]], communism is not an inevitability but an economic necessity.<ref>Free will, non-predestination and non-determinism are emphasized in Marx's famous quote "Men make their own history". ''The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte'' (1852).</ref> ===== Socialization versus nationalization ===== {{main|Socialization (economics)|Socialization (Marxism)}} An important concept in Marxism is socialization, i.e. [[social ownership]], versus [[nationalization]]. Nationalization is [[state ownership]] of property whereas socialization is control and management of property by society. Marxism considers the latter as its goal and considers nationalization a tactical issue, as state ownership is still in the realm of the [[Capitalist mode of production (Marxist theory)|capitalist mode of production]]. In the words of [[Friedrich Engels]], "the transformation ... into State-ownership does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. ... State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution."<ref name=":0" group="lower-alpha">{{harvp|Engels|1970|pp=95–151}}: "But, the transformation—either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership—does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine—the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers—proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is, rather, brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution."</ref> This has led Marxist groups and tendencies critical of the [[Soviet model]] to label states based on nationalization, such as the Soviet Union, as [[state capitalist]], a view that is also shared by several scholars.{{r|Chomsky, Howard, Fitzgibbons}}{{r|The Soviet Union Has an Administered, Not a Planned, Economy, 1985}}{{r|Ellman 2007}} =====Democracy in Marxism===== {{Excerpt|Democracy in Marxism}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! 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