A few very broad things:
Marx thought that our entire outlook on life and everything else was determined by our material, and thus economic, reality. Someone in feudal times, for instance, would interpret everything via the relation of the land. Our feudal peasant would never conceive of owning land, because that was owned by the king and run by the lord, protected by the knight. There simply was no possibility of this happening to him. Further, the contents of his shack would not be his in the sense that it is in capitalism. The notion of private property, for the peasant, simply didn't exist. The cup he supped with was the same cup his father had supped with, and his father before him. Long after the peasant was buried, his ancestors would be drinking from the same cup. It was not his to do with as he pleased because it belonged to a conception of property that feudalism fostered.
In this sense, capitalism does the same thing. A Marxist would scoff at the idea that changing some of the administration (that stems from the material conception of reality that we have) would alter a damn thing unless the entire material base of society had changed a long with it.
An example Engels used:
Engels wrote:But of late, since Bismarck went in for State-ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious Socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkyism, that without more ado declares all State-ownership, even of the Bismarkian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the State of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism.
If the Belgian State, for quite ordinary political and financial reasons, itself constructed its chief railway lines; if Bismarck, not under any economic compulsion, took over for the State the chief Prussian lines, simply to be the better able to have them in hand in case of war, to bring up the railway employees as voting cattle for the Government, and especially to create for himself a new source of income independent of parliamentary votes — this was, in no sense, a socialistic measure, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. Otherwise, the Royal Maritime Company, the Royal porcelain manufacture, and even the regimental tailor of the army would also be socialistic institutions, or even, as was seriously proposed by a sly dog in Frederick William III's reign, the taking over by the State of the brothels.
And of course the great James Connolly:
Connolly wrote:Socialism properly implies above all things the co-operative control by the workers of the machinery of production; without this co-operative control the public ownership by the State is not Socialism – it is only State capitalism. The demands of the middle-class reformers, from the Railway Reform League down, are simply plans to facilitate the business transactions of the capitalist class. State Telephones – to cheapen messages in the interest of the middle class who are the principal users of the telephone system; State Railways – to cheapen carriage of goods in the interest of the middle-class trader; State-construction of piers, docks, etc. – in the interest of the middle-class merchant; in fact every scheme now advanced in which the help of the State is invoked is a scheme to lighten the burden of the capitalist – trader, manufacturer, or farmer. Were they all in working order to-morrow the change would not necessarily benefit the working class; we would still have in our state industries, as in the Post Office to-day, the same unfair classification of salaries, and the same despotic rule of an irresponsible head. Those who worked most and hardest would still get the least remuneration, and the rank and file would still be deprived of all voice in the ordering of their industry, just the same as in all private enterprises.
Therefore, we repeat, state ownership and control is not necessarily Socialism – if it were, then the Army, the Navy, the Police, the Judges, the Gaolers, the Informers, and the Hangmen, all would all be Socialist functionaries, as they are State officials – but the ownership by the State of all the land and materials for labour, combined with the co-operative control by the workers of such land and materials, would be Socialism.
Finally, if it be of help, Marx and Engels considered themselves, "Scientific Socialists." Or, more properly perhaps, "Communist Socialists." Here's how Engels defined the other various "types" of socialism while he was alive:
Engels wrote:[ Reactionary Socialists: ]
The first category consists of adherents of a feudal and patriarchal society which has already been destroyed, and is still daily being destroyed, by big industry and world trade and their creation, bourgeois society. This category concludes, from the evils of existing society, that feudal and patriarchal society must be restored because it was free of such evils. In one way or another, all their proposals are directed to this end.
This category of reactionary socialists, for all their seeming partisanship and their scalding tears for the misery of the proletariat, is nevertheless energetically opposed by the communists for the following reasons:
(i) It strives for something which is entirely impossible.
(ii) It seeks to establish the rule of the aristocracy, the guildmasters, the small producers, and their retinue of absolute or feudal monarchs, officials, soldiers, and priests – a society which was, to be sure, free of the evils of present-day society but which brought it at least as many evils without even offering to the oppressed workers the prospect of liberation through a communist revolution.
(iii) As soon as the proletariat becomes revolutionary and communist, these reactionary socialists show their true colors by immediately making common cause with the bourgeoisie against the proletarians.
[ Bourgeois Socialists: ]
The second category consists of adherents of present-day society who have been frightened for its future by the evils to which it necessarily gives rise. What they want, therefore, is to maintain this society while getting rid of the evils which are an inherent part of it.
To this end, some propose mere welfare measures – while others come forward with grandiose systems of reform which, under the pretense of re-organizing society, are in fact intended to preserve the foundations, and hence the life, of existing society.
Communists must unremittingly struggle against these bourgeois socialists because they work for the enemies of communists and protect the society which communists aim to overthrow.
[ Democratic Socialists: ]
Finally, the third category consists of democratic socialists who favor some of the same measures the communists advocate, as described in Question 18, not as part of the transition to communism, however, but as measures which they believe will be sufficient to abolish the misery and evils of present-day society.
These democratic socialists are either proletarians who are not yet sufficiently clear about the conditions of the liberation of their class, or they are representatives of the petty bourgeoisie, a class which, prior to the achievement of democracy and the socialist measures to which it gives rise, has many interests in common with the proletariat.
It follows that, in moments of action, the communists will have to come to an understanding with these democratic socialists, and in general to follow as far as possible a common policy with them – provided that these socialists do not enter into the service of the ruling bourgeoisie and attack the communists.
It is clear that this form of co-operation in action does not exclude the discussion of differences.
In time, however, Communists became the most prominent type of socialist and slowly a lot of the usage of the others were lost. Properly I cannot say that there are not other socialists. But there is the large distinction of the casual use of the word—socialism to mean, "government." Which, as above, is quite inaccurate in every definition of the phrase.
And now to Eran's point and back to the beginning: If it abolished, or led to, the destruction of private property, it would work. This is impossible, however, with his caveat that the interaction between each group must be, "through market transactions." Such a conception would not change anything. Private property would not be altered in the least. Worker, "ownership," usually means nothing when this is tried. WinCo is theoretically owned by the workers, but it is an immaterial conception of ownership that does not exist. Apple is largely owned by its workers, but a stock-market option means nothing. It is a conception of property that means nothing to the proletariat because it is only an abstract title that financiers use to measure worth.
Getting past this problem would be hard enough. But immediately syndicates that, "owned," what they produced and exchanged it for other goods would find themselves creating barons and other creatures that were able to grow rich by exploiting these, "market transactions," who produced nothing. Like the people that exchange value on Wall Street based on the workers that are said to own WinCo and part of Apple, merchants and day traders would grow wealthy and fat from the economic reality that they create, while the workers would have less and less as their conception of property would be limited to their syndicate instead of the system as a whole. They would remain alienated from their work and themselves and each other as their labor was pushed to market and that value pushed to the top.
The democracy in a syndicate would quickly be revealed as a sham as it would be democracy only so far as the wealthy allowed, for they would control the actual value and property in society. The, "democracy," would be akin to the democracy in Rome. A society for the slave-holding men of a certain class, but every man is allowed to beat his wife and the rest of his property in his own home—a republic of rights!
Now, if there was a model in which productive enterprises were organized as syndicates, democratically controlled by workers, but interacting with each other through the assumption that there was no private ownership, we would be in a place Marxists often call, "Socialism," as opposed to the, "Communism," that is supposed to follow suit:
Marx, describing Socialism, wrote:Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.
What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.
Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.
Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case.
In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.
But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.
But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
For the Marxist there is no hybrid. There are concessions we will gladly take. I suspect that if Eran's suggesting came to vote, Marxists would enthusiastically go for it in hopes of empowering the syndicates to smash the market forces that bound them. There is for us, no middle ground or marrying of the sides. To quote Connolly again, "Our demands are moderate: We only want the Earth."
Alis Volat Propriis; Tiocfaidh ár lá; Proletarier Aller Länder, Vereinigt Euch!