[The Immortal Goon]

Socialism has it roots in striving for a stateless society. Plato in The Republic, suggested that collectivism and democracy came side-by-side.

Marx was a student of Epicurean Philosophy, which is materialist. Plato was an idealist. So far as monist philosophies go, this makes them opposites.

Typically Marxists don't think much of Plato:

It was not that the Greeks had such simple problems that they could work out simple solutions or types of solutions which are impossible in our more complicated civilizations. That is the great argument which comes very glibly to the lips 26 of modern enemies of direct democracy and even of some learned Greek scholars. It is false to the core. And the proof is that the greatest intellectuals of the day, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and others (men of genius such as the world has rarely seen), were all bitterly opposed to the democracy. To them, this government by the common people was wrong in principle and they criticized it constantly. More than that, Plato spent the greater part of his long life discussing and devising and publishing ways and means of creating forms of society, government and lay which would be superior to the Greek Democracy. And yet, Plato owed everything to the democracy.

He could think and discuss and publish freely solely because he lived in a democracy. We should remember too that the very ideas of what could constitute the perfect society he was always seeking, came to him and could come to him only because the democracy in Greece was itself constantly seeking to develop practically the best possible society. It is true that Plato and his circle developed theories and ideas about government and society which have been of permanent value to all who have worked theoretically at the problems of society ever since. Their work has become part of the common heritage of Western Civilization.

But we make a colossal mistake if we believe that all this is past history. For Plato’s best known book, The Republic, is his description of an ideal society to replace the democracy, and it is a perfect example of a totalitarian state, governed by an elite. And what is worse. Plato started and brilliantly expounded a practice which has lasted to this day among intellectuals — a constant speculation about different and possible methods of government, all based on a refusal to accept the fact that the common man can actually govern.

Even Marx argued that the end goal of socialism should be a stateless society, and that a dictatorship, if any should be short-lived (in my perception, less than a year), and only be a means to an end, as the state would, in theory concede its authority.

Marx said nothing about less than a year for the transition from capitalism to socialism; or socialism to communism. Nor would he come up with some arbitrary number of days.

Marx was a materialist (as seen above). This, in the short, means that the world is based upon material things that one can touch and feel instead of abstract ideas. Ideas themselves, for Marx, come from the material world (this is, incidentally, the opposite of Plato).

So, for example, a peasant relates differently to his landlord in feudalism than you do to your landlord in capitalism because of material reality. If you're drinking a cup of tea or a beer right now, it's from a cup that was bought. You could smash it, and nobody really cares, but you'd be out a $1.50.

If you were a feudal peasant, you would not recognize that distance of a $1.50 from you and the cup. The cup in your hand would be something an ancestor on the land to which you were part created. You would not smash it, for your children, and their children, would need it. Your relation to the world, how you thought about it, would be different as you would be part of the land instead of alienated from your work. When the landlord came by, you would get on bended knee to defer the land to whomever the lord was. Now you give the landlord cash. This is not to say that feudalism is better than capitalism, simply that your mental experience is different based upon these material relations with the land and how you live.

That is, in a very brief way, materialism.

And Marx was a Hegalian, which is to say, he saw merit in the dialectic. The dialectic is the philosophy of how things change.

So, for example, a star exists. That star has two contradictory forces upon it that cause it to survive; the fusion that makes the power go outward, and the gravity that forces the fusion inward. When a moment of crises occurs, the fusion wins and the star expands (as ours will)—or the gravity wins and the star shrinks and becomes more dense. This is a material example of a dialectic in action.

Were we to return to our hypothetic peasant, he too is part of the material world and subject to the dialectic. Our hypothetical peasant exists within a feudal system that has several contradictions. Let us assume he is in the Kingdom of France. The land he lives on had been the means of production for centuries and everything had been going well (the gravity and the fusion of the star had been maintained). At some point, wealth had started to be moved around in greater and greater means by private merchants that had existed before (think sun flairs). But, the discovery of the Americas changed this and upset this balance of material goods.

Let us, in the most basic way, go before Marx and right to Adam Smith the capitalist in explaining this:

The merchants knew perfectly in what manner it enriched themselves. It was their business to know it. But to know in what manner it enriched the country was no part of their business. This subject never came into their consideration but when they had occasion to apply to their country for some change in the laws relating to foreign trade. It then became necessary to say something about the beneficial effects of foreign trade, and the manner in which those effects were obstructed by the laws as they then stood. To the judges who were to decide the business it appeared a most satisfactory account of the matter, when they were told that foreign trade brought money into the country, but that the laws in question hindered it from bringing so much as it otherwise would do. Those arguments therefore produced the wished-for effect. The prohibition of exporting gold and silver was in France and England confined to the coin of those respective countries. The exportation of foreign coin and of bullion was made free. In Holland, and in some other places, this liberty was extended even to the coin of the country.

The attention of government was turned away from guarding against the exportation of gold and silver to watch over the balance of trade as the only cause which could occasion any augmentation or diminution of those metals.

It is not by the importation of gold and silver that the discovery of America has enriched Europe. By the abundance of the American mines, those metals have become cheaper. A service of plate can now be purchased for about a third part of the corn, or a third part of the labour, which it would have cost in the fifteenth century. With the same annual expence of labour and commodities, Europe can annually purchase about three times the quantity of plate which it could have purchased at that time. But when a commodity comes to be sold for a third part of what had been its usual price, not only those who purchased it before can purchase three times their former quantity, but it is brought down to the level of a much greater number of purchasers, perhaps to more than ten, perhaps to more than twenty times the former number. So that there may be in Europe at present not only more than three times, but more than twenty or thirty times the quantity of plate which would have been in it, even in its present state of improvement, had the discovery of the American mines never been made. So far Europe has, no doubt, gained a real conveniency, though surely a very trifling one. The cheapness of gold and silver renders those metals rather less fit for the purposes of money than they were before. In order to make the same purchases, we must load ourselves with a greater quantity of them, and carry about a shilling in our pocket where a groat would have done before. It is difficult to say which is most trifling, this inconveniency or the opposite conveniency. Neither the one nor the other could have made any very essential change in the state of Europe. The discovery of America, however, certainly made a most essential one. By opening a new and inexhaustible market to all the commodities of Europe, it gave occasion to new divisions of labour and improvements of art, which in the narrow circle of the ancient commerce, could never have taken place for want of a market to take off the greater part of their produce. The productive powers of labour were improved, and its produce increased in all the different countries of Europe, and together with it the real revenue and wealth of the inhabitants. The commodities of Europe were almost all new to America, and many of those of America were new to Europe. A new set of exchanges, therefore, began to take place which had never been thought of before, and which should naturally have proved as advantageous to the new, as it certainly did to the old continent. The savage injustice of the Europeans rendered an event, which ought to have been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to several of those unfortunate countries.

Marx does not disagree, but explains why this occurred through a materialist means that Smith himself tacitly admits he does not understand. Here, like a star becoming unbalanced, the material world around our hypothetic peasant falls apart. He will lose faith in the divine right of his king as he realizes that the cup in his hand can be simply bought; that the connections he assumed were real can be unbound; that he is a part of a larger economy being built by the merchants that grow richer and richer:

The bourgeoisie [merchants], historically, has played a most revolutionary part.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.
The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one- sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.

The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff.

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?

And the star supernovas; the merchants rise to power; the peasant ceases to become a peasant but a worker. This is done materially thought a dialectic.

To return to the initial point, Marx would have seen this process and not have assigned an arbitrary number of days upon its completion. It is dependent upon the people, the material reality of the nation, instead of an iron-clad digit to which to conform.

What Marx describes hardly sounds like a day's work:

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!

Nonetheless, he plans dependent upon the conditions, which he realistically will take a long time to fix.

One may question what this transition will look like. For Marx and Engels it was to be the dictatorship of a class. This is not to say the dictatorship of an individual, but just as the bourgeoisie has a dictatorship over capitalist society, the proletariat will have a dictatorship in socialism before the antagonisms liquidate themselves (there is no more class distinction) and then there is no more reason to have a state to begin with; and it will wither away as a mechanism of class dictatorship—which is the entire reason for there to be a state.

Will the dictatorship of the proletariat be bouncing around with bourgeois rights and liberal ethics? No:

A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned. This summary mode of procedure is being abused to such an extent that it has become necessary to look into the matter somewhat more closely.

Authority, in the sense in which the word is used here, means: the imposition of the will of another upon ours; on the other hand, authority presupposes subordination. Now, since these two words sound bad, and the relationship which they represent is disagreeable to the subordinated party, the question is to ascertain whether there is any way of dispensing with it, whether — given the conditions of present-day society — we could not create another social system, in which this authority would be given no scope any longer, and would consequently have to disappear.

...it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely good. Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with the various phases of the development of society. If the autonomists confined themselves to saying that the social organisation of the future would restrict authority solely to the limits within which the conditions of production render it inevitable, we could understand each other; but they are blind to all facts that make the thing necessary and they passionately fight the world.

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.

---

Marxism is, in essence, a rather dry analysis of how things work right now based upon material conditions on the assumption that things change in a way that can be measured.

I recommend Wage, Labour, and Capital.

I further recommend not discounting Lenin because Stalin attempted to make himself appear to be a disciple of Lenin. Lenin lost many proposals he put forward, and he never regarded the Soviet Union as socialist—but as a barely cobbled together workers' state that needed to be fixed.

[AJS]

I think your idealism fails where most idealism fails in not taking human nature into account.

People act in their own self interest first. They make economic decisions, they use their positions of influence, vote and voice according to what they feel will be most beneficial to them.

The beauty of (what can be loosely termed) capitalism is that it harnesses this self interest as a force for a general good. Most forms of communism seem to fall down at the first hurdle when leaders, officials and the population in general start acting in their own self interest.

As for post scarcity, this would last about a week without economic incentives and after that we would face scarcity of the most basic necessities such as food and water.

Marx' gradual withering of the state turned out to be a rather dramatic expansion of the state in every area of life under brutal totalitarian governments wherever it was attempted from Cuba to North Korea by way of Poland and Ethiopia. You can always find some other excuse as to why this or that great progressive movement floundered but it usually seems to come down to people not acting in accordance with the vision of the leaders.

Read Animal Farm.

[The Immortal Goon]

Read Animal Farm: a novel by a socialist Marxist named Orwell that found capitalism to be the most totalitarian system invented.

Read about how the worst possible outcome of Napoleon (Stalin) was only realized when he attempted to be a farmer (a capitalist); the most backward and draconian thing imaginable.

Read Orewell's HOMAGE TO CATELONIA, the non-fiction work where he joins the POUM, a red/black group led by Leon Trotsky's secretary Andres Nin in the Spanish Civil War.

Then read 1984 when he goes on about a totalitarian society that changes the language to mean the opposite of what it means. For instance, Orwell was a capitalist. He was very clear about hating capitalism for his entire career--and yet the shameless capitalist sees nothing wrong with using Orwellian tactics against Orwell.

[MememyselfandIJK]

Thank you both for your detailed responses. You two have very good points that I want to discuss.

There are MANY different types of socialism, possibly as many types as there are socialism. While Marxism is the major type of modern socialism, not all socialists agree with Marx. Personally, I agree with some, but not all, of his methods (the few months to a year for the dictatorship of the proletariat is my own, not Marx's, figure). However, I do not agree with his reasons. Let me explain further.

I am an Idealist, not a materialist. I think that Ideas (whether they be scientific, philosophical, or otherwise, as long as they are grounded in logic) are more important than objects. Objects are meaningless and are simply a means for survival, our humanity and our potential come from ideas and our interpretations of them. This explains my support for science and philosophy in the original post, as well as opposition due to religious dogma (because it is not grounded in logic, but rather in assumption).

My socialist leanings come from the environment I live in. Here in the United States we have among the largest income equality in the world. The average CEO makes about 470 times the average worker. The average worker not a minimum wage worker, an average worker. It torments me that upper class Americans are far more concerned with material gain than enlightenment (as defined by Immanuel Kant) and that lower classes have to struggle on a day to day basis in order to make ends meet that they too cannot seek enlightenment. If all classes were abolished, and monetary gain was not rewarded, but instead, ideological and scientific gain was, humans could make things happen. We could travel amongst the stars, cure all disease, and become something truly remarkable.

I agree with most major communists, including Marx, that this society will have to come about through the common worker. Like, Trotsky I believe the revolution should be a world-wide unifying force itself. However, that is where the similarities end. I believe, as a pacifist, that the revolution must be peaceful. Violent revolution simply does not work in this day and age. Furthermore, most communists speak of the dictatorship of the "proletariat." Whether this is metaphorical, and it is still a democracy, or it is literally a dictatorship, I do not care as long as they can transition into the next phase. Furthermore, this transition should not take more than a year, and the government through a series of bills (or whatever) cedes its power to the people (equally mind you, anyone who was wealthy under capitalism is to be given another chance, no questions asked). In the end, the government should be a direct democracy with leadership positions only to carry out what the vote states (i.e. people will not be elected based on a political platform, but rather their ability to carry out the wishes of the people). This government should be very minimal and have no power other than helping organize the judiciary, overseeing the management of the economy by the people, and doing what the people demand. Arms will be temporarily banned while society reorganizes itself, but will be allowed again at a later point if it passes a referendum.

I think your idealism fails where most idealism fails in not taking human nature into account. People act in their own self interest first. They make economic decisions, they use their positions of influence, vote and voice according to what they feel will be most beneficial to them.

That is a very good point, and unfortunately is by far, the biggest flaw in my ideology and in socialism in general. I understand that to achieve this kind of society, the human condition will have to be severely revised, something that can take centuries, or even millennia, and is not always a complete transformation. I would say that monetary gain is not rewarded, but ideological gain is, but that is an incomplete answer. The truth is, at this stage of the human condition, there is simply no good answer.


As for 1984 and Animal Farm, I have not read them, but I plan to and I am familiar with their plot line and symbolism. To me, Animal Farm is a representation of how Stalin took advantage of the far too slow dictatorship of the proletariat. It is also the reason why the dictatorship must be dissolved over the course of a year. Any longer, and figures such as Stalin swoop in and take power.

As for 1984, I find it to be a warning of authoritarianism in general, not just authoritarian communism. I also find that much of the propaganda and the general situation is highly representative of the Nazis, not just Stalin.

[The Immortal Goon]

I am an Idealist, not a materialist. I think that Ideas (whether they be scientific, philosophical, or otherwise, as long as they are grounded in logic) are more important than objects. Objects are meaningless and are simply a means for survival, our humanity and our potential come from ideas and our interpretations of them. This explains my support for science and philosophy in the original post, as well as opposition due to religious dogma (because it is not grounded in logic, but rather in assumption).

My socialist leanings come from the environment I live in.

Burnham doesn’t recognize dialectics but dialectics does not permit him to escape from its net.

This is to say, even here, you rely on how your idealism was born from your material conditions.

For me, it's a simple excercize: if Idealism were accurate, someone could have come up with the idea for a nuclear power plant in Ancient Rome. One could never conceive of such a thing because the material conditions in which one live din Ancient Rome, was no the same as our own today. Same brain, capable of the same thoughts, but without the awareness of the material creation of the engine.

And you, yourself, seem to point out that your material conditions have affected your thoughts rather than the other way around.

I believe, as a pacifist, that the revolution must be peaceful. Violent revolution simply does not work in this day and age

It seems very unlikely that the powers that be would simply stop being violent themselves and peacefully surrender power upon request.

Indeed that lesson has been all too tardily learned by the people and their leaders. One great source of the strength of the ruling class has ever been their willingness to kill in defence of their power and privileges. Let their power be once attacked either by foreign foes, or domestic revolutionists, and at once we see the rulers prepared to kill, and kill, and kill. The readiness of the ruling class to order killing, the small value the ruling class has ever set upon human life, is in marked contrast to the reluctance of all revolutionists to shed blood.

The French Reign of Terror is spoken of with horror and execration by the people who talk in joyful praise about the mad adventure of the Dardanelles. And yet in any one day of battle at the Dardanelles there were more lives lost than in all the nine months of the Reign of Terror.

Should the day ever come when revolutionary leaders are prepared to sacrifice the lives of those under them as recklessly as the ruling class do in every war, there will not be a throne or despotic government left in the world. Our rulers reign by virtue of their readiness to destroy human life in order to reign; their reign will end on the day their discontented subjects care as little for the destruction of human life as they do.

Furthermore, most communists speak of the dictatorship of the "proletariat." Whether this is metaphorical, and it is still a democracy, or it is literally a dictatorship, I do not care as long as they can transition into the next phase. Furthermore, this transition should not take more than a year, and the government through a series of bills (or whatever) cedes its power to the people (equally mind you, anyone who was wealthy under capitalism is to be given another chance, no questions asked). In the end, the government should be a direct democracy with leadership positions only to carry out what the vote states (i.e. people will not be elected based on a political platform, but rather their ability to carry out the wishes of the people). This government should be very minimal and have no power other than helping organize the judiciary, overseeing the management of the economy by the people, and doing what the people demand. Arms will be temporarily banned while society reorganizes itself, but will be allowed again at a later point if it passes a referendum.

Aside from the yearly timeline, this is the essential idea of the dicatatorship of the proletariat. It is a democracy in the true sense of the word instead of a democracy for the wealthy and something else for the majority.

Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich--that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the “petty”--supposedly petty--details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for “paupers”!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc.,--we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been inclose contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.

Marx grasped this essence of capitalist democracy splendidly when, in analyzing the experience of the Commune, he said that the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!

But from this capitalist democracy--that is inevitably narrow and stealthily pushes aside the poor, and is therefore hypocritical and false through and through--forward development does not proceed simply, directly and smoothly, towards "greater and greater democracy", as the liberal professors and petty-bourgeois opportunists would have us believe. No, forward development, i.e., development towards communism, proceeds through the dictatorship of the proletariat, and cannot do otherwise, for the resistance of the capitalist exploiters cannot be broken by anyone else or in any other way.

And the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the organization of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of suppressing the oppressors, cannot result merely in an expansion of democracy. Simultaneously with an immense expansion of democracy, which for the first time becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the money-bags, the dictatorship of the proletariat imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists. We must suppress them in order to free humanity from wage slavery, their resistance must be crushed by force; it is clear that there is no freedom and no democracy where there is suppression and where there is violence.

Engels expressed this splendidly in his letter to Bebel when he said, as the reader will remember, that "the proletariat needs the state, not in the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state as such ceases to exist".

Democracy for the vast majority of the people, and suppression by force, i.e., exclusion from democracy, of the exploiters and oppressors of the people--this is the change democracy undergoes during the transition from capitalism to communism.

Only in communist society, when the resistance of the capitalists have disappeared, when there are no classes (i.e., when there is no distinction between the members of society as regards their relation to the social means of production), only then "the state... ceases to exist", and "it becomes possible to speak of freedom". Only then will a truly complete democracy become possible and be realized, a democracy without any exceptions whatever. And only then will democracy begin to wither away, owing to the simple fact that, freed from capitalist slavery, from the untold horrors, savagery, absurdities, and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will gradually become accustomed to observing the elementary rules of social intercourse that have been known for centuries and repeated for thousands of years in all copy-book maxims. They will become accustomed to observing them without force, without coercion, without subordination, without the special apparatus for coercion called the state.

Incidentally, I'm quoting as much as I am since I think you might be interested, not because I'm expecting you to take this as holy writ that you are forced to take.

[AJS]

Sounds a bit Procrustean, altering the people to suit the ideology.

How do you ensure that people develop in a way that will suit the ideology without opening the door to totalitarianism?

[MememyselfandIJK]

Thank you guys for helping me think this through. Criticism helps me understand my ideology better.

Aside from the yearly timeline, this is the essential idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is a democracy in the true sense of the word instead of a democracy for the wealthy and something else for the majority.

I believe that while representative democracy can be flawed and used as a tool of the wealthy (Ahem... United States), a direct democracy can be that something else for the majority. There are no politicians (although there are elected members of the civil service), so there is no one to bribe, no political platforms (everything is a direct vote), so no incentive to vote for corrupt civil service members.

How do you ensure that people develop in a way that will suit the ideology without opening the door to totalitarianism?

This is tricky and like I said earlier, human nature is one of the biggest flaws. However, if the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was a direct democracy, then there, again would be no politicians to emphasize and gain power. Stalin's rise to power came after Lenin died and there was a power vacuum. However, there would never be a power vacuum because the people are always there. It would still be a "dictatorship of the proletariat" in a metaphorical sense because proletariat far outnumber the other classes and would always get their way in elections, but there would be no opportunity for literal dictatorship.

Sounds a bit Procrustean, altering the people to suit the ideology.

Yes it is. However, human nature today is corrupt, and we need to make a society wide-effort to revise it if we wish to progress exponentially.

For me, it's a simple excercize: if Idealism were accurate, someone could have come up with the idea for a nuclear power plant in Ancient Rome. One could never conceive of such a thing because the material conditions in which one live din Ancient Rome, was no the same as our own today. Same brain, capable of the same thoughts, but without the awareness of the material creation of the engine.

One cannot just take a jump from Roman technology to "using a special substance to make energy." There is a logical progression of ideas that must follow, from the existence of electricity, to understanding how it could be utilized, to understanding the fundamental structure of the atom, to understanding radiation and so on. Ideas aren't just born out of a vacuum, they are built on top of previous ideas.

This is to say, even here, you rely on how your idealism was born from your material conditions.

Yes, my idealism, is born from the material conditions here in the US, but rather than being born as part of it, my Idealism is a reaction against it. My idealism strives to separate humanity from the materialistic conditions found here, and depart from materialism. I understand that my version of idealism is a little different in origin than traditional idealism, but it contains the same underlying concepts of ideas are more important than objects.

Incidentally, I'm quoting as much as I am since I think you might be interested, not because I'm expecting you to take this as holy writ that you are forced to take.

Of course, its is always good to cite examples when making a historical argument. Reading someone's else's ideas can be a valuable experience, but you must be careful how you interpret them.

[AJS]

I don't see you having any more success than any other well meaning revolutionaries have had in charting a course between the various different forms pf tyranny by either empowering a few people to design the system you want, handing enormous power to flawed humans, or having a sort of anarchy where might is right.

[MememyselfandIJK]

I don't see you having any more success than any other well meaning revolutionaries have had in charting a course between the various different forms pf tyranny by either empowering a few people to design the system you want, handing enormous power to flawed humans, or having a sort of anarchy where might is right.

Between total dictatorship and total chaos (malignant anarchy, not benevolent anarchy as most anarchists talk about where, although the formal state is so divided that it is powerless, or completely abolished, people still abide by a social contract a la John Locke) there is a balance. This balance is struck by democratic countries (and no, the US slides more towards the authoritarian side because politicians cater more and more to business interests than what is truly good for the people) who enforce enough of a official social contract in the form of law, yet have no true control over people. This is a balance that can vary from situation to situation, and can range from anywhere from a semi-representative democracy to benevolent anarchy depending on the society. However this balance is relatively independent of economic situation, although communist societies in general require slightly more government that capitalist societies do (This explains why failed communist societies such as the USSR almost consistently fall into a dictatorship, while failed capitalist societies may fall into fascism (capitalist dictatorship as described by Mussolini and Hitler) or simply into malignant anarchy).

This may sound confusing but my point is that this argument applies to all societies, no matter their economic orientation. This is why on the political compass (a two axis political spectrum with an economic and political axis) puts economics (Capitalism on the right, socialism at the middle, communism on the left) and politics (Authoritarianism on the top, Anarchy or libertarianism at the bottom) on different axis, political standing has little to do with economic standing.