Because you’re doing a “no true Communism” bit that’s just purity testing, rather than accepting failures of AES as failures of AES and successes of AES as successes of AES.
For me true communism would be living in a group in consensus that nobody owns but the whole group together
Cool, so AES is AES and thus true attempts at Communism.
What is the purpose of Communism? Communism is not “enlightenment” it isn’t a religuous status, it’s a process. Working to put theory to practice, and correct as you go, is Communism.
The achievement of a “Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society,” ie Upper-Stage Communism, as Marx puts it, is a far-future society that has to be worked towards.
Because the people in power are not trying to make themselves obsolete and they all have some sort of class system that is actively maintained by the people in power
The government “collapsing itself” is not Marxist in any way, why would the government shrink itself? Additionally, what do you mean by “actively maintaining a class?” Have you read Marx? That might clear up some of your confusion.
Marx envisioned a historical process through which these conditions would be achieved:
1. Capitalism: Characterized by class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
2. Proletarian Revolution: The working class rises up to overthrow the capitalist system.
3. Socialism: A transitional stage where the proletariat controls the state and begins to dismantle the structures of capitalism. This involves reorganization of economic and social relations to eliminate class distinctions.
4. Communism: The final stage where the state has withered away, and society is fully classless and stateless.
The Government’s Role
The idea that a government could be “stateless in some sort” while not working towards making itself obsolete is contradictory in Marxist terms. For Marx:
• Any form of government or state that continues to exist as an authority structure inherently maintains some level of class distinction or power imbalance.
• A true movement towards communism would involve the state actively diminishing its role as class distinctions are resolved and social ownership is fully realized.
In summary, Marx’s definitions of statelessness and classlessness are intertwined with the dissolution of traditional state structures and the eradication of social classes, ultimately resulting in a society where cooperative, communal living replaces hierarchical and coercive systems of governance.
The bit on government. The State, for Marx, is the elements of Government that actively uphold Class Society, ie Private Property Rights. The role of government in AES countries should be to actively diminish class distinctions and remove the elements of the previous Class Society.
The government sort of becomes everything, ie the US post office is a government job. Trying to shrink government when the government is how everything gets made is silly.
Stateless refers to an elimination of the elements of government that uphold class society, like privateproperty rights.
Classless refers to relations to the Means of Production, ie Bourgeoisie and Proletarian. Government is an extension of the class in power, if government is fully proletarianized and there are no remnants of Capitalism, it is Classless.
"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 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!"
Because you’re doing a “no true Communism” bit that’s just purity testing, rather than accepting failures of AES as failures of AES and successes of AES as successes of AES.
Cool, so AES is AES and thus true attempts at Communism.
True attempt to achieve communism is not the same as achieving true communism, I’d say…
Why?
What is the purpose of Communism? Communism is not “enlightenment” it isn’t a religuous status, it’s a process. Working to put theory to practice, and correct as you go, is Communism.
The achievement of a “Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society,” ie Upper-Stage Communism, as Marx puts it, is a far-future society that has to be worked towards.
I don’t think current “AES” really work in the direction “stateless” nor "classless”. Maybe “moneyless” I could see that.
But I absolutely agree that the achievement of an upper-stage Communism would be fabulous
Why do you believe AES not to be working in the direction of achieving Communism?
Because the people in power are not trying to make themselves obsolete and they all have some sort of class system that is actively maintained by the people in power
Or in which “AES” is that not the case?
The government “collapsing itself” is not Marxist in any way, why would the government shrink itself? Additionally, what do you mean by “actively maintaining a class?” Have you read Marx? That might clear up some of your confusion.
Where do you disagree with that text?
The Path to Statelessness and Classlessness
Marx envisioned a historical process through which these conditions would be achieved:
The Government’s Role
The idea that a government could be “stateless in some sort” while not working towards making itself obsolete is contradictory in Marxist terms. For Marx:
In summary, Marx’s definitions of statelessness and classlessness are intertwined with the dissolution of traditional state structures and the eradication of social classes, ultimately resulting in a society where cooperative, communal living replaces hierarchical and coercive systems of governance.
The bit on government. The State, for Marx, is the elements of Government that actively uphold Class Society, ie Private Property Rights. The role of government in AES countries should be to actively diminish class distinctions and remove the elements of the previous Class Society.
The government sort of becomes everything, ie the US post office is a government job. Trying to shrink government when the government is how everything gets made is silly.
Have you read Marx?
So what are the meaning of stateless and classless then?
Stateless refers to an elimination of the elements of government that uphold class society, like privateproperty rights.
Classless refers to relations to the Means of Production, ie Bourgeoisie and Proletarian. Government is an extension of the class in power, if government is fully proletarianized and there are no remnants of Capitalism, it is Classless.
"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 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!"