Re:Marx’s diagnosis of capitalism’s flaws is surprisingly re...
by dragonwriter on Thursday May 03, 2018 @06:22PM
(#16990545)
> What's the difference?
Well, it depends which “Communism” you are talking about.
If you are talking about the broad set of political theories going by the name “Communism”, then the difference is that Communism is a broad set of theories of which Marxism is one specific theory (or, depending on how broadly you use the term “Marxism”, a distinct set of closely related theories within the broader universe of Communism.)
If, OTOH, you mean “the set of regimes which established control of various states starting with the Soviet Union and including a large number of others throughout the 20th century, with somemretaining power into the 21st”, then the difference is that “Communism” is really Leninism and it's derivatives, which (again depending on how broadly you see Marxism) is either a radical departure from key premises of Marxism that has an affectation of rhetorically labelling itself a subset of Marxism despite that radical departure, or a particular distinct subset of Marxism characterized most importantly by adaptation to the conditions in much of the world outside of North America and Western Europe in the 20th Century by abandoning the precondition of development of a broad proletarian class consciousness under developed capitalism in favor of the leadership of a narrow activist elite to shepherd the revolution (vanguardism).
> Marx makes it pretty clear Manifesto of the Communist Party what policies he thinks should be implemented.
Marx and Engels make pretty clear in the Manifesto what they thought should be the next policy steps taken given prevailing conditions in developed capitalist states in Western Europe at the time.
To the limited extent that those recommendations have subsequently been adopted in developed capitalist states, they've worked out pretty well; the developed world has pretty much abandoned the system 19th Century critics named “capitalism” in the course of criticizing it for the hybrid modern “mixed economy”, and while there are certainly people—especially those at, or who dream they would be at, the top of the pile of capitalist heap—who’d like to go back, that doesn't seem to be a big mass movement.
If I tell you a course you should take to get from point A to point B and you start out at point C but try to follow it's sequence of headings and distances, with some invented alterations of your own, and end up falling into a volcano instead of getting to point B, it may not be my directions that are at fault.
Well, it depends which “Communism” you are talking about.
If you are talking about the broad set of political theories going by the name “Communism”, then the difference is that Communism is a broad set of theories of which Marxism is one specific theory (or, depending on how broadly you use the term “Marxism”, a distinct set of closely related theories within the broader universe of Communism.)
If, OTOH, you mean “the set of regimes which established control of various states starting with the Soviet Union and including a large number of others throughout the 20th century, with somemretaining power into the 21st”, then the difference is that “Communism” is really Leninism and it's derivatives, which (again depending on how broadly you see Marxism) is either a radical departure from key premises of Marxism that has an affectation of rhetorically labelling itself a subset of Marxism despite that radical departure, or a particular distinct subset of Marxism characterized most importantly by adaptation to the conditions in much of the world outside of North America and Western Europe in the 20th Century by abandoning the precondition of development of a broad proletarian class consciousness under developed capitalism in favor of the leadership of a narrow activist elite to shepherd the revolution (vanguardism).
> Marx makes it pretty clear Manifesto of the Communist Party what policies he thinks should be implemented.
Marx and Engels make pretty clear in the Manifesto what they thought should be the next policy steps taken given prevailing conditions in developed capitalist states in Western Europe at the time.
To the limited extent that those recommendations have subsequently been adopted in developed capitalist states, they've worked out pretty well; the developed world has pretty much abandoned the system 19th Century critics named “capitalism” in the course of criticizing it for the hybrid modern “mixed economy”, and while there are certainly people—especially those at, or who dream they would be at, the top of the pile of capitalist heap—who’d like to go back, that doesn't seem to be a big mass movement.
If I tell you a course you should take to get from point A to point B and you start out at point C but try to follow it's sequence of headings and distances, with some invented alterations of your own, and end up falling into a volcano instead of getting to point B, it may not be my directions that are at fault.