Know the difference.
@Cowbee
2. The concept of the "withering away of the state" in Marxism refers to the gradual dissolution of state institutions as class distinctions disappear and society transitions to communism. It does not necessarily require global socialism to be achieved first, and the expansion of state power and repression under regimes like the Soviet Union contradicted this principle.
- There was a Bureaucratic class in the Soviet Union that was above everyone else. Bureaucrats held significant power and privileges distinct from the working class, which led to a stratified society rather than the classless society envisioned by socialism.
@Cowbee
Achieving a global, worker-owned republic without class, money, or a state while capitalist states exist presents significant challenges. It would require widespread international cooperation, grassroots movements, and a shift in global consciousness toward socialist ideals. International solidarity, mass education and organization, and an immediate introduction of a communist economic model would make it much easier.
@Cowbee
Countries like the Soviet Union deviated from some core principles of communism, including classlessness by introducing a new bureaucratic class, statelessness (the withering away of the state as envisioned by Marx never happened), and a moneyless economy by retaining wage labor and currency.
@Cowbee
I understand Marxism and reject AES countries because they not only abandoned many of the core principles of communism but weren't even successful at achieving communism.
@Gigan @SouthEndSunset
Human nature is not inherently greedy and selfish because human beings possess an inherent capacity for empathy, cooperation, and solidarity, which when nurtured within equitable social structures, can create a collective ethos centered on mutual aid, communal ownership, and the pursuit of the common good, transcending the narrow confines of greed and selfishness perpetuated by systems of exploitation and inequality like capitalism.
@Gigan @SouthEndSunset
There is nothing bad about the collective ownership of the means of production. I can, however, think of many things that are bad about one person owning the entire means production despite not doing any work, which is what exists under capitalism.
@Cowbee
3. While it may be true that the Soviet government provided safety nets and controlled wages, the persistence of wage labor and currency contradicted the goal of achieving a moneyless and classless society under socialism. The gradual elimination of money and wage labor was indeed a complex process, but the Soviet Union did not achieve this goal.