How can Marxism/Communism ever work in the US?I

[Dazey]

I understand there are some Marxists and/or Communists on this forum...I am curious as to how you feel for one Marxism or Communism should be implemented here; how it can 'work', without having the tyrannies and atrocities of previous communist governments...I'm not talking about European style Socialism, or elements of Communism or Socialism infused into Capitalism, but the implementation of full on Communism; I'm curious how Communists here would go about it.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Obamacare duh

[Murica!]

General Strike, leading to an anarcho-communist/syndicalist society .

[Samantha]

The establishment of a vanguard party run by the state to guide the proletariat through the socialist transitionary period on the way to Communism (the source of the "tyranny" you're referring to) is actually a tenet of Leninism (or Marxism-Leninism). "Communism" as theorized by Marx was stateless and has never existed on a measurable scale, unless you count Spanish anarcho-communists.

[Baltimoreian]

I don't think any form of communism or socialism can actually happen in the U.S. There are MILLIONS of Americans that despised communism, because of the country's involvement with the Cold War and how they would trust any country that wasn't communist. If you talked to anybody who doesn't like communism or socialism, they would believe that capitalism is great because of their free enterprise and how anybody can make private businesses. Although, since the First Constitution gives everyone in the U.S. freedom of speech, I guess there could be a way that some might agree with the idea of communism in the U.S. for government officials. Even though there wouldn't be a lot of them agreeing for that.

[pbrower2a]

1. If American leadership does something incredibly stupid, then America may be defeated in a war with China... and China establishes a monopoly political party in all or part of the United States that the People's Republic of China finds trustworthy.  Whether that would be a Communist Party is much in doubt.

2. American political and economic leadership becomes increasingly pathological and provokes a Marxist revolution.  Are America's elites that dumb? They aren't all members of the Koch family.

3. THE BIG ONE  -- Marx prophesied that the Socialist stage of historical development would culminate in such productive ability that human need would completely disappear. Suc a stage he called Communism.

Question: can a capitalist order lead to Marx' dream of Communism?  By this dream I do not mean the Stalinist-Maoist-Khmer Rouge nightmare but instead a world of ease and no scarcity.

[wildfood]

They will wait until income inequality reduces America to the England that Charles Dickens wrote about: a handful of fabulously wealthy individuals surrounded by a huddled mass. And then they will hold an election...

After that, it won't really matter what flavor of communism it is.

[CatoMinor]

Step 1: Create a party called "The majority" or some such nonsense despite in fact representing only a hand full of people.

Step 2: Accept large amounts of German bribe money.

Step 3: Wait for a huge crisis to take advantage of.

Step 4: Anti-climatically steal power in a short coup and proceed to claim victory from some giant battle that you exaggerate about.

Step 5: Call for elections

Step 6: Threaten to shoot/actually murder the non communist legislators who win election.

Step 7: Give your police a daily quota of people to shoot.

Step 8: Die claiming victory for "the people" despite the overwhelming majority now suffering under a repressive dictatorship.

Step 9: Your bat-sh*t crazy successor takes over.

Step 10. He creates "five year plans" that plunge your farm lands into famine and are outright genocidal.


Congrats! You have successfully created a communist utopia! 

[SATW]

Step 1: Create a party called "The majority" or some such nonsense despite in fact representing only a hand full of people.

Step 2: Accept large amounts of German bribe money.

Step 3: Wait for a huge crisis to take advantage of.

Step 4: Anti-climatically steal power in a short coup and proceed to claim victory from some giant battle that you exaggerate about.

Step 5: Call for elections

Step 6: Threaten to shoot/actually murder the non communist legislators who win election.

Step 7: Give your police a daily quota of people to shoot.

Step 8: Die claiming victory for "the people" despite the overwhelming majority now suffering under a repressive dictatorship.

Step 9: Your bat-sh*t crazy successor takes over.

Step 10. He creates "five year plans" that plunge your farm lands into famine and are outright genocidal.


Congrats! You have successfully created a communist utopia! 

haha this is great!

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

America is way too well-armed and well-prepared for a hostile takeover to happen here. Hard-line Communists don't get voted into office.

Some sort of Democratic Socialist movement could potentially get voted into office if a recession happened early enough in a Presidential term for things to get really horrible before the next election. But they'd be removed if they tried to consolidate power a la Chavez.

[Indy Texas]

They will wait until income inequality reduces America to the England that Charles Dickens wrote about: a handful of fabulously wealthy individuals surrounded by a huddled mass. And then they will hold an election...

After that, it won't really matter what flavor of communism it is.

No. This is America. That means the street urchins selling flowers and newspapers outside a stately mansion would just say, "I don't want to raise taxes on the people living there. I'm going to live there eventually and then I'd just have to pay more taxes!"

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

It can't, just like how Democracy can't work in the Middle East or Southeast Asia.

[wildfood]

They will wait until income inequality reduces America to the England that Charles Dickens wrote about: a handful of fabulously wealthy individuals surrounded by a huddled mass. And then they will hold an election...

After that, it won't really matter what flavor of communism it is.

No. This is America. That means the street urchins selling flowers and newspapers outside a stately mansion would just say, "I don't want to raise taxes on the people living there. I'm going to live there eventually and then I'd just have to pay more taxes!"

Selling flowers and newspapers? This is America! The urchins will be selling guns and ammo in front of those stately mansions!

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

It can't, just like how Democracy can't work in the Middle East or Southeast Asia.

Deluge worthy. Democracy is a messy process, but the idea that certain peoples cannot manage their own destinies is baloney. It took a while for every country - including Europe and North America - to adequately democratise as they became richer, and the idea that democracy should be thrown out the window because of a few mishaps is nonsense.

Also, it's weird you say SE Asia. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Phillipines are democratic (if beset with flaws), Myanmar is eking its way forward and Thailand, though in a rough patch, will probably be far more democratic in the coming century.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm increasingly suspecting that this forum actually lives c. 1985 or something. Communism is about as relevant to the world that we live in as Gnosticism.

[The Mikado]

I'm increasingly suspecting that this forum actually lives c. 1985 or something. Communism is about as relevant to the world that we live in as Gnosticism.

Pretty much this. The world has moved on. Will there be another challenge to modern postindustrial capitalism? Possibly, but it'll be some new economic ideology no one's even thought up yet.

[BobDavis]

Obamacare

[publicunofficial]

It's already working comrade. Obamacare was just the first step.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

I'm increasingly suspecting that this forum actually lives c. 1985 or something. Communism is about as relevant to the world that we live in as Gnosticism.

[Sopranos Republican]

It can't, because most "communists" in the US are at the intellectual level of, or actually are, 15 year olds.

But then where does that leave you?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Posting a picture of that idiot doesn't make much sense as a retort. Arguing that Communism is a phenomenon of the past with no future to speak of (facts that are patently true) is not the same as arguing that history has finished (a proposition that anyone who has ever read 1066 And All That could never take seriously anyway). There may even be apocalyptic forms of socialism again in the future for all I know. But such movements (if they arise) won't be based on the Revealed Truth of the prophets Marx and Lenin.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm increasingly suspecting that this forum actually lives c. 1985 or something. Communism is about as relevant to the world that we live in as Gnosticism.

You f[Inks]ing piece of [Inks]. You're the reason this got posted on the Religion board.

Some believe Jesus the body was created by the demiurge because the demiurge became aware of the Father's intention to send spiritual Christ to redeem mankind.

Jesus in the body gained the attributes of spiritual Christ, much to the consternation of the Demiurge...so he was executed.  But The spirit of Christ left Jesus and returned after the resurrection, once again flouting the intentions of the demiurge, whom Christ visited upon his "death".  When he visited hell, or heaven, depending on which side you look at it from, he shook its foundations so badly as to nearly destroy it and probably scared the demiurge very much.  And thus he took the seat at the right hand of the demiurge, that he might let people escape the material prison we find ourselves in where the demiurge would keep you under his ever watchful, judging eye.  No love...only wrath, anger, and the love of his law.  If you follow it to a T, you can wander around his empty paradise drinking milk and honey out of shear boredom.  But nobody...not Mary...not Moses...not anybody has been good enough to make it to this rather uninspired paradise.

The best you can hope for without Jesus is torment or a reroll of that pair a' dice after your memory is wiped so you can try again.

That's why it is important to know that in the end you will have a choice.  You will hear the knock and Jesus will make you know it is he that knocks.  If you let him in, he will dine with you and send the holy spirit ahead of you to clear the way back to the Father's embrace.  And you would do well to follow her, for she is your mother.

I hope you're happy because I most certainly am not.

[RINO Tom]

They will wait until income inequality reduces America to the England that Charles Dickens wrote about: a handful of fabulously wealthy individuals surrounded by a huddled mass. And then they will hold an election...

After that, it won't really matter what flavor of communism it is.

No. This is America. That means the street urchins selling flowers and newspapers outside a stately mansion would just say, "I don't want to raise taxes on the people living there. I'm going to live there eventually and then I'd just have to pay more taxes!"

Yeah, how horrible to have people think like that...?

[MaxQue]

They will wait until income inequality reduces America to the England that Charles Dickens wrote about: a handful of fabulously wealthy individuals surrounded by a huddled mass. And then they will hold an election...

After that, it won't really matter what flavor of communism it is.

No. This is America. That means the street urchins selling flowers and newspapers outside a stately mansion would just say, "I don't want to raise taxes on the people living there. I'm going to live there eventually and then I'd just have to pay more taxes!"

Yeah, how horrible to have people think like that...?

Well, that's not horrible, but that's very naive and delusionnal of them. For every 100 persons thinking like that, one, perhaps two of them will reach it.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Selling flowers and newspapers? This is America!

What's a newspaper?