: There is one objective that the three proposed economic systems, Socialism, Marxism and communism, have in common. They all believe that a society can rise as a whole. That is a bunch of crap! Not everyone can rise together because everyone is different. The desire to exceed another in success is human nature and the process by which one could do so is in capitalism. Capitalism is freedom, everything else is imprisonment.Firstly, your vaguely-worded matter of whether "a society can rise as a whole" (whatever that means) is irrelevant to the possibility of socialism. Marx thought that every society in the world would find its own way to socialism, through communism, and as a byproduct of the technological progress that even today affects every human being in every society in the world.
The "desire to exceed another in success" is a product of socialization in competition. If you've ever seen parents at their children's Little League baseball games, you'll know what I mean. Such a desire might be "human nature," but if it was, that fact would be unimportant unless there WAS some set of social rituals whereby we could express that desire AS competition. So saying that human nature is competitive does not itself make an argument for capitalism.
The process of capitalism starts with the process of lending money for a profit. Before large-scale moneylending, i.e. before the Renaissance in Europe, economic systems were not developed enough to allow competition to be "capitalist", so in that sense capitalism is not a natural outlet for competition, either. Marx was not necessarily criticizing competition per se, but rather a system that made most of the world's people into the permanent "losers" of this competition, i.e. the "working class." It is one thing to say that competition is natural, and another to say that the majority of the world's people must be made relatively poor, and ruled by a few plutocrats, for the sake of a system that rewards greed.
Certain of Marx's followers, such as Lev Bronstein ("Trotsky"), believed that people were naturally competitive, and that this competition would be a constructive and not a destructive competition once capitalism were abolished and socialism created.
: Karl Marx, in the Communist Manifesto, said that a country will go through a economic cycle in its history. First indentured servants, then capitalism, then socialism and finally communism. And when communism falls, the cycle will start all over again. I have studied the history and current events of Russia, China and almost every communist (self-proclaimed) country only to solidify the fact that Karl Marx, along with the concepts of communism, socialism and marxism are full of shit!
Let's get the misinterpretation of the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO out of the way first. The WORLD, not "each country," went through stages -- primitive communism, the imperial economies of Greece, Rome etc., feudalism, capitalism. Marx hoped to tack on socialism at the end -- communism is supposed to be the movement leading to socialism and isn't supposed to come "after" it.
Now, the Russia and China issue. Hopefully no one supporting communism, socialism or marxism here in this page is supporting any present or past government of Russia or China, or at least if they do support these concepts, they're trying to avoid the mistakes the Russians and the Chinese made. Please read the thread here in this Forum.
Firstly, neither the Russians nor the Chinese abolished money. If you get around to reading CAPITAL one of these days, you'll notice that Marx is intent on proving that the whole idea of money is what's wrong with capitalism -- Marx argues that the idea of money is what creates the social trend he calls "commodity fetishism" -- in capitalist society, he explains, everything is a commodity, even you and I are commodities, and we are commodities called "labor power," to be bought and used up at as little expense to our employers as is possible. Thus, for Marx, our protest against the capitalist system is the thing keeping our employers from using up our lives and giving us nearly nothing in return, and the only lasting solution to the problem of "commodity fetishism," for him, is the abolition of money. Neither Russia nor China achieved "socialism" by Marx's definition of the word, since neither society abolished money.
Secondly, since you claim to have read THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, you must have noticed Marx's call for the abolition of the state. Did Russia or China abolish the state? No. Another reason to argue that neither Russia or China counts as a "socialist" society. A full discussion of what exactly Russia and China WERE is in Johann P. Arnason's book THE FUTURE THAT FAILED. Check it out some day -- I think you'll find it less of a propaganda piece than THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO.
The point is that Soviet Russia and Maoist China are bad examples of socialist societies, and do not invalidate socialism as a concept. By the same token, the fact that the capitalists in Nazi Germany supported an evil guy named Hitler does not invalidate capitalism as a concept.
Next, the abstract issue of "communism." Communism comes from a Latin word meaning "sharing," so we might assume that communism is to symbolize, for its followers, an ideal society based on sharing.
Now there are several ways of arguing against communism as such, all of them interesting. Perhaps sharing is a bad thing per se, a vice not a virtue, or perhaps a society based on sharing won't work, or isn't possible. All of these arguments make interesting debates.
Please try to understand, if you continue in these veins, that some people still think that a society where everyone shared everything would be a good thing, and still believe in this idea of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs," and that they are not necessarily evil people solely because they want such a society.
Finally, arguing that all of "Karl Marx, along with the concepts of communism, socialism and marxism are full of sh*t!" based on a sloppy reading of THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO is not going to hold water with those of us who are still trying to reason through CAPITAL, the GRUNDRISSE, the 1844 MANUSCRIPTS, THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY or any of Marx's other works in economics, history, or philosophy. We are not going to give up thinking about the issues Marx brings up because you can come up with an off-the-cuff denunciation of them, although we may be convinced of the faultiness of some of his arguments if you can persuasively argue against Marx.
None.
