Of course, they've historically done a terrible job of implementing it, but the Marxist goal is the abolition of the state entirely. I'm just saying that you're putting yourself in a group with Žižek and Chomsky, here.
I'm actually significantly more of a leftist than I was in college. My ideals remain hard left anarchic. I'm sufficiently aware of political reality that I realize anarchosyndicalism isn't a practical goal.
If anything, it's the statist educational establishment that has made me that way. It's hard to be an orthodox Marxist when you've taken courses on economic theory and early 20th century history. Those same courses make me incredulous of claims that simply enacting laws forbidding discrimination will sufficiently level the playing field to establish real equality for minorities and the poor.
My general hope and expectation is that advances in technology and automation will cause significant enough disruption that we will enter a society where capitalism is no longer needed to address serious issues of scarcity.
Historically speaking only Autocratic/Totalitarian (the most brutal statist) governments have enacted a Communist economic system at the national level. All have failed. The why of the failure is an interesting debate to have and we can get into Marx's thoughts that only post-industrial states could successfully adopt the Communist economic system. Since none have then perhaps that is why we have the 100% failure rate. Not to mention the tens of millions of people dead.
Perhaps it might work in a post-scarcity world, though even then I doubt it.
- 25/08/2017 03:57:37 PM
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