Communism (society)

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An engraving of Robert Owen's proposed proto-communist society of New Harmony. This early communist experiment failed and the planned living complex was never built.

Communism or socialism is the society that Marxists predict will succeed both capitalism and socialism.

Communism is based on common ownership of the means of production, cooperative labour, and freely associated producers (or, the free association of equal producers) that administer production on the basis of a social or common plan. The social character of labour, unlike in capitalism (see Law of value), is directly expressed (as social labour) via the association of producers. Consequently, communism is a society without commodity production, commodity exchange (and markets) and therefore without a universal equivalent (i.e. money). Value, the value-form, and the law of value have therefore also disappeared.[1]

The superstructure arising from this base or economic structure would be based on collective administration by free and social individuals, without the need for a special repressive body. Communism is therefore a stateless society.

Definition

Socialism is an essentially contested concept and can be defined in a number of ways. Adopting an idealist approach in defining socialism allows for putting abstract ideas first: leftists who emphasize workers' self-management may call it the defining feature of socialism; supporters of welfare states may define socialism differently, and so on. Anything can thus be embraced or denounced as socialism if there is some historical continuity between the classical socialism of the nineteenth century and such a political position today. Marxism, however, defines socialism on a material basis, not as an abstract ideological concept but as one based on the objective forces of historical development. This means analysing social change over time as a result of the objective development of material productive forces, as well as the diametrically opposed classes, and thereby class conflict, it creates. Just as the capitalist system did not come about by the arguments of great thinkers like Adam Smith but by the motion of massive societal forces, the basis for socialism is not rationality, philosophy, or morality but capitalism itself.

We can discern various tendencies within capitalism that reveal what post-capitalism will look like. First, we can observe the development of the socialisation of the production and labour process, itself a product of the concentration of capital which also furthers planning (though still constrained by the 'anarchy of the market'). Labour in capitalism is still executed privately. Consequently, the social character of labour is realised via the exchange of commodities. We can also observe that social classes have materially opposing interests producing antagonisms, tensions, and conflict. Social ownership would come about through socialised production being confronted with class struggle. As Engels commented: it is "slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie, into public property. By this act, the proletariat frees the means of production from the character of capital they have thus far borne, and gives their socialized character complete freedom to work itself out. Socialized production upon a predetermined plan becomes henceforth possible." Workers, or the immediate producers, assume control over production and integrate all productive establishment in an association. Wage-labour is replaced by freely associated labour. Commodity production is "entirely inconsistent with" associated labour.[2] (see: Law of value).

Communism is therefore defined as a mode of production or society originating from the contradictions and conflicts within capitalism. Communist society is defined as based on common ownership (or social ownership), freely associated labour, and production for use or utility.

The material basis for a stateless, classless, moneyless society

Economics and its superstructure is predicated upon a scarcity of commodities, therein the question being of how to manage them and the resultant economy. Without scarcity there will be no need to maintain a society lacking the institutions of economics, as it is the default state given no scarcity. Rather, class, money, and the state become untenable in such a condition as there is no need for them. Private property causes socioeconomic hierarchy, and without it the hierarchies would collapse as they have nothing to rest upon and are thus deemed invalid.

Communism, as fully-realized socialism, is the most stable socio-economic system

As there is no need to constantly suppress people, given that there are no antagonisms stemming from scarcity and its resultant power dynamics, communism establishes a stability that was unnatural to the previous modes of production. There is no need to worry about the systems of capital and their many uncontrollable aspects, particularly relating to markets and more particularly to the relations of markets on an international, world stage. There is no material basis for hierarchy and people would understand that – those attempting to seize power would have barely anything to provide for people in exchange for their consent to be governed, as there is no scarcity, and such attempts would thus fail to get off the ground. Besides, in communism there is a lack of incentive to attempt a seizure of power, as materially one already would have everything one wants. In this stage of communism too would there be more of a presence of intrinsic motivation, which is more genuine and reliable than extrinsic motivation – that is, people as a whole would actually want to uphold and defend communism themselves, as opposed to the rather begrudging effort they give to being forced to abide by private property relations.

Communism as a movement

Marx described communism as "not [being] a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence." [3]

Communism in this sense is also accommodated by the theoretical framework of Marxism, which is referred to as scientific socialism. This term was, according to Karl Marx, "only used in opposition to utopian socialism, which wants to attach the people to new delusions, instead of limiting its science to the knowledge of the social movement made by the people itself"[4]

Bordiga argues that "communism presents itself as the transcendence of the systems of utopian socialism which seek to eliminate the faults of social organisation by instituting complete plans for a new organisation of society whose possibility of realisation was not put in relationship to the real development of history."[5]

The development of a communist society

Both Marx and Engels believed that communist society would develop over time. In 1890, Engels wrote that socialist society would emerge as something "undergoing continuous change and progress" in which the distribution of goods would evolve with the progress of production and social organization.[6] Beginning with Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme, the predicted development of communist society would be divided into two parts: the lower phase and the higher phase. Lenin later modified this schema by calling the lower phase socialism and the higher phase communism.[7] Debate exists about how fast communism will develop to an advanced stage, or if, under the present material conditions, has the potential to produce most consumer goods in abundance from the start, thus 'skipping' the first phase of communism.

The first phase of communism (socialism)

The first phase (German: erste Phase) of communism (sometimes called the lower or less advanced phase) is what is established immediately following the revolution as hypothesized by Marx. In this stage, the productive forces of society have not developed to extend that free access to consumer goods is viable. In this phase, the division of labour continues to exist and most consumer goods are rationed on the basis of labour certificates or labour credits.[8] It is furthermore based on associated labour and common ownership.

As the productive forces continue to develop, Marx believed, more consumer goods would be produced in abundance, enabling their free access. Gradually, communism would develop into a more advanced or higher phase.

The higher phase of communism

But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time.... Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.

But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”

The higher, or more advanced phase of communism, is when most consumer goods are freely accessible. Automation of production will be widespread making it possible to transcend the division of labour.

External links

References

  1. Marx. Critique of the Gotha Programme, Part I. "Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning."
  2. Marx, K. Capital, volume I
  3. Marx, K. (1845). Part I: Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook. A. Idealism and Materialism. [5. Development of the Productive Forces as a Material Premise of Communism]. Accessed December 11. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm
  4. Marx, K. (1874). Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy. Accessed december 11. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm
  5. Bordiga, A. (1920. Theses of the Abstentionist Communist Faction of the Italian Socialist Party. https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1920/abstentionists.htm
  6. Engels, Friedrich. Letter to C. Schmidt, 1890.
  7. Lenin. State and Revolution, Chapter V.
  8. Marx. Critique of the Gotha Programme. Chapter I