Let’s take two parts: evidence that it could happen, and evidence that it would.
As far as could happen, that depends on how big the transition is, which depends on what one thinks the world will be like afterwards. (Again, Marx wasn’t clear about that, he just predicted that it wouldn’t be a certain way.) If the world after capitalism would be a nightmare of centralized control, the transition will be large. If it’s some sort of small-scale anarcho-syndicalism, it’ll be a small transition. Small transitions happen all the time. As far as a large transition, the change from paganism to Christianity was much larger and very quick.
As far as would happen, that depends on what you think of Marx.
The transition from paganism to Christianity was not as swift as that required for communism (according to Oldscratch). Nor was it universal. Nor was Christianity practiced in a uniform manner. Nor did it remain unsplintered.
Actually, can anyone think of an example of a truly global societal transformation?
Communism does not “work theoretically,” nor does it “work on paper.” Have you ever sat back and thought about the absurdity of such statements? Saying that communisim “works theoretically” is akin to picking up a rock and saying that it “flies theoretically.” Sure, communism would “work” if it weren’t for all those blasted elements and variables. And the rock would fly if it weren’t for gravity and wind resitance. If you throw it hard enough, yes, the rock does “fly” for a short period of time. And then it comes crashing to the earth.
“Human nature,” while being perhaps the biggest inhibitor of effective communism, is by no means the only one. Another is that competition is the backbone of an effective economy (stop me if someone’s mentioned this already, I breezed through page 2 of this thread). When one entity (the government) controls the entire supply side for anything (let alone everything), price is no longer regulated by demand and the wheels more or less come off.
There actually are people who oppose communism because they have thought it out rationally. I know that you leftists like to imagine that you have some kind of monopoly on independent thought, but believe me, there are people out there (myself included), who thought about communism, thought about the alternatives, and said “hey, that doesn’t sound like such a good idea to me.” People are awful quick to assume that if someone holds a belief that also happens to be held by the majority of the nation, then that person hasn’t thought it through, and is just succumbing to propaganda. Get off your high horse already.
The reason that some Americans crusade against communism around the world is because they recognize it for what it is: a benign version of totalitarianism, and an avenue to facism. When they started on their version of communism, the Russians said “okay, before we can attain the goal of a communist utopia, we are going to have to go through some times of dictatorship (the ‘five-year plans’).” They said it as if the dictatorships were the means, and a communist uptopia was the end. Let me clue you in on something: the “communist uptopia” was nothing more than a carrot dangled in front of a dirt farmer’s mule. You really believe that the rulers in Russia were just going to give it all up when they thought the time was right? Please. “Yeah, if you give all your stuff to us, work for us for what we determine to be the cost of living, and do exactly as we tell you, five years from now we’ll be living in Utopia. Trust us.” Okay!
The point is, communism (like all forms of totalitariansim) far oversteps the role of the governing body in a civilized society today. Communism carries with it facist totalitarian despotism, which carries with it injustice. And that’s why I oppose communism, and that’s why I think we have to fight it, wherever it may be, every step of the way. (Luckily for us, it wasn’t a very good idea to begin with, so it kind of imploded on itself anyway).
Theoretically (mabye ideally is a better word) at one time Communism did work on paper. Mabye I should have said, Communism once worked theoretically. Practically it doesn’t work. Ideally discludes unknown variables. These varibles become known/somewhat understood when the model is applied practically.
Am I getting you right? Are you saying that going from a global economic/poltical landscape composed of nation states, corporations, and multinational trade organizations evolving into small anarchic syndicates is an example of a small change?
Socialism is the ideal government without corruption, not communism. Communism violently adds to their reign and socialism is more passive. Communism denys religious freedom. Corruption in Socialism completely messed it up and our human nature makes socialism impossible to be successfull except in a very small close nit group. The main problem in both socialism and communism is that they force their people to give up all they have to the state. There is no motivation when you do that. In a true utopia each would give up all they have to support each other by their own free will. By the way, utopia comes from two words which mean “no place”.
I really enjoyed reading this thread, particularly the guy who related markets to the transmission of information. Adam SMITH correctly described the role of markets in 1776-and forcast the disaster that would come to “planned” economies. Where I work, there are several Russian engineers (now US citizens). I have talked to them about their experiences, and they are all uniformly negative on communism-as they experienced it, there really was no incentive to do any more than the minimum. And, (apparently) some fool in Moscow-central Planning made all of the decisions-like what size of men’s gloves should be produced!
As another poster pointed out-this leads to weird things happening-since the glove factory had an incentive to make as many pairs as possible (we must fulfill Comrade Planners’ 5-Year plan"); they would naturally make the smallest size possible-no matter that there was no market for size small gloves! So the gloves were dumped and people had cold hands next winter-it didn’t matter-all that mattered was that the plan target was met!
I couldn’t find anything definitive in a quick search, but http://www.ukans.edu/~medieval/melcher/matthias/t32/0102.html seems to indicate that it took about 100 years for Christianity to wipe out paganism, once it got going. Given the travel and communications speeds at that time, that’s pretty fast. Part of Marx’s theory is that both travel and communications are much faster now, making for a quicker changeover. I’ll also note the rapidity of change associated with Islam.
It took in most of the Roman empire, which was a reasonably self-contained unit and the only place the ideas could really get to. Again, Marx would argue that the world is more integrated now, removing those barriers.
Beside the point for Marx - he didn’t prescribe what the resulting system(s) would be like, just what they wouldn’t be like.
Again, from my (surely very limited) interpretation of Marx’s perspective: Marx has nothing against nation-states (in the abstract). He just predicts that they will act differently in the post-capitalist future as they will free of their “bondage” to capital. Much the same could be said about multinational trade organizations. So as far as those go, they might still exist and fill different but related needs.
As far as corporations go, things get a little complicated. To oversimplify, Marx’s criticism of capitalism depended on the fact that a worker was paid less money than what he produced was sold for. An organizational structure in which this was not true might not be all that different from a corporation as far as its functional role in the socioeconomic scheme of things. No one really knows.
The link you point to indicates that the spread took 300 years, with the last 100 being the quickest. Also, top down pressure to convert (and in many cases official sanctions) was a major factor there. That hardly seems the stuff of Marxism.
I’ll be back soon. I’m in the middle of looking for a new job and a new home at the same time. My free time just went kaput. Under Communism, I would have enough time to debate you and find new work and lodging
That said. I want to add one point very quickly. By saying this, you show that you have very little understanding of what a communist revolution is all about. The original revolution was a mass uprising of the population against the current government. The Bolsheviks were the most popular political party at the time. There were also a multitude of other political parties that lead the revolt against the Czar. Eventually the revolution was isolated and toppled from within, but the revolution itself was very much an act of self determination.
Also comparing the devlopment of Christianity to the devolpment of Communism is like comparing Apples to Duriens. They have very little in common. Try compaing the devolpment of Capitalism to Communism, those are much closer together.
I’ll be back soon. I’m in the middle of looking for a new job and a new home at the same time. My free time just went kaput. Under Communism, I would have enough time to debate you and find new work and lodging
That said. I want to add one point very quickly. By saying this, you show that you have very little understanding of what a communist revolution is all about. The original revolution was a mass uprising of the population against the current government. The Bolsheviks were the most popular political party at the time. There were also a multitude of other political parties that lead the revolt against the Czar. Eventually the revolution was isolated and toppled from within, but the revolution itself was very much an act of self determination.
Also comparing the devlopment of Christianity to the devolpment of Communism is like comparing Apples to Duriens. They have very little in common. Try compaing the devolpment of Capitalism to Communism, those are much closer together.
C’mon, scratch. Do you think the common Russian had any concept of what communism was going to be like? I’ve made no detailed studies of that particular period, but it’s pretty clear they would have revolted against the Czars (and the gov’t immediately following; Kerensky was it?) regardless of the politics of the opposition, so long as they promised to end the war. I do know the first revolution against the Czars during the period really had nothing to do with communism–do you at least agree with that?
I would still be interested in your response to my first post in this thread, when you get the chance…
I just checked, and at the time of the first revolt (Feb. 1917), the Duma was composed of 442 members, only 5 of which were Bolsheviks. So when you say they were the most popular during the revolution, you had best explain when and how you are measuring “popularity”.
You would rank popularity from the Dumas? That’s like saying, during the middle of a revolution in America, that the Republicans have more seats in Congress so they are the most popular party. I’m talking about the Soviets of course, the workers councils. The Dumas had a very archaic way of voting and electing members into them. Thye were designed so the nobility always had more votes than anyone else. They were a sham with no real power. They were constantly being disolved by the government. For a good history of the revolution and the time line of events I suggest you read Leon Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution.
A quote from his history "*The statistics of this Congress which assembled during the hours of insurrection are very, incomplete. At the moment of opening there were 650 delegates with votes: 390 fell to the lot of the Bolsheviks – by no means all members of the party, but they were of the flesh and blood of the masses, and the masses had no roads left but the Bolshevik road. Many of the delegates who had brought doubts with them were maturing fast in the red-hot atmosphere of Petrograd.
How completely had the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries squandered the political capital of the February revolution At the June Congress of Soviets the Compromisers had a majority of 600 votes out of the whole number of 832 delegates. Now the compromisist opposition of all shades made up less than a quarter of the Congress. The Mensheviks, with the national group adhering to them, amounted to only 80 members – about half of them “Lefts.” Out of 159 Social Revolutionaries – according to other reports 190 – about three-fifths were Lefts, and moreover the Right continued to melt fast during the very sitting of the Congress. Toward the end the total number of delegates, according to several lists, reached 900. Hut this figure, while including a number of advisory members, does not on the other hand include all those with votes. The registration was carried on intermittently; documents have been lost; the information about party affiliations was incomplete. In any case the dominant position of the Bolsheviks in the Congress remains indubitable.*"
As you can see the Bolsheviks were the most popular party, they weren’t always so, but they managed to win the trust of the vast majority of the workers.
