What will communism look like? – Spectre of Communism podcast

Right-wingers claim that communism would be a dictatorial hellscape: nothing could be further from the truth. Communism means a society free from money, social classes, poverty and oppression, where people live “from each according to their ability, each according to their needs.” But what would such a society look like, and how do we get there?

Capitalism has created a world of poverty and precarity, in which people must struggle simply to survive, let alone reach their full potential. Socialism and communism will for the first time in history rationalise production, meet all human needs and give space for culture and the arts to flourish in ways never seen before. But this cannot be started while capitalism stands, and there is much work to do on the way!

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[williamricharrd]

really really good almost made me tear up, can’t wait for a more rational way of life! thank you for this amazing podcast seriously

[acegikm]

Common sense and level headedness are more important than extra high intelligence when making decisions about how we should live. An informed majority has better judgment than a handful of powerful people who are psychologically imbalanced and out of touch. 

The 99% just needs to get their act together, be less selfish, start educating themselves. When people embrace egalitarianism and stop placing others on some imagined hierarchy, we can have socialism.

Thank you for the video. It answered a lot of questions I have and was very interesting : D.

[kellyhowe]

I think I have some ideas in this area, maybe not all unique but all about our economic evolution including our language and method of decision-making in an uncapitalist society, whether primitive or advanced.
Language is evolving. I like how Richard Wolff defines socialism now and it's not really unmarxist actually.

[reversedragon]

12:30 the question of The State is quite different for "Stalinists" and Trotskyists because "Stalinists", stereotypically, are just going to put a number of people in prison if they are bad enough at following the rules of the new Marxist party and society. I'm one of the few people who actually considers this a problem, and have sometimes thought about how to prevent it. But I have not yet heard any particular plan from anyone of what would happen if Trotskyists need to actually defend their country from Stalinist conspiracies. I still wonder how Trotskyists would escape Trotskyism turning into as dirty a word as "Stalinism" in that situation

[rainerlippert]

Answer 2/2
On social development towards socialism and communism

▪ The working class
Today only has a small proportion of the population. In Germany, there are 15 to 18 million real wage payers in a population of 80 million people. But some of them are not workers.
Furthermore, the working class is not a unified group. In Germany, for example, there are a lot of social workers (who see themselves as workers, but are practically intellectuals). They have completely different interests than the workers; above all, they ensure uncontrolled and unlimited immigration, which is completely contrary to the interests of the real workers.

▪ Urge towards dictatorship
There are therefore many reasons why the workers can only exercise power through a dictatorship over the majority!
Those exercising power must protect themselves from being disempowered. To do this, as was the case in the past, they will build up an extensive power apparatus that will constantly be expanded.

▪ Budding Socialism in Germany – dictatorship
This can currently be seen in Germany: Left-green socialist forces are pushing the economy towards central planning (heating law; mobility; media; more and more specifications for companies as to what can be produced and how, what can be bought from where - regardless of the economic environment; coercive measures against emigration - initially only for companies (as in the so-called "III Reich"). This leads to more and more ineffectiveness, deindustrialization through the emigration of companies or the fact that they are driven into insolvency.
This is combined with a comprehensive 'cancel culture', which is associated with strong pressure on those who think differently, up to and including job loss. Everything is almost like what I once experienced in the GDR.
This is linked to election fraud, the reversal of whale results, the orientation of the media towards the left-green course, the political orientation of the judiciary, police and army.

▪ Budding Socialism in Germany – central planning
But even because the economy cannot be designed effectively with central planning (see my comment on the market and value), it would only be possible for those in power to continue on their course if they used dictatorship to prevent the population from rebelling against this policy. Because the population would feel that they are being disadvantaged compared to the citizens of other countries.

▪ Control of society by intellectuals
There was and is no “dictatorship of the working class”. Workers have to work to earn a living. Only intellectuals who have enough money even with less work or who are in positions where they can do politics, initially on the side, will work intensively to ensure that they get into positions where they can implement their ideas.
The workers also usually have no training in management, personnel management, etc. However, even in the transition phase, they have to work hard, so the workers usually do not have the opportunity to pursue other interests.
The intellectuals will certainly then name workers who will be trained to become “leaders” through further training, such as comrade Erich Honecker, who was once a roofer, in the GDR. But they are more of a figurehead and these former workers will really like life with more rights etc. In doing so, they will also help to shape the state apparatus in such a way that rebellion against the power structures is suppressed.

Conclusion
A new attempt to establish Socialism would proceed in the same way as before: some who call themselves the “vanguard of the working class” would come to power and then stabilize this state structure in their interests.
This can be clearly seen in the parties SPD and “Die Line” (“The Left”) in Germany. Its leading members have nothing, if anything, to do with the working class anymore!

[TheRantingRooster]

Y'all didn't touch on transforming the work place from a dictatorship to a democracy. That was a huge Soviet mistake. The state took over ownership and operations. There was no democratic control of the means of production. The state dictated everything, which, isn't Socialism or Communism. Planning an economy is a hell of a lot easier than getting people to grasp the concept of democracy in the work place. The work place must be transformed into a Democracy for Socialism or Communism to work at the national or international level. (imho)

[rainerlippert]

I would like to accept your invitation to the discussion (under the video “In Defense of Marxism”)!

Answer 1/2
▪ The market is the place where value is created
People talk about the market, but in my opinion its real importance is not recognized.
By creating values, the market shows what has what significance for people in an economic sense under the given social (political, economic, cultural, religious, historical, etc.) and natural conditions.
The statement "... in the economic sense." means that, for example, a glass of water in the household is assigned a very low economic value (the provider's water costs plus the proportional depreciation for the infrastructure such as pipes, valves, etc.).
In a café in the city, a glass of water is assigned a significantly higher value because the environment, which is not freely available, is more expensive.
A person dying of thirst in the desert will assign a significantly higher value to a glass of water.

▪ “Value formation” in Socialism
Under Socialism, the market was not taken into account and the thoughts in this video show that this wrong path is wanted to be repeated:
The value was seen as created with the products of labor and the State Planning Commission instructed the state bank to put the funds into circulation for the supposedly “produced values”.

But on the production side of the commodity society there are still no values, there are only expected values. This becomes clear from surplus value: According to Marx, surplus value is part of value. But surplus value cannot be produced, as Marx claims. Only a buyer can pay the surplus value on the market and only if he first fully replaces the costs of the goods he is buying and then pays even more, the surplus value. This is what happens in the market.
According to Marx, a product of labor only becomes a commodity when it becomes a use value for others through exchange(!). This means that only with the exchange does the work put into the product qualify as socially useful and thus as value-creating.
One can only produce the prerequisites for value relationships, surplus values and values, but not these themselves.

▪ The money problem in Socialism
Since a number of products could not be sold, a surplus of money was created over the existing real supply of goods and services, i.e. monetary inflation. This was not reduced by higher prices.
Since production volumes and prices were kept constant over long periods of time (7- and 5-year plans), this created an ever-increasing surplus of money and thus an ever-increasing scarcity economy as well as increasing inflation (excess of money compared to goods and services).
This was very unpleasant because workers left the factories during working hours to get spare parts, building materials, certain tools, certain books, certain clothes, certain furniture, yogurt, bananas, etc.
But what was much worse was that under the conditions of the scarcity economy it was no longer possible to determine which processes were running how effectively, since all price information did not reflect the real values of the products, i.e. their real importance for the national economy. In addition, due to the shortage, some factories and citizens received desired products, while others, who were unlucky, did not.
So over time the entire economy became more and more ineffective and inefficient until the system collapsed.

▪ With central planning, value creation is controlled by just a few decision-makers
In other words, central planning cannot lead to an effective economy. Socialism/communism on such a basis cannot win a competition with a capitalist system. Central planners can only grasp a tiny section of the very complex economy. The unmistakable interaction of the various areas such as raw material extraction, transport, use of mechanical and human workers (and natural workers) under the constantly changing conditions due to new developments, also slow inventory depletion of raw materials, setting up new companies, ending work in other companies, etc. cannot begin to pay attention to them. So they will only be able to make false statements about the importance of various goods and services for people and the economy that do not correspond to reality (“the invisible hand of the market”).

▪ The value,
what is crucial to exchange is a relationship between people.
A relationship between people must include at least an objective part, since it goes beyond a single person and also affects another. When it comes to value, this relationship also works between the exchange partners and society - completely objectively.
The most important objective element of a value relationship is the common value that an initially potential buyer and an initially potential seller must agree on.
In the bazaar they come to an agreement through dialogue, in the department store through the buyer's unilateral adjustment to the seller's specifications.
If they cannot agree, there will be no exchange - the purchase contract/invoice cannot contain an offer price (reflecting the expected value) and a different purchase price (reflecting the real value).
But such a relationship must also include subjective elements. Important subjective elements of the value relationship are the subjective reflections of the objective value in the conscious processes of the exchange partners. These are usually of different sizes before the exchange.
Marx does not pay attention to the subjective aspect of value in words, but it can be found in a number of places in the content - which leads to contradictions for him.
Another important element of value is the need to buy something. They are not general needs that lead to purchase/non-purchase, they are weighted ones. People have to give weight to their needs for goods that are not freely available, since in general their ability to satisfy them is significantly smaller than their needs for such goods.
This will not be any different under other social production conditions!

Conclusion
The market and money are very important for a society with goods that are not freely available.
In my opinion, communism can only exist when humanity moves primarily in the cosmos. Only then will energy and resources be available in practically unlimited quantities.

[truthmatters]

In the UK most people agree that the government is already doing a terrible job of organising the things they control. Why would we want to introduce a system where they control even more things including income distribution and the production and allocation of essential food and resources? Where this happened in the past in Soviet Russia and Communist China he common outcome was mass starvation.

[pwp]

Socialism/Communism has always faced the dilemma of how to get there from here. How to replace capitalism with a system that puts human needs ahead of profit. Capitalism will never bow down, and inevitably a violent struggle to defeat the capitalists, who will unleash fascism as their last defense means civil war. With that, censorship, mass murder, gulags, centralization of power to wage an effective war, and so ...The Russians showed us what that struggle leads to and the perversion of the revolutionary ideals that follows.
Perhaps instead of the overthrow of capitalism its demise will come out of the contradictions that exists within the current system. Since the great crash of 2008 capitalism has been on a drip feed by the world's central banks for life. Maybe instead of a revolution, capitalism will wither and be replaced by something else; as feudalism died a slow death and morphed into capitalism in the 17 and 18th centuries.