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At one point one-third of the world's population was Communist. That is a lot of people. So it makes you wonder if there is any thing to this governmental system. Well, here in the Western world Communism has a bad reputation; partially undeserved. Most of it is because people have viewed what the former U.S.S.R. and China have done are common in a Communist world. That is simply not true. I am going to attempt to explain Communism and the reasoning behind it as presented by Carl Marx. When Carl Marx rewrote the Communist Manifesto, he applied all of his philosophical and scientific knowledge to support his beliefs in Communism. A large portion of Marx's beliefs stemmed from the philosophy of Georg Hegel. Hegel developed further the dialectical laws that Socrates and Plato help start. Marx believed in Hegel's ideas of the dialectic and applied it to Communism and his support for it. He also said that history is continually improving itself and following the dialectical laws of the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. So Hegel believed history is going to improve upon itself infinitely. This is where Marx deviates from Hegel. Marx said that history has followed the dialectical laws up to this point. First it was primative Communism, this lead to a master/slave economy, then the feudal system, and now to Capitalism. What Marx said was that the synthesis of Capitalism is Communism, which is the ultimate economic and political system. So Marx believed that Communism is going to be the end of the world in terms of governments and economic systems. One of the strange things about Communism is that it is both an economic system and form of government. Most of it, though, is based on the economic system, and its government side stems from this economic system. Anyway, what Marx said is that Capitalism does not work. Throughout history, all the way up to this point, the economy has been based on the division of labor. This belief says that since Capitalism and all of its predecessors were based on having an owner and a worker and this caused a division between labor and owners. This division of labor led to the worker to now be valued not as a person but as what he can produce. This has also led to people to devalue themselves by being forced to perform a single job and not multiple jobs to raise one's self-worth. Being a laborer this causes the need for an owner to own what the laborer needs to produce his product. This causes the laborer to be dependent on the owner. This is called alienation because of the separation between owner and worker. So where does this leave us? Well, since the proletariat (the workers) are not willing to stand aside and allow the bourgeoisie to gain from their hard work. This is going to lead to a need to overthrow Capitalism and move to Communism. To do this the proletariat are going to have a revolution. This revolution is going to have the proletariat setting up a provisional government that will own everything. They will keep the country running until the rest of the world catches up and throws off their Capitalist shackles. This provisional government will have complete control; including total censorship. This is to make sure that the people are not affected by the corrupt Capitalist world and be turned from the "right" path of Communism. It is in the best interest of the people, after all. Okay, we now have had a bloody revolution, destroying Capitalism. So now what? Well that provisional government is dissolved. It has served its purpose, but now it is anti-Communistic. In Communism there is no formal government. Everyone lives in a Commune, which is essentially a small community. Everyone is treated equal; from pay to housing and food. This way you do what you enjoy for your work and do not taking anything you don't need to make sure that everyone gets their basic needs taken care of. So everyone is equal. No one is treated above anyone else. There are no classes anymore, we are all one class of people. Of course, if someone goes against this they are dealt with, but that is the price of paradise. All pretty nifty, huh? So if this all seems so nice, then why aren't we all Communists? Well, there are some problems with Communism. One is that Communism is sometimes considered a Utopian government. This means that Communism can be considered too perfect; to the point that it can not be reached because of the requirement put upon people. Two more complaints deal with the revolution to come. One of the complaints is that their are no concrete plans on how to bring about the revolution. Marx said that there must be one, but he never says how to go about it. Oh well, it is no longer his problem, now is it? The other is the violence required for the revolution. Marx emphasized how in order for the revolution to work it must completely sweep all traces of Capitalism from the face of the earth, at any cost. This all leads to a certain fanaticism among Communists. They all firmly believe in their ideals and are willing to go to any length for it. It can be compared to a religion; something Communists hate since they detest religions. All of this is why if Communism ever does occur it will stay for a while. Communists will do anything to keep any snags from getting out of control; Pavlov and behavior-control experiments shall guarantee this. So it is now up to you to choose whether you want to take up the call Marx made to all hard-working people of the world to turn this world into a Utopia of equal perfection. |