That’s actually wrong. Marx came up with it, he just called what Lenin called “Socialism” as “lower-stage Communism.” The origin is in Historical Materialism, and the concept of Scientific Socialism (as opposed to the Utopian form that thought you could just think up a good society and create it outright).
Calling it a “continuum” is misleading. Capitalism, as an example, starts with many smaller Capitalists but eventually concentrates and monopolizes. This is a trackable and historical motion, not a “continuum” but nonetheless an observed trend. Socialism, on the other hand, continues that movement but does so in the direction of collectivization, as public ownership and planning not only becomes feasible but far more efficient at higher levels of development, which is also observable and trackable.
Communism is when this process has been done and all private property has been folded into the public sector. This isn’t a straight and narrow line, but a process that will happen in many different manners across many different countries, but by tracking trajectories and behaviors this prediction becomes clearer and clearer, and Marx becomes vindicated by the passage of time as we observe them coming to fruition.
I hope Marx’s prophecy is true. It would be nice to have stages toward communism like some sort of continuum. For the Yankees, they get fascism. Spain, Germany and Italy didn’t do a socialism after their fascism. The USSR went “socialism” to fascism. China is a successful capitalist state under Deng Xiaoping. Let’s keep betting that we’ll progress to communism by proping up the right heirarchies.
The current reality for the USA is the concentration and merger of economic and political power. More public lands are becoming private. Labor has been told it will be made competitive again which can be assumed to mean a reduction in wages. Capital might be on-shored again? The current major lie is other countries will pay a tarrif. Workers will suffer for gains of the state. We can likely agree the state serves the capitalist under capitalism.
Won’t someone think of the poor Yankees? Luigi does some propaganda of the deed and terrorises those in power. Propaganda of the deed is ineffective long term, but shakes the heirarchies tree short term. I would argue it is too loud. Instead, we should focus on building horizontal power.
Collectivism requires people coming together to create horizontal power. Building horizontal power is in spite of any existing vertical power. Normal economic requirements like land, labor and capital need to be acquired for the benefit of the collective.
The point is there are no stages to communism. The prophecy will not save us from heirarchical power. Extraordinary claims, like those of Smith, Marx or Lenin, require extraordinary evidence. Instead of relying on a heirarchy, which continues to fail due to centralized power, we must build communism collectively with shared hands.
That’s actually wrong. Marx came up with it, he just called what Lenin called “Socialism” as “lower-stage Communism.” The origin is in Historical Materialism, and the concept of Scientific Socialism (as opposed to the Utopian form that thought you could just think up a good society and create it outright).
Calling it a “continuum” is misleading. Capitalism, as an example, starts with many smaller Capitalists but eventually concentrates and monopolizes. This is a trackable and historical motion, not a “continuum” but nonetheless an observed trend. Socialism, on the other hand, continues that movement but does so in the direction of collectivization, as public ownership and planning not only becomes feasible but far more efficient at higher levels of development, which is also observable and trackable.
Communism is when this process has been done and all private property has been folded into the public sector. This isn’t a straight and narrow line, but a process that will happen in many different manners across many different countries, but by tracking trajectories and behaviors this prediction becomes clearer and clearer, and Marx becomes vindicated by the passage of time as we observe them coming to fruition.
I hope Marx’s prophecy is true. It would be nice to have stages toward communism like some sort of continuum. For the Yankees, they get fascism. Spain, Germany and Italy didn’t do a socialism after their fascism. The USSR went “socialism” to fascism. China is a successful capitalist state under Deng Xiaoping. Let’s keep betting that we’ll progress to communism by proping up the right heirarchies.
The current reality for the USA is the concentration and merger of economic and political power. More public lands are becoming private. Labor has been told it will be made competitive again which can be assumed to mean a reduction in wages. Capital might be on-shored again? The current major lie is other countries will pay a tarrif. Workers will suffer for gains of the state. We can likely agree the state serves the capitalist under capitalism.
Won’t someone think of the poor Yankees? Luigi does some propaganda of the deed and terrorises those in power. Propaganda of the deed is ineffective long term, but shakes the heirarchies tree short term. I would argue it is too loud. Instead, we should focus on building horizontal power.
Collectivism requires people coming together to create horizontal power. Building horizontal power is in spite of any existing vertical power. Normal economic requirements like land, labor and capital need to be acquired for the benefit of the collective.
The point is there are no stages to communism. The prophecy will not save us from heirarchical power. Extraordinary claims, like those of Smith, Marx or Lenin, require extraordinary evidence. Instead of relying on a heirarchy, which continues to fail due to centralized power, we must build communism collectively with shared hands.