/edu/ - Education

It isn't a really based on evidence. But there have been successful societies that have existed as democracies in so far as how communists seak. So I would say you can point to those historically.

>>7117
What societies?

>>7123
Well the two biggest examples that come to mind is the Paris Commune and The anarchist syndicalist collectivization of spain in 1936. Also you can point to Co-op's like Mon-Dragon and anything unionized basically that has a high participation turn out which is, basically, one step away from being run democratically.

I mean, it seems clear to me that it "works" and is more favorable to our interests as workers and as individuals.

>>7124
Those aren't societies, except maybe in the sense of a free association of people, i.e., a society of wine connoisseurs. I think we're on a different page of what society means. I was thinking of the totality of a stable social group in a given area which operates in a distinct and somewhat independent way relative to people in other areas.

>>7112
>What in dialectical materialism is the explanation for how communism, defined as a classless society in which workers democratically own/control the means of production, is likely or even possible.
They would not technically be "workers" at that point, just the people who do the work.
>Like, I can understand that contradictions are inherent in capitalism, but I don't really understand how the resolve themselves in communism.
Oh, that is a complicated subject. Understanding the nature of those contradictions is key. For example, the cycle of overproduction → speculation → crisis → new efficiency → back around again can only result in systemic degradation as it creates more waste and fewer avenues for high-profit rate investments. The trick is that this cycle is borne out of the very nature of commodity production, thus the only way to break it is to establish a system of production that does not engage in commodity production. To wit, production cannot be done with profits driving it.

There are other examples, of course. The falling rate of profit ensures the inevitable collapse of capitalist production, and the need to make up that production in other ways provides an impartive toward a new economic model. Old models like slavery-based production and feudalism are too inefficient and unproductive to function on a global scale, which is why capitalism was able to supplant them in the first place. The thing is, every sea change in the mode of production must be from a less productive mode to a more productive mode. Otherwise, it would simply be unable to take root against the reaction of the current ruling class. The only way to achieve a mode of production that is more productive that capitalism is is to do something new, something that is not limited by the profit motive; make no mistake–the profit motive is a limiting factor to production.

The difficulty with marxian economics is that there can be no "Basic Economics" curriculum to learn that makes ready sense of it all. It, like economics itself, is esoteric and not always intuitive. Crisis theory, which is essentially what we are discussing, can only be understood by understanding the underlying concepts–what commodities are, how they meet in the real world, how they are acted upon by social relationships between individual people, and how they in turn act upon those individuals. There is a reason that Capital is three gigantic books long and very difficult to read. They are absolutely worth reading, though. Don't take this stuff on faith. Learn the logic that underpins it.

>>7125
If you mean on a massive glboal social scale then no, but, that is true of any society that is envisioned beyond capitalism. The world now is never the world we wish to see that world become. However, arguably, these small examples can lend us some insight into the world we wish to see the current world become and can be used as a type of standard candle for the path forward. Not to mention historically increases in human freedom have lead to high standards of living.

>>7112
What you are asking for is more historical materialism.

Marx observed that once the technical material conditions were ready, class struggle tends to move societies from one mode of production to the next one. For example feudal agrarian society moved to capitalist industrial society when industrial tech came online and the bourgeoisie fought a class struggle against the aristocratic feudal rulers.

The reason for thinking that the working class inherits civilization is because the falling rate of profit will render the capitalist class an impediment to the development of the productive forces.

That means the ruling classes get overthrown when they no longer can advance the productive forces. That's a physics thing and it happens because newer and more advanced productive forces can generate more entropy. And our universe has a rule that configurations of matter that are better at generating entropy are more likely to exist, then those that generate less entropy. Life it self exists because living organisms are better at increasing entropy than dead rocks and mud. It's a statistical effect, that says once the technical basis for industrial society exists most of agrarian society gets replaced sooner than later.

Societies can also fail to move to a new mode of production and then the contradictions of the old system destroys it.
But not all societies fail and the ones that accomplish leveling up to the new mode of production will fill in the void left behind by the ones that failed.

>>7132
There was a lot more reason to be optimistic when Marx was alive and during the early 20th century. At this current point in time I would say that we are on the path to just ending in societal collapse rather than moving towards a communist society.

>>7127
Good answer, and I agree with how you spelled out the contradictions of capitalism. My question, however, stems from this:

>The thing is, every sea change in the mode of production must be from a less productive mode to a more productive mode. Otherwise, it would simply be unable to take root against the reaction of the current ruling class. The only way to achieve a mode of production that is more productive that capitalism is is to do something new, something that is not limited by the profit motive; make no mistake–the profit motive is a limiting factor to production.

I guess my question is: there seems to be two somewhat contradictory statements regarding a potential socialist/communist future. First, the next phase in the mode of production must be able to technologically/productively outcompete capitalism. Secondly, presumably an economic system not centered around profit would have to be centered around some other end. What would that end be, which when implemented is still able to outmode capitalism on a technical/physical basis, and doesn't form the basis of some hellscape in its own rite.

This is what my question specifically pertains to. What about dialectical materialism and world history since Marx's lifetime suggests the likelihood or even possiblity of the development of a a classless mode of production simply defined by empowered workers acting in free association?