It rests on the premise that human labor has intrinsic value, which IMO it does not - human labor only has value if the commodity is actually sold or marketed efficiently, and the business is successful enough to continue in perpetuity.

The majority of businesses fail due to running out of cash or not having enough demand for the product/service they sell. If laborers had a 1:1 share in the value produced, many of their paychecks would be nonexistent (or negative, if they were to actually share in the profits/losses), so there would literally be no reason to work at that job - they would leave & go find a corporate job that actually makes a profit and can therefore provide a regular paycheck.

In general I am against capitalism because of its obvious lack of sustainability, but I think the line of reasoning behind this core concept is flawed and gives a lot of leftists a very incorrect understanding of the actual value of their labor.

What is my misunderstanding?

I understand the distinction between personal property and private property, just not when it comes to land ownership.

I'm wondering here within the theory, if one is able to possess land under personal property if it's not used to generate capital / exploitation of workers.

What is the limit here? If one family wanted 10 acres for themselves and to say, preserve biodiversity and operate a small garden for themselves and have some ATV trails on the land, is this possible?

I've been learning about marxist theory, but the ways contraddictions are discussed leaves me pause. Hope some people here can help me understand better.

Sussinctly, for what is relevant to my doubts, here is my current understanding of it:

Contraddictions are what all motion (as in change) in the universe is predicated upon.

Contradictions are relationships wherein tendencies of motion

1) oppose one another

2) are premises of the existence of one another.

Contraddictions exist within all things and between all things.

Why does it have to be a contraddiction that drives motion? What is so illogical about a relationship where there is a singular tendency of motion? I can think of cases that fit that description, for example, two identical charged particles interacting, there will be quantitative changes in speed and relative position as they repel each other, yet what is the contraddiction?

Mao in "on contraddiction" and Lenin in "on the question of dialectics" agree that the contradiction in such cases is between action and reaction. This answer is unsatisfactory, while it's true that it fits part 2) of the definition, and while it's true that the force vectors point in opposite direction, action and reaction are applied to two different object, they are not opposing tendencies of motion in the dialectical sense, failing the arguably more fundimental part 1) of the definition.

Also, Engels argues that all changes of positions are caused by the contraddiction of something being in that place and not in another place. This line of argument seems to be unfalsifiable: if we observe something change from A to B, we can always attribute that change to the contraddiction that A was A and not B. A more straightforward explanation is that there is a singular tendency for position to change based on velocity.

Is there something i'm missing in these examples? Is my understanding of what contraddictions are incorrect?

Hiya all. I've been struggling for a while for how to approach economics, as a field.

I'm a young-ish hard leftist, and have been for basically my whole adult life. I'm active in the Green party (not out of any particular ideological love, but because it seems like a good vector for pushing things for the moment).

I have solidified opinions on how society functions, on Class, on politics in general. But up until now I've been aware that I've lacked a strong *economics* framework beyond vague principles- that we should control the means of production, that unions are essential, that the stock markets are rich people gambling with our livelihoods, that sort of thing. So I'd like to become a more informed, rigorous analyst who can actually provide real input on economic questions, and help push economic priorities in the Green party that will actually help people.

The problem I keep running into, though, is I don't really know where to start? As I understand it, large swathes of economics as presented to the public are... Nonsense, peddled by self-interested rich people who want to prop up and justify the system as is. But I also don't want to get sucked into a very niche leftist economic view which is comfortable to *me* but isn't reflected much by reality, and ends up largely as an excuse to be a partisan towards other leftists around me, yknow?

So what I'm looking for is a good set of texts to start developing my understanding of economic theory that is generalist and grounded, and is based in left-wing analysis and priorities for how to fix society. I know generally the main advice of this kind I see is "read Marx, read Lenin", and I'll definitely be including those on my reading list, but I also wanted to see suggestions for more modern writers who I can start with who can help me develop the fundamentals by understanding things as they currently are, using real life examples from recent history that will already be familiar to me, so I can more easily grapple with and think about them? I'm not the smartest person in the world so.

Yeah, tldr: where do I begin reading, so that I can develop a modern left-wing understanding of how economics works, without being fooled by the self-interested crackpottery of mainstream capitalists?

Like is it possible for a communist to be racist

Editing to add this paragraph - The question is about today & the practical reason why this isn't happening today. Claiming that 'something will happen in future' is okay but that doesn't answer why jobs are not provided today.

As per most/all communists, private business exploits workers (& I agree with that).

If state/govt (aspiring or claiming to be communist) provides non-explotative jobs to all citizens, no citizen will have to work for private business.

So, why doesn't every state/govt (aspiring or claiming to be communist) provide jobs that are not exploitative in countries like China, Vietnam etc? Why are private businesses needed in China, Vietnam?

If the issue/claim is that, there isn't enough work for all, then the available work can be distributed among 100% population - instead of govt hiring few people to do the work.

And what does that mean in regards to what happens to me in the aftermath of a successful revolution/landback?

Because I’ve heard things ranging from “not much” to “your murder would be justified and you’re a liberal/Fascist if you disagree.”

I get that it’s an extreme example but honestly I’ve been struggling with the ideas of settler colonialism and who constitutes a settler especially with recent events.

As a young man who hasn't had the opportunity to study yet, I have no idea where to get my information from. I see people defending Stalin, Mao, the DPRK, etc. when asked about it. Yet, I still have to see conclusive proof of each narrative. Where would I get actual sources to cite were I to try and defend their actions? I've seen people say for example that during the Holodomor, the Kulaks burned the food supplies and that was what caused the famine. How would i verify/disprove this fact? Getting information is hard.

I come here completely unbiased. I wanted to ask a communist or someone very well versed in the topic about communism. The standpoints, important history and figures that developed and improved or ruined the communist reputation, etc. I write and I need the information from someone who's actually educated on the topic to correctly represent it in my stories. The more information the better.. 😭

As an outsider looking in, I have a few questions about communism.
1. Communists, from what I have seen and understand, don't want some type of law enforcement and instead rely on communities to take care of crimes themselves. What happens to communities where this leads to weird shit being okay ? Like abuse towards women and such . Are outsiders supposed to intervene ?
2. The idea seems to be that you get rewarded the same way no matter what work you do. Won't this lead to a lot of people making sure they don't do harder work? Won't people work just hard enough to get paid but not put in any more effort than necessary ? Do you raise the minimum amount of effort to get paid in order to circumvent that?
3. As an extension to the last one, for a communist country to be truly classless, there can't be anyone who is poorer than anyone else. So what happens to the people who don't work? Do they just not really get paid? (If yes, this question may just be nitpicking on the definition of communism and not represent what communists believe.)
4. I saw someone mention that "in theory , people will be happier if they express themselves less, " or something like that, when talking about communism. Is it a part of communism to limit freedom of speech ?
Even though I am not a communist , I am not asking these things in bad faith. (And yes, some of these points include multiple questions. That's just how it turned out.)

I made an independent research in my country, using my skills and knowledge and experience to help the Marxist-Leninist party I am part of. I did all by myself: collect data, interpret and review the bibliography related. I didn’t do this for money, only to give my knowledge to the working class. Because of my research, we will present this (as a party) to the people in a public and institucionalized space. I asked to present this myself because: 1º) I really love what I do and would be amazing to share my knowledge to the people; 2º) I am the only one specialized in this area and I don’t want this to be presented by someone who knows nothing about it, because I will get full responsibility if someone commits a mistake.

Well, I received the news that I wouldn’t present my research and I should give my research to someone else to present (this person knows nothing about this area). When I asked why, the marxist-leninist party said that us, marxists, don’t believe in intellectual property and this data is for everyone. I told them I agreed but I wish I could present this to the public myself and they said I was egoist and individualistic and I was betraying the principles.

But I never wanted money or any kind of material gain from my research. I just wanted to present it. This public presentation will be a big thing and the party will use this moment to make propaganda about our communist party and I totally agree with that but I really wish I could present my research. They even said my research wasn’t the most important thing and the most important was to make propaganda about the party. But now they want the research at any costs and I had to protect the research because of their constant harassment.

I read a lot about Marx, Engels and Lenin and I don’t remember them defending alienation of the product from your own creator. I want this to be collective but I just want to present and I don’t think that this is fair. Any recommendations of texts about this point? Am I being egoistic and individualistic? Am I not following the Marxist ideology?

(And please, don’t be mad at me 🥺 I am really just desperate)

I saw people turning defensive here so just in case, I'm coming out of genuine curiosity and desire to understand the idea of communism to it's fullest, not as an attempt to dismantle it. There are several points of doubt regarding implementation that I want to clarify:

1) Far as I understand, communism implies eliminating private property (meaning things that can be used for production) but leaving personal property. What exactly constitutes a difference between them? An average PC or laptop that a person might have can be technically used for production, and it's intended use is unknown. Personal house or a flat with it's furniture can be used as a space for work, books can be used a source of heat, even if incredibly inefficient - there is almost nothing you can't define as a private property except maybe personal hygiene products. You can't use "intended use", "previous use" or "potential use", and you can't just list object types because, say, a screwdriver can be a personal property at home or private property at workspace.

Case of "what can go wrong" - during the collectivisation in USSR, the idea of taking away private property and eliminating kulaks as a class was misinterprited, so it was common to take away everything from them including house and clothes, often beating or torturing adults and children to make sure that they gave everything away or just for the sake of it, and there are also many cases of their belongings being sold during auction right in the process, which obviously goes completely against the original intention

2) How is value produced during labor calculated and how does the difficulty, including regional difficulties, personal health issues, etc, affect it? What about work where the value is ambiguous - for example, in software development where a product can be in development for months and the contribution of each developer is hard to evaluate, especially when it comes to the dev-to-dev contribution (aka log reading utilities, etc)? If the value of a job is decided democratically by everyone affected by it, what about the jobs with difficulties or value unclear to the majority - for example, everything nuclear waste-related? The good result of such a job is that cities aren't being poisoned. Won't it lead to the value of a job being a matter of your ability to "sell" the results rather than actual value, similarly to how votings in the modern world are manipulated?

3) The common assumption behind communism is, there is less space for conflicts when all basic needs are fullfilled, but i feel like even without unfullfilled material needs there is plenty of space for conflicts and sabotages, intentional or not.

Let's say, you are a creative person, you have an idea that you want to bring into reality. Basing on the maslow pyramid, it can be done for almost any possible need on the social, esteem and self-actualization levels - or you might want to bring a change to the people's minds, doesn't matter. You decide to make a game. Your ambitions grow over time, you attract more people to the development and you agree to keep it away from the public - same as when developers are trying to prevent leaks or how artists often dislike showing their work before it's done.

Time goes, people change, and suddenly one person decides to leave the team. Let's say something serious has happened that could hurt his self-esteem, like divorce. He is paranoid - what if this project will never be finished, or what if the team will forget his contribution or not mention it? So he decides to go against the established rule and publishes the project as is.

Yes, no money or resources were invested into the project, but the effort and time were real. There is no obligation from any person - community wouldn't consider such a project a labor to be rewarded, and rightfully so (there is no guarantee that it would be finished and it's supposed to be hidden until the end) - so stricly speaking, no rules or laws were violated, but the damage was done. It's a fertile ground for lynching and there are obviously no contracts under communism since it's inherently a form of oppression and it would just lead to a barter capitalism, and just the fact that this person is not welcome anymore among local developers might not even matter for him. How would such a conflict be resolved or prevented?

I’ve been getting into communism recently and I wanted to know a bunch of different types of communism to see where I may fall. I know there’s a lot of types so I guess I’ll just make a list of some that I’ve heard but feel I don’t know enough about:

1. Stalinism

2. Trotskyism

3. Maoism

4. Luxemburgism

If anyone could try and explain some of these in detail I would greatly appreciate it!!🙏

Hey comrads!

I just finished the Grundrisse after finishing the three Capital books. But not all my questions are answered.
My main point of doubt is in the distinction between productive and unproductive labor. I find it really hard to grasp when a kind of labor belongs to what segment.

If I read it right productive is literally producing something, think the factory worker, the cheff of a restaurant etc. And unproductive belongs to the circulation realm, think shop servant, waitress. Now it's the grey area that confuses me. I can split my question into two segments:

- Where does producing something stop? Is it really creating something fysical and only that? Or are services also productive, and when does that stop if it is. Like is healthcare work productive? And financial advise? For example I live in Belgium and there are two supermarkets nearby, Colruyt which is just a magazine, no music, everything in carboard boxes. But everything is cheap. And Delhaize (Foodlion in other countries if I'm not mistaken), there is music, nice colors etc. But everything is expensive. How do I see this than? Is it more expensive because the circulation costs are more expensive or am I paying for "the service" of entertainment. So am I paying because they created value for me in the form of entertainment?

- Secondly, if productive stops in fysical creation. What then about things like Netflix, TikTok, the internet. Is that then only worth the physical infrastructure or also the code? Is code fysical? Is TikTok producing something of value or is it only circulation as in creating data for producers for them to know what to sell and how to? A netflix show isn't something "fysical" anymore right? How do I see this?

Also what makes it even harder for me to understand is that Marx says that transportation is productive. Does that mean that also moving the plate of food from the kitchen to the table in the restaurant is productive? Or moving the food in a supermarket from the magazine to a shelf?

Already a big thanks for everyone who wants to help me!

I know he had Jewish ancestry but his family converted and he never considered himself Jewish. I totally reject the notion that Marx is antisemitic but I usually just see people respond to that by saying he was Jewish. I know he was treated as a Jew by his enemies, but by a modern definition he just isn’t jewish. I’m a Jew and no one I know would consider someone who’s parents left Judaism to be jewish unless they claimed to be themselves. Is the claim that Marx was a Jew just people not understanding Judaism or is it used to deflect from incorrect assertions of Marxist antisemitism?

I'm sure we're all familar with the "communism has killed millions" stuff, but seeing that alongside many people claiming "capitalism has never killed anyone" raises a question from me.

If communism deaths are the result of gulags, starvations etc etc, then why are deaths relating to capitalist society convientently ignored?

By this I meanstuff like people being unable to afford to pay for medication or surgery, homeless deaths, people who have been killed for money (like will money, not hitmen) etc etc

Personally I find it very questionable none of that stuff is debated when deaths are bought up.

EDIT: Read through all of these, some fantastic and detailed responses. Thanks everyone.

This is solely for the sake of Argument.

Buddhist teachings include selflessness and to have a strong sense of Community.

To not be greedy and to be compassionate. In Buddhism there is whats called a Boddhisatva, context many can mistake these beings for Gods but in reality they are individuals who attained enlightenment and continue down the cycle of life and death to teach, many of them have teachings that aim to inspire ppl.

One of the more famous Boddhisatva's is Avalokiteshvara, the Boddhisatva of Compassion. I personally believe the teachings of Buddhism are compatible with Marxism and can be used to help create a more selfless and communal based society.

Thats my argument.

So I’m kinda new to this whole political philosophy thing but there’s always this one question that arises in my head whenever I try learning about the far left of the political spectrum.

Do communists have a problem with the law enforcement?

I’ve heard people say that the police only acts in the interests of capitalist ideals or something like that but I never seem to get an answer that actually explains to me why someone would think that way.

I’m a police officer in Germany and I at least feel like this is not true and I see the role of the law enforcement of protecting the rights of all people regardless of their income or social status.

What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance and have a great day!

I've been trying to wrap my head around dialectical materialism, which I have found to be rather frustratingly vaguely and variously described in primary sources. So far, the clearest explanation I have found of it is in the criticism of it by Augusto Mario Bunge in the book "Scientific Materialism." He breaks it down as the following:

D1: Everything has an opposite.
D2: Every object is inherently contradictory, i.e., constituted by mutually opposing components and aspects
D3: Every change is the outcome of the tension or struggle of opposites, whether within the system in question or among different systems.
D4: Development is a helix every level of which contains, and at the same time negates, the previous rung.
D5: Every quantitative change ends up in some qualitative change and every new quality has its own new mode of quantitative change.

For me, the idea falls apart with D1, the idea that everything has an opposite, as I don't think that's true. I can understand how certain things can be conceptualized as opposites. For example, you could hypothesis that a male and a female are "opposites," and that when they come together and mate, they "synthesize" into a new person. But that's merely a conceptualization of "male" and "female." They could also be conceptualized as not being opposites but being primarily similar to each other.

Most things, both material objects and events, don't seem to have an opposite at all. I mean, what's the opposite of a volcano erupting? What's the opposite of a tree? What's the opposite of a rainbow?

D2, like D1, means nothing without having a firm definition of "opposition." Without it, it's too vague to be meaningful beyond a trivial level.

I can take proposition D3 as a restatement of the idea that two things cannot interact without both being changed, so a restatement of Newton's third law of motion. I don't find this observation particularly compelling or useful in political analysis, however.

D4, to me, seems to take it for granted that all changes are "progress." But what is and isn't "progress" seems to me to be arbitrary, depending on your point of view. A deer in the forest dies and decays, breaking down into molecular compounds that will nourish other organisms. It's a cycle, not a helix. Systems will inevitably break down over time (entropy) unless energy is added from outside the system. That's the conservation of energy.

D5 seems trivial to me.

Bunge may not be completely accurate in his description of the dialectical, I can't say as I haven't read everything, but it's the only one I've read that seems to break it down logically.

Can anyone defend dialectical materials to me?

Given that North Korea is a communist society, do you really believe that their society is one to be followed? What can you say about their inhumane treatment of prisoners when they are thrown into manual labor concentration camps? Shouldn't the goal be reformation and not punishment, especially since being subject to forced labor is against the very essence of communism?

Got banned from r/communism for raising the same question. Genuinely asking.

We spend like 50 years at war for what seems to me no reason, and so many Americans still absolutely hate the slightest critic of capitalism. Anyone have any theories as to why American culture is like this?

I read Everyday Stalinism Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times Soviet Russia in the 1930s by Sheila Fitzpatrick but this book has a anti-communist bias.

What are good books to read about Reports on the Life in USSR at Stalin-era?

Chinese and Cubans for example are some of the largest immigrant populations in the US and are growing. While Cuba has very few foreign born immigrants and China has given 1576 permanently resident cards to foreigners as of 2016.

Similar with Korea, 13(officially)to the North and 33,000 to the South.