Browsing this forum, I have seen a lot of anti-leftist statements that reek of ignorance, as well as a blind acceptance of Western "democracy" being a workable system. The truth is, it isn't. The answers to the world's problems require that the people themselves take charge of their affairs, that they establish socialism.
The communist movement may be in poor shape today, but it is still the progressive path. The other political movements attempt to prevent progression or regression, locking us in our current system, lead us back to the past, in some form or another, or are communism under a different name and unaware of the mountain of theory they have at their disposal and their allies across the world.
A socialist state is by definition democratic, which today's Parliamentarian-style "democracies" cannot boast. It will be unable to oppress the people, because everyone is involved, and has a quality education so that they can perform to their full potential. In an ideal socialist state, everyone has equal rewards and lives in comfort, without outstanding needs--the world has more than enough resources to provide for this if they are spent efficiently. Communism is a theoretical state beyond socialism, which will be completely different from our system today and involve people working purely for their own benefit, their needs being provided for by machines owned by a community. It will not be close to our day, though, so it is not relevent to contemporary discussion.
The problem is attaining socialism. Each part relies on the others for its stability, so it is hard to construct it from a system reliant on inequality. It is clear that Soviet-style communism, more accurately Stalinism, will not work. It failed to achieve true socialism every time it was instituted, though the Warsaw Pact countries were arguably more egalitarian and humanitarian places after the Krushchev thaws. This leaves two likely paths--a Trotskyist worldwide "Permanent Revolution" leading all countries to socialism from whatever stage they are in, or a democratic transition remniscient of that Allende backed in Chile.
The problem with a worldwide Trotskyist revolution is setting it up, and making sure that the right people are heading it. A huge amount of dedicated and incorruptable revolutionaries are required in every country, or dictators will be able to easily wrest control of the entire state apparatus as Stalin did from Lenin. Dictatorships are always dedicated toward their own longevity, a behavior nonconducive toward socialism. An exception is the theoretical "dictatorship of the proletariat" which would follow a communist revolution, which, as the bourgeoisie would be dissolved following such a revolution, would end up as a dictatorship of the "everyone" and thusly not a dictatorship at all. The vast scale of preparation beforehand for such a revolution would need to involve millions willing to give their lives to the cause, something very difficult to attain without the resources of a government. A bloodless, pacific revolution would be best, but it is not guarenteed that the state can be overthrown without violation. In addition, the revolution is not guarenteed to succeed, and if the capitalist military is able to crush it another revolution of the same character will not come for many, many years.
The problem with democratic socialism is maintaining the purity of the movement and defending it from being ousted by the right. Parliamentarianism, the form of "democracy" we deal with today, has three main flaws: it moves very slowly, tends toward transient compromises rather than consensus, and gives too much power to those who are in positions of power over those who are not. Because of this, revolutionaries seeking to instate a bloodless revolution through the existing state appratus are pressured to compromise away ideals in exchange for political victories. Also, in most countries the infrastructure of voting is managed with people who have interests in certain outcomes of the elections, very rarely revolutionary. On top of this, in most states the vast majority of a governmen--including the civil service, military, police, and courts--is not directly controlled by popular vote, and is in a position to stage a coup if they do not favor the victors of a major election.
The way to properly achieve socialism is likely in-between these two methods, and the path will be different in different areas. It will also, unfortunately, probably take a long amount of time, and the early revolution will be vulnerable to corruption until capitalists can no longer realistically challenge it. It is unlikely this will ever happen in our lifetime, but like a doctor standing over a dying patient the people familiar with socialism have a moral duty to the rest of humanity to advocate it in whatever way they can.
There is, unfortunately, little concise literature on communism that is not either extremely dated or unreadable without a dictionary of technical economic terms handy. Generally, reading major documents such as the Communist Manifesto and The State and the Revolution over time and looking at articles in current leftist newspapers can provide one with background information and a decent understanding of what communism means. It is also very interesting to look through history, and see how things really went when socialism was almost instituted throughout the twentieth century. The capitalist states try to avoid focusing on workers' movements in their schools, and don't include information that incriminates them in state-approved textbooks.
The socialist ideal is fantastic, but this is just a lot of commie talk, there, buddy.
That said, Socialism is inevitable and it's already underway. In few places with paved roads do you trip over starving orphans on your walk to work anymore. This was the case in London only about a century and a half ago. Not too long before that, nearly everyone was an illiterate serf. Things are getting better, and this isn't the work of a pure free market.
The greatest countries on earth in terms of living standards tend to be Socialist Democracies in Northern Europe. The key factor is that they are Democracies and the transition between Kingdom and modern state was slow and mostly bloodless.
Another factor that these countries have in their favor in that they're mostly homogenous in terms of race, creed, economics, and everything else and they have been for awhile. It's especially hard to convince a state cobbled together from various peoples (the USA, Mexico, Chile, etc.) to see themselves as a singular nation that has to look out for its own kind. In time, it will come. Or it will come for whatever is left after various civil wars... or when Ron Paul kills himself in his bunker at the close of WWIII, whatever...
These northern European states represent only a small portion of the world population. The majority of the world population is in the global south, peasants in decaying collectives in rural China, unemployed farmers in Rio de Janeiro, and street people living on top of the ruins of their homes in Zimbabwe. The people of these countries are barely better off than they were a century and a half ago.
Even in Scandinavia, there are problems. I've heard that people there are very stiff and unwilling to express their opinions, and that the governments are resistant to all change that has not been proven a hundred times over to not have downsides. The transition to what they are was also, though being bloodless, slow as you said. Celerity is crucial in these transitions, as people in a government not helping them suffer every month it is in place.
Things are getting worse around the world, too. Freedom of speech has been changed from a rule to a guideline all over the western "democracies", and the economy of the United States (the real workhorse of Western economies) is looking like it will be unable to continue superficially avoiding stagnation, as it has been doing with mixed but generally positive success since the seventies. Heck, the world has been deteriorating in terms of economics and political freedoms since the 1950s. If we don't have some luck, a world in a condition similar to that of the 1930s will emerge again in twenty years.
Like I said, we are very unlikely to see socialism established in our lifetime, but we aren't going to see it just "happen", with no one doing anything to establish it.
I really don't think socialism works on a large scale. I can see the emotional appeal and it would probably be great to operate that way within tribes of maybe 200-300 people, which is probably the type of setting early humans evolved in. But on scales of cities with a million people and countries with hundreds of millions, I'd have to say that a meritocratic system works better.
If you look into evolutionary psychology, there are two ways humans will naturally use wealth to show off: by spending it like water ("luxury" apartments, buying your bride a diamond ring, etc.) and through charity, by being generous with it. What we need to do is try to change the culture, emphasizing charity over consumption. This won't be perfect, but I think it's better than taxation. First, it has a benefit for the person being charitable, whereas nobody feels philanthropic about filing their tax return. More importantly, you can have two charities for feeding the hungry, and if one sucks and is a bureaucratic, completely inefficient money-waster, you can support the other one. This is big. In contrast, if government bungles the program, your money is taken and wasted, and you have no recourse.
Also, while a market economy allows people to act in relative freedom, socialism is based on forcing people to share. I'm not saying this is a moral argument against socialism, because I'm aware that that reasoning is culturally biased (to someone more collectivistic, it might sound ridiculous). Rather, it poses a practical problem. You have to have someone who enforces that sharing, and you get into a "Who watches the watchers" problem -- not everyone can be ruled by force; someone has to be in charge. These are ideal conditions for a despotic ruler to come to power, as has happened with communism.
>>5, though I can see how a charity-based society would work in theory (and it would be better than what we have now,) there are just too many ways it could fall apart. Like socialism, except unlike socialism it isn't a solution for everyone (since the people who these charities don't reach would have a hard time.) Like businesses, charities tend to consolidate as their "market" becomes more popular.
And as these charities become fewer in number, they become more corruptible. Eventually, the people will have no reasonable choice, like in modern American politics. We come upon your "who watches the watchers" problem again.
In socialism, at least, the people who are receiving commodities (i.e., everyone) are monitoring the redistrobution of commodities. This would be hard to set up in large cities and densely populated areas, it is true. The solution I am seeing is to organize cities into administrative groups based on population, with only a few hundred people per group. Then each group would send on a couple representatives to the next higher group, etc. This is just a brainstormed idea, though, not solid.
>or when Ron Paul kills himself in his bunker at the close of WWIII, whatever...
Ha!
Here's the issue I see with communism: It holds that individuals will always be opposed, and in communism the opposition will simply be insignificant enough that another revolution doesn't happen, right? It seems to me that opposition will Always cause revolution of some sort. Someone will exploit the system to their advantage or paranoia will spread due tot his possibility and the system will fall apart. That's the way I see it. The only way to achieve Any workable state in which people aren't "controlled" and all work for the benefit of self and all is one in which everyone has a near-same philosophy in mind, and have all decided to follow the rules of said philosophy, and refuse to break it because of their understanding of what would happen if they did so.
Of course, when would that ever happen?
>>10
This is garbage. What are you even talking about? Think then write.
You're adhering to this idea that a few dead Germans and Russians have somehow formulated the only system that works or will ever work. Basically, you're adhering to a religion.
Their systems did not work when applied to reality because those instituting them clung too fiercely to the printed ideology. The USSR is gone. China sticks around because it reformed its economy to the point that it's basically capitalist. Note the difference. Also note that the USA is clinging to its unregulated markets and antiquated ideas like private healthcare. We're so ideologically opposed to socialism that we're bound to suffer economic collapse as a result (seriously, healthcare has to be nationalized).
Anyway, get your nose out of those old books. If they were printed in the Soviet Union, chances are that toxic ink they used is getting you really high.