Socialism's heart: control of its population
I'd venture to say that this is SkyNet. They just send you to a camp before they kill you...
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A very good biography of Marx which I think you would find very interesting and informative is Leopld Schwartzschild's 1947 Karl Marx: The Red Prussian, the first written after the Marx-Engels letters became publicly available.
Yes Marx did use 'socialism' and 'communism' as synonyms. He said he used the term "communist" because "socialist" was already taken when he started the Communist Party -- there was already a socialist party. But he did not distinguish them conceptually and used "socialistic" for his own ideas.
That particular biography is fine, but adds nothing to the contentions. Indeed focusing solely on Marx is a critical mistake itself. We must also follow Engels, co-author of the manifesto.
Engels was instrumental in Lenin’s judgement of communism. While Marx was materialist and focused on that, Engels was the idealist and worked more in the principles behind their ideas. Engels recognized that socialism was the same as communism, and more specifically that socialism was the despotic middle “between” capitalism and communism.
It was Engles who took Marx’ “first stage” and recognized it as socialism. This doesn’t take a lot of insight, but that aspect doesn’t dim the insight.
Capitalism is rooted both individualism and private property. Socialism is rooted in government property and collectivism. To go from the former to the latter must be done by force, and will always constitute a despotic regime.
There is a different path in theory but not likely to be successful: fascism. With fascism being grounded on government control of private property, the mechanism to push people into abolishing private property isn’t there.
These were all present in the disparate socialist thinkers before M&E. What they did was not, of course, to invent socialism, but to codify and streamline it. Indeed if you go pre-M&E you can see the deeper roots of fascism in (IIRC) Ricardian Socialism’s emphasis on worker Co-ops as the means of control - which syndicalism embodied.
Even your assertion regarding Marx and th term socialism doesn’t counter or dispute what I wrote in any way. Communism is, in every reasoning, the complete abolition of the individual under the group and abolition of private property. If socialism were not that, at least to a majority degree, then he/they would not have used them interchangeably. That said, Engels did adopt the term “scientific socialism” to describe Marx’ work.
Nor is my expression new. Contemporaries of the two were saying the same things. Bakunin, for example, was a collectivist of the anarchist stripe. He was vociferously opposed to the mandate of the state as employed by M&E. He recognized this was not only a fatal error in communism and socialism, but a core aspect from which they could not be separated.
The reason these collectivist regimes “become” despotic and authoritarian is because of their collectivism. The drive for individuality in mankind is too strong for them to be otherwise.
Indeed when you start comparing Marx to others you get the sense history has assigned too much credit to his name. Engles , for example, wrote of “primitive communism” as a matriarchy, and that the notion of private property is what ended matriarchal rule. He even railed against monogamy as being the downfall of women and again calls it a result of the notion of private property and individual choice, rather than “communal” property and collective “choice”.
Fascism is a form of socialism that does abolish private property. It recognizes private property in name only, with government taking control. That is its mechanism for abolishing private property rights.
Both Marx and Engels are over-emphasized in analyzing socialism and its cause, which is at root philosophical. The political thoughts and actions of major individuals advocating socialism in history are important to understand, but collectivism as an ideology rose out of the counter Enlightenment's attack on reason and on individualism in ethics as well as politics. There is no innate "drive for individuality in mankind"; there are no innate ideas.
My description of why Marx used the term "communism" instead of "socialism" when he started his political party was biographical support for your statement of his use of the term ("Yes Marx did use 'socialism' and 'communism' as synonyms..."), not disputing it. There is no need for your personal hostility.
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You said, and I agree, that collectivism is despotic. Yet you seem to disagree that the purpose of socialism is this to be a despotic regime. In your words collectivism
Is inherently despotic and that socialism is collectivist. As collectivism (as a government) requires the lack of individualism, and individualism exists, it must eradicate it. It can only do this via force, and only a despotic regime would be attempting that - regardless of stated intention of the people proposing or enforcing it. Hence the purpose of socialism is indeed the eradication of the individual in favor of the collective, under the belief that in such a world we are all harmonious and work for “the greater good”.
Individualism is an innate quality. Mankind has shown zero ability to think and act as a collective. We can act collectively by we do it as individuals both in thought and belief. Even those today who advocate for collectivism under the guise of race or sex are still thinking of themselves as individuals. The evolutionary pressure of procreation in humans is likewise inherently and innately individual rather than collective.
Fascism isn’t a means to abolish private property. I’d certainly agree that ownership without control is de facto non-ownership. However, the preservation of the concept of private property is at odds with collective ownership. Perhaps more importantly it is too valuable to the controlling parties: the government has the scapegoat of private owners and the owners have the scapegoat of “regulation says”. This moves the contention away from the individual providing them the cover we see so much of even in our society today. Removing this tension causes fascism to collapse on itself. Further, fascism relies on the dynamic “man of action” to run the various bits and the government as a whole, thus preserving the individual enough to prevent the abolition of private property which is inherently tied with the individual. This is something the early socialists were somewhat correct on: if you have individuality you will also have private property. We see this even in simians and other animals, so it isn’t a human social construct.
But hey, if you feel this disagreement and discussion, and calling out the straw man, is personal hostility, feel free to exercise your innate individuality and exit the conversation.
I do not "seem" to disagree that "socialism’s core purpose is to be a despotic", I wrote that it is not. "The core purpose of socialism is collectivism, not despotism. " Collectivism is a philosophical goal, for which despotism is an inherent means but which is also characteristic of many social systems other than socialism. A king may want to rule for its own sake; socialism demands subordination of the individual to the collective as a basic moral premise, the "core purpose".
There are no innate ideas and individualism is not an "innate quality". Individualism, collectivism, or a mixture, are philosophical principles that are adopted by choice.
Collectivism holds that the group is above the individual in some fundamental realm, operating across all the major branches of philosophy. It may do so metaphysically, as in Hegel's organic state in which individuals are regarded as mere appendages (and which influenced Marx from the beginning); epistemologically, putting group consensus above independent thought as a standard and purpose of thought; ethically in adopting altruism over egoism as the moral good; politically under statism denying rights of the individual; or several in combination which is usually the case.
Collectivism cannot obliterate the fact that there are only individual minds and that only an individual mind can think, or negate the moral requirement of thinking rationally for oneself as the means of human life. The moral requirements for individualism based on the nature of man and the failures of collectivist societies do not mean that individualism, a philosophical principle, is innate. It must be discovered and properly applied, based on the facts of human nature. Men have chosen collectivism since the earliest tribalism. That they are unhappy as a result of the failures does not tell them what is right and does not make them innately individualists. Lower animals have no concept of individualism at all; they cannot think in abstract concepts and principles.
Fascism, a form of socialism, most certainly does abolish the principle of private property. Recognizing private property in name only under state control does not support "preservation of the concept of private property". The very concept of freedom of use and disposal as a moral right by an individual owner is obliterated under fascism, along with everything other aspect of individualism. Fascism "collapses on itself" like any other form of socialism, including the scapegoating and political persecution that was as rampant in the Soviet Union as in Nazi Germany.
In the US how many people are victims of having their property seized and forfeited when they have not been convicted of any crime?
Prisons serve a useful purpose by separating from society those who have committed crimes against society in order to encourage reform. The larger question is whether or not the reform is to comply with a higher moral law or merely to coerce one to conform to the whims of the ruler.
Works the same way with what Democrat POTUS candidates call "socialism."
Guess who wants to ride the tip?