'Communism is the plundering of the productive by the unaccountable.'
C. Missler
"Marx believed that society evolves through several stages:
- Primitive communism: Early human societies where resources were shared equally. [The word 'primitive' is from the root word 'prime' meaning 'first'. The assumption that assumption that small groups of people, who knew & cared about each other, who lived in egalitarian society in relative harmony with each other & their environment was somehow inferior to our own society should be reexamined.]
- [A stage or type of society was omitted- in which people freely exchanged goods & services, both within and outside of their local groups.]
- Slave society: Societies where a few people owned slaves who did the work.
- Feudalism: A system where landowners controlled peasants who worked the land. [Note that the land was 'the means of production'. - One of the main differences between slaves & serrfs was that feudal serfs were treated as part of the land- sold or inherited with it, like the wildlife or the trees; a resource. Serfs were not free, but were not sold off separately, as were slaves. - Kings & emperors operated, in most cases, as overlords, claiming dominion or ultimate ownership over all the land & the people in their realms. Many claimed to be deities, or to be divinely appointed. ]
- Capitalism: The current stage, where the bourgeoisie (capitalist class) owns the means of production and the proletariat (working class) sells their labor.
Socialism: The transitional stage where the state controls the means of production to ensure equality.
Communism: The final stage, where the state withers away, and society operates on the principle of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” "
[Comments in brackets added.]
https://polsci.institute/understanding-political-theory/communism-ideal-classless-stateless-society/
The problem is, as Rudolph and his elf friend and aspiring dentist Herbie, taught us, "Who decides the test of what is really best? Who? Who?"
Who decides what is each person's ability? Who decides what is each person's need?
- Currently, we seem to be under a sort of corporate feudalism, where the neo-lords use the corporate structure to amass power & wealth, essentially controlling the rest of the people, through economic forces and the government, which they have largely co-opted.
Government has also allowed these new lords to use corporate charters as both licenses to break the law, trespassing upon the Rights of actual people- and as personal liability shields.
The co-opted government has abandoned it's purpose:
"We hold these Truths [not opinions, nor view points] to be self-evident [obvious & irrefutable],
-that all men* are created Equal [not identical],
-that among these Rights [but not limited to them] are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness [including property, without which Life & Liberty are impossible, the primary property being, upon adulthood, self-ownership],
-that they are endowed by their Creator with certain UNalienble Rights,
-to secure these Rights, governments are instituted among Men..."
*Note that, depending on context, the words 'men' & 'man' refer not only to adult male humans, but to all people. They come from the Latin 'manus' for 'hand' - not another body part.
UNalienble Rights do not come from government or from other people, and cannot be taken from us. Even when others, acting with or without the assumed authority of government, infringe upon, violate, deny, disparage, deprive us of, or trespass upon those Rights, they remain ours.
Since the only purpose of government in these United States is "to secure these Rights", protecting the Rights of actual people is the only just reason for any law.
Proponents of socialism and communism are not wrong about how capitalism has been allowed to devolve into corporate feudalism. Yet any form of centralized control, free of 'checks & balances', - no matter it's claim to use authority only impose equality - will result in totalitarian tyranny.
tyranny - the arbitrary and capricious, unpredictable and unaccountable exercise of power.
