Your error is in combining Capitalism the system with the ideologies that support it, like Liberalism. These are separate, and combining the two leads to unhelpful errors that obfuscate understanding of how they work. The base is not the superstructure, but they reinforce each other.
Concisely, Capitalism the system of Political Economy and Socialism (eventually Communism) the system of Political Economy are raw material processes, or the Base. The ideologies concerning each and the other aspects of society are the Superstructure. Here’s an infographic:
Communists believe private and public ownership are tools better suited for different levels of development. At low development, markets can be a useful tool, see the NEP or the PRC’s Socialist Market Economy. Markets, however, necessarily centralize and erase their foundations, Public Ownership becomes more and more efficient in comparison along this process. The only time you could say Public Ownership will not eventually be the future of production is if you think production will no longer improve and no longer increase in complexity.
When I say that I don’t think you understand Communism, I say that because it’s abundantly clear to me that you haven’t engaged with the why of Communism from Communists themselves, just moralistic arguments and not the actual materialist analysis Communists work off of. It has nothing to do with morality, and everthing to do with how production functions in the real world.
Ah. I do not think of capitalism (nor communism) as a base, but rather as an emergent activity of the (more foundational than economic structure) human mind and societal organism.
this is because regardless of the presence or absence of capitalism and communism, the human mind exists. The human mind and the underlying physical, emotional, mental, and holistic needs are more foundational than the economic system we employ.
I don’t think I’m conflating them. I simply think the humans are the foundation, not the economic system.
Ideas don’t create matter, matter creates ideas. The human being is special because it recreates matter which recreates ideas in an endless spiral. Capitalism wasn’t invented but arose especially once industrialization took off with the steam engine. Organization of society really started with agriculture, feudalism with the ability to store the gains from agriculture, Capitalism with factories aided by steam engines and machinery, and Socialism has already cropped up around the world with the rise of mass industry and international Imperialism.
The human mind exists in the context of its environement. We don’t really consciously employ a system as it was designed, rather, the system emerges due to physical laws of development of technology and new capabilities, and humans can do their best to tweak or guide that process. Socialism is a critical step because under Capitalism, profit is the prime motivator and that works against a common goal, while in Socialism humanity has understood the laws of social development and can make Capital work towarda a common, cooperative goal.
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is a great and far more thorough overview of what I just described, a brief overview of Historical and Dialectical Materialism.
Your error is in combining Capitalism the system with the ideologies that support it, like Liberalism. These are separate, and combining the two leads to unhelpful errors that obfuscate understanding of how they work. The base is not the superstructure, but they reinforce each other.
Concisely, Capitalism the system of Political Economy and Socialism (eventually Communism) the system of Political Economy are raw material processes, or the Base. The ideologies concerning each and the other aspects of society are the Superstructure. Here’s an infographic:
Communists believe private and public ownership are tools better suited for different levels of development. At low development, markets can be a useful tool, see the NEP or the PRC’s Socialist Market Economy. Markets, however, necessarily centralize and erase their foundations, Public Ownership becomes more and more efficient in comparison along this process. The only time you could say Public Ownership will not eventually be the future of production is if you think production will no longer improve and no longer increase in complexity.
When I say that I don’t think you understand Communism, I say that because it’s abundantly clear to me that you haven’t engaged with the why of Communism from Communists themselves, just moralistic arguments and not the actual materialist analysis Communists work off of. It has nothing to do with morality, and everthing to do with how production functions in the real world.
Ah. I do not think of capitalism (nor communism) as a base, but rather as an emergent activity of the (more foundational than economic structure) human mind and societal organism.
this is because regardless of the presence or absence of capitalism and communism, the human mind exists. The human mind and the underlying physical, emotional, mental, and holistic needs are more foundational than the economic system we employ.
I don’t think I’m conflating them. I simply think the humans are the foundation, not the economic system.
Ideas don’t create matter, matter creates ideas. The human being is special because it recreates matter which recreates ideas in an endless spiral. Capitalism wasn’t invented but arose especially once industrialization took off with the steam engine. Organization of society really started with agriculture, feudalism with the ability to store the gains from agriculture, Capitalism with factories aided by steam engines and machinery, and Socialism has already cropped up around the world with the rise of mass industry and international Imperialism.
The human mind exists in the context of its environement. We don’t really consciously employ a system as it was designed, rather, the system emerges due to physical laws of development of technology and new capabilities, and humans can do their best to tweak or guide that process. Socialism is a critical step because under Capitalism, profit is the prime motivator and that works against a common goal, while in Socialism humanity has understood the laws of social development and can make Capital work towarda a common, cooperative goal.
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is a great and far more thorough overview of what I just described, a brief overview of Historical and Dialectical Materialism.