u/JITTERdUdE - originally from r/GenZhou
I’ve been wondering lately how this would work, as I know the idea is that many institutions that are governed by the state would be run entirely by the people. However, I’m wondering how this would work. How would these institutions operate without a state? What does it mean to be run by the people? How is it any different from what anarchists envision?
u/spellbanisher - originally from r/GenZhouFrom the perspective of Marxist Dialectical Materialism, it is impossible in our current epoch to imagine a stateless society. The premise of dialectical materialism is that since society is constantly in flux, every epoch contains contradictions, that is, Progressive and reactionary, forces destroying the current order (or bringing about the next order) and forces sustaining it. The job of a Marxist is to identify the contradictions, then to aid the progressive forces while opposing the reactionary ones.
For example, looking at the Capitalist epoch, the Progressive forces are: abolishing feudalism, creating the proletariat, socializing production, generating enormous material wealth, and promoting cultural and social interaction. The reactionary forces are the dictatorship of capital, the creation of the bourgeoisie, the alienation of social relations, aritifical scarcity and inequality, and imperialism.
The Marxist should support the eradication of feudalism while also opposing the dictatorship of capital, back the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, oppose artificial scarcity, support cultural intercourse while fighting imperialism.
It makes no sense to discuss what Communism would look like when the world hasn’t even entered the socialist epoch (or in the case of China, the higher mode of socialism). At best we can only adumbrate it.