Can anyone succinctly explain communism? Everything I’ve read in the past said that the state owns the means of production and in practice (in real life) that seems to be the reality. However I encountered a random idiot on the Internet that claimed in communism, there is no state and it is a stateless society. I immediately rejected this idea because it was counter to what I knew about communism irl. In searching using these keywords, I came across the ideas that in communism, it does strive to be a stateless society. So which one is it? If it’s supposed to be a stateless society, why are all real-life forms of communism authoritarian in nature?
Sure, I’ll take a crack at these!
For your first question, we have to question what it would mean to revert from full Public Ownership to some kind of Private Ownership. Such a method would require a revolution, to change hands from the global population to an elite few, but how would they do that? Communism is international, there’s little need for an army at all at that point, and police would be replaced largely by social workers. Such an upbeaval of the status quo would require a massive upset.
If you mean from within the system, ie slowly boil the frog and peacefully remove all democracy, I would ask you to explain how that would happen given the democratic forces at play and overall economic basis being one requiring everyone in society to be able to participate to their fullest extent, as well as why, when such a system would be at relative abundance.
At earlier stages in development, ie Socialism, sort of? However, I reiterate, planning is not a class, it’s a form of labor.
For your second question, I suppose I would say yes, Marxists don’t believe Communism to be the “end.” However, it is unlikely that such a system would move in favor of decentralization, as decentralization removes democratic input and paves the way for competition and markets to resurface into Capitalism. Engels’ work Anti-Duhring is centered on such a concept, though it isn’t on my reading list.
As for whether or not humanity will eventually move into a more Anarchist style, there’s little to suggest so far that mass, complex industry will simplify itself to where there is a total reversion from full public Ownership and central planning to incredibly simplified individual ownership and planning. I won’t say it’s impossible, but new analysis within Communism would have to observe its trends and predict the next phase of society to be based on atomization and individualism, rather than mass cooperation.
Marx never “decided” that Socialism was good so it should happen, rather, Capitalism’s natural tendency to centralize and teach society how to scale industry further and further and plan it meant Socialism was the next logical step. Such analysis would have to be done again, within Communism, and observe such phenomena to make it valid analysis.
Hope that helps!