hello! this is the first communist theory thing I actually managed to finish and fully understand, I’m gonna move on to other recommendations next, but I did get quite a lot of doubts that I noted in a little text file. none of them are gotchas just things I genuinely wonder about/don’t understand

i apologize in advance if these are common annoying questions, feel free to point me to other resources that answer these things if it’s too much bocchi-cry you also don’t have to answer everything

here’s the text in case it’s useful!! https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

Section 18

If competition is erradicated when every line of production is controlled by the state as Engels is proposing, will that mean an end of variety in consumer choice? I have indeed heard stories that people in socialist countries “only have one or two brands of X”, I’m not sure to what extent that is true but it seems like the natural conclusion from doing this…

Do you think this is better for an average person? main things that scare me are that, much like with companies in a market, how could we ensure the state produces things that benefit us and not benefit itself instead? this is what worries me about only having a single national bank too. Ideally if we only have one choice we have to make sure it’s the right one, no?

How would niche things, that benefit some part of the population but not everyone, be produced? Things like… fumo plushies, board games, or to put a less banal example, something that helps a condition that is uncommon and doesn’t spread but still exists, like special shoes to help some kinds of foot deformation for example…

thing is in a market system, niche things can make just as much or even sometimes more money than stuff that is produced “to be useful for everyone”, so they almost always appear in some way. but if all the production is controlled by the state, with very grand goals in mind, wouldn’t it not benefit them in any tangible way to invest in these kinds of things?

also, what would inspire innovation if it’s not competition? couldn’t the state just be satisfied with the results something is giving and not be interested in giving it resources to improve?

Section 19

I’m curious what communists think about this with a modern lens? AFAIK a revolution in a single country did happen right? And in Russia so none of the places Engels proposed. It didn’t really spread from there.

Section 20

do marxists think only economic class exists? wouldn’t there still be political classes? here it says that classes would end up disappearing because they only form due to division of labour. But isn’t there even in a fully realized socialist state a division of labour? even if everything is nationalized, isn’t there still a difference in power between, like, a furniture factory worker and the bureaucrat that oversees the state’s furniture building company? even if that bureaucrat is not monetarily richer than the worker per se.

also, it predicts here that education will give people the opportunity to understand the entire production system and thus jump from producing one thing to another, but since this book has written education has become a lot more universal, and that’s not what really happened right? people still chose one thing to specialize on and do it all their lives (or they study something that doesn’t have work opportunities and work something else). is there a difference in how marxists want education to work?

Section 24

I have one doubt about what Engels says about democratic socialists, mainly that small capitalists (“petty bourgeoisie”) in general tend to have the same interests as the proletariat.

i think one of the things that has put me off about revolutionary communism is precisely the attitude towards small capitalists, to be honest my parents are part of them, and I’ve always struggled to see them as a big evil the same way I view corporate giants, mainly because it’s just obvious their aims are not the same

I think the exploitation Engels is talking about where the workers always get the bare minimum that can be afforded happens mainly in big companies, especially the ones that have investors and seek infinite growth, but small companies like my parents’s basically just want to get by and survive, they only want to maintain themselves at an earning level that can support my family and the families of everyone who works there, if they can’t pay the wages with the weekly earnings they take out of their own savings to do it

in my parent’s case they are over 70 so they couldn’t really be part of the factory work either way, and I think what they do is still valuable (managing things, attending calls, organizing production and planning, supervising the design of new ideas, solving disputes, marketing, training new employees, etc…)

will these kinds of companies be treated any differently?

thanks a lot for reading, in advance!

  • star_wraith [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    Great questions!

    Re: Section 24

    Small business owners, in some sense, do have more in common with the proletariat than they realize. Their economic situation is usually very precarious - at any time, if business slows down they will find themselves as part of the proletarians if they lose their business. This happens fairly often under capitalism. Further, ruthless competition among capitalists means the capitalist economy trends toward monopoly - squeezing out small business owners.

    I have a friend who is a capitalist (inherited the family business). I once asked him what he liked about being a business owner. He didn’t use these exact words, but essentially he loves making a lot of money and being “the boss” i.e. holding power over people. He doesn’t actually care that much about the work itself. And frankly he isn’t very good at it, but the business he inherited was already pretty successful.

    Then you have my dad, who is also a small business owner. He doesn’t have any employees. He does it because he loves that line of work; he doesn’t really make that much money from it. But he’s at the age where he could retire but he doesn’t want to because he enjoys the actual work - meeting with people, working with them on solutions, etc.

    Under socialism, there’s plenty of opportunities for people like my dad and I suspect your parents as well. You still definitely need people who can manage a team, run an enterprise, etc. My dad could still basically do the exact same work under socialism and it wouldn’t really be any different. In Cuba today, this is actually fairly prevalent, people who basically run their own one-person shops. But this still applies to situations where you manage people. Honestly, there’s no reason your parents couldn’t do what they do now but under socialism. Granted, they may report to some planning entity (or not, depending on the stage and nature of socialism) but all the “managing” stuff is still just as valuable under socialism, if not moreso.

    Now what would be different under socialism would be a.) you’re not gonna make a fortune, although income could be higher than people that report to them. This is how every socialist country has operated so far - income distinctions, but not so much that you are creating class distinctions. And b.) you can’t be a dictator over the people that report to you. Workers have rights and socialism usually entails more democracy in the workplace. But even in a situation like a co-op, you need people who can make managerial decisions and “run” the enterprise.

    So if you parents enjoy the work for what it is, then no reason they couldn’t enjoy things under socialism (maybe even more, given that the precarity would be gone). But people like my friend, they obviously would hate it but if your reason for being a small business owner is the obscene wealth and controlling people… then yeah socialism isn’t for you.