Talk:Communism vs Socialism
[edit] appropriate?
Hi - I hope this topic is appropriate for this wiki. I see a few non-tech vs. here, so I decided to be bold and create this one. The difference between Communism & Socialism is (I think) not well understood. In fact, I don't think I understand it, so I thought I'd create this stub, and hope others would add to it.
- Sure. It’s for everything you can compare. --Kissaki 20:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
[edit] The Ontological Stability of Communism
Perhaps this is due to my own philosophical n00bness, but when I see the difference in definitions listed for socialism and communism, I see that both aim for the common people to own most or all materials and means of production; what I cannot understand is how communism aims to do this without understanding how the material distribution shall actually occur.
Absent a state mechanism in a communism (since the state does not exist), will the common people come together to deliberate and measure what is materially egalitarian? If the common people by means of vote determine such an issue, then a government naturally forms, a government of democracy which contradicts the stateless requirement of communism. If the common people by means of a representative committee or a bureaucracy decide to distribute and measure what is materially egalitarian, then some other form of government is inherently formed (whether it be a republic or a representative democracy or some other form of government).
Perhaps a solution to this is cultural; but even then a state emerges as a people organize themselves within a structure which distributes materials and the means of production according to egalitarian principles. And surely such a cultural structure could not be stable unless (1) some inherent human instinct or nature propels it to, or (2) there exists an enforcement mechanism within the cultural system, in which case a manner of governance contained within an institution whose domain is restricted to a fixed or stable geographic region is formed; i.e., yet again a state.
Furthermore, I question the identity of the "stateless" state that is communist; where does the communist stateless-state begin and end as a geo-non-political entity? How does such a stateless state even ontologically exist? How do we know that a stateless state is not in fact two or more stateless states? Yosef Levi 20:39, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
