[lbo-talk] RE: Democratic Communism

Shane Mage shmage at pipeline.com
Fri Nov 7 07:38:44 PST 2003



>Thomas writes:
>
>"I started to post a long response to this but have
>spared you :) I would like to hear what others think
>about the above observation."....[that democratic communism is not possible]

But this is the most elementary Marxism (as to be found in "State and Revolution"). Democracy is a form of political rule, that of the common people over the propertied classes. Communism is a classless society in which all forms of political rule, including democracy, have "withered away." The transition to communism begins with the establishment of democracy (aka "dictatorship of the proletariat"), replacing the pseudo-democratic plutocracy characteristic of capitalist rule (at its best). It ends with the disappearance of all state institutions and therefore of democracy as such.

Shane Mage

"When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly.

When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true." (N. Weiner)



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