[lbo-talk] RE: Democratic Communism

Eubulides paraconsistent at comcast.net
Fri Nov 7 10:40:45 PST 2003


----- Original Message ----- From: "Shane Mage" <shmage at pipeline.com>
> >==============
> >
> >How can you refute a prediction that has never come to pass?
> >
> >Ian
>
>
> We're talking about *interpretation* of Marx's existent
> theoretical conception, not predictions of distant history.
>
> Shane

=============================

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

====================

These are definitions and predictions based on definitions. As Walter Gallie's works points out, most political definitions are so contestable that refutation is not possible. As for collective action to institutionalize [or desinstitutionalize as the case might be] the claims above, the tense structure of the assertions conflate definitions with predictions and every term, whether as definition and/or prediction, is contestable; probably interminably so.

Ian



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list