Communism is dead or so I have heard. But, what exactly died? The USSR is gone, the countries of eastern Europe rush to the western capitalist for guidance, and China moves towards a market economy at it own pace. But were this communist societies or just societies dominated by a successful capitalist?
The goal of every capitalist is to create a monopoly, and well the small group of bureaucrats that ran the Soviet Union not only monopolized the commodity markets and monopsonized the labor market, but they also monopolized the market for power. Not even Disney has accomplished that. The eastern block nations were simply exploited colonies for the Soviets. China has followed in the footsteps of Russia, but made their transition with less havoc.
In all of this situations the will of the working class was not represented in policy. The idea of a non-representative authoritative government controlling the means of production is contrary to the Marxist idea of the means of production being in the hands of the workers, and much closer to a capitalist controlling a massive firm.
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Profile of Adam Smith
English: The Eastern Bloc - after the annexations ...Calling this countries communist is equivalent with calling Adam Smith a mercantilist and just as absurd. Yes, something has died but the corpse is not communism. Let us resurrect the word communist from the grave of this monopolist.
So then what is communism. Well it has been a lot of things, almost as many as it has not been, but it comes down to two ideas. One that the most efficient economic system is one in which the workers own the means of production, and two that it eliminates the inherent contradictions of capitalism. So where does that leave us? Well in today's America the "revolution" shall come not be violence or political movement, but by the workers...