: : : Now I wonder if you could also spell out for me why it is that Marxism has produced a history that hasn't only screwed workers out of their money, possessions, rights and a higher standard of living but has also produced more corpses than any other ideology?
: Recall that communism existed for UNDER a century (under exceptionally immature conditions).
: Shall we compare communism to capitalism where capitalism stood when it was under a century old?
: Capitalism, by 1700, still had yet to produce a single democracy.
: Capitalism, by 1700, was still characterized by direct colonial plunder.
: Capitalism, by 1700, was still characterized by the institution of slavery.
: Etc., etc.
: If capitalism was judged SOLELY by what it accomplished in ONLY the SAME time granted to the development of communism, it would be as ugly a picture of oppressive social relations.
: Capitalism 'flowered' into democracy only AFTER it began to produce more abundance (thus requiring less direct exploitation).
: To ignore the role of material development upon social development is to see only a frozen image of social relations that are, in actuality, constantly in transition.
Good one. Unfortunately I don't think of capitalism as including the power of kings to do as they please. When I refer to capitalism it always includes the idea of the rule of law, the right to private property, the singularity of the individual vs. the collective, the idea of subsidiarity, etc.
Besides, as Igor Shafarevich writes in 'From Under the Rubble' (Alexander Solzhenityn's collection of essays written by Russian intellectuals, Little Brown, 1974), there is nothing 'new' about socialism and in fact is one of the very oldest patterns of social organization dating back to Mesopotamia, the Incas and even some of the more esoteric Catholic sects such as the Cartharists.
The real development in social organization seems to be not another form of communism but rather capitalism.
