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The process of self-discovery toward the understanding of my political affiliation continues… I’ve been reading more on-line regarding socialism and communism and found a great-but-short discussion regarding the contrast between these two concepts. Some quote sharing (with minor edits) ensues (feel free to add your two cents for or against in the comments):

In Marxist theory, the clashing of classes creates new classes, and new forms of oppression. It is in this manner that humans progress through stages of political economy [which are] Primitivism, slave state, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and then communism.

and

In communism, occurring probably centuries after the socialist revolution, classless society would be completed. The state would no longer exist, and people would essentially rule themselves. The eventual goal would be the lack of all government.

In modern day terms, “socialist” often refers to “social democrat”. Social democrats do not believe in violent revolution. The believe in socialist and leftist parties winning powers through capitalist democracy, and slowly moving the country towards socialism.

Of course, as a social democrat who feels powerless, that my votes giving power to socialist candidates are worthless, I have often felt more like I’m watching the world’s gradual evolution than affecting it. This is how many people feel, which leads to:

… the Social Democratic parties have professed to fight for socialism (somewhere in the distant future) whilst fighting for short-term reforms. For rank-and-file workers, this is normally a very tempting approach. Why risk everything in a revolution when you can have gradual improvement through reforms? You could even perhaps see that the reforms might be aiming towards revolution.

It is a very tempting prospect, but only so long as the reforms are forthcoming. But, as numerous Marxists have pointed out, reforms are only temporary and will not always be forthcoming. After the oil crisis of the early seventies, nothing has ever been the same. The entire 80s and 90s were filled with cut-backs, attacks on trade unions and privatization. All illusions about the reformist-road to Capitalism has by now been dispelled.

and

Americans loved to point out, while we were still an industrial nation, how much better our workers did than those of the Soviet Union. Auto jobs provided wages that allowed for one parent to provide for a nice house and a nice car in the suburbs. And in many respects, they were right. But capitalism can provide no stability, for where is the stability to profit seeking? American auto companies began to become less and less efficient than those of, say, Japan. Thus, American companies had to cut jobs and outsource, in order to stay in business. This does not just relate to auto workers but to steel workers and many other industrial laborers who once thrived in America. Capitalism cannot provide lasting solutions – look at Detroit now or look at large parts of Pennsylvania.

Or, to put it more simply:

[Communists] believe that socialism cannot be established through capitalism, but by revolution. They think of social democrats as reformers who can make things better for workers [i.e. reformed capitalism], but cannot solve their essential problem, which is capitalism itself.

To elaborate:

Marx and Engels believed that revolution was the only means to achieve class equality, as traditional political means were denied to the working classes. The political system was a tool of the bourgeoisie to maintain their supremacy and thus did nothing to change the status quo. THIS is why Marx advocated the abolition of the State under all past societies (except the Asiatic Chinese state, apparently!) the State is an instrument of oppression for the working classes.

I’m not a revolutionary kinda guy – not in that sense. The idea of a violent removal of the current government does not appeal to me. It strikes me as unreasonable to think that the current system cannot be revised (leading to the more permanent evolution), which leads to:

Firstly, it is undeniable that the population of advanced industrial countries have NOT become pauperized, but in fact gentrified. I.e., rather than the pyramid Marx predicted (small number of capitalists at the top, huge no. of proletarians at the bottom), society resembled rather a diamond, with more members of the middle class than either of the other classes. So Marx’s predictions of Capitalisms inherent exacerbation of class relations was proved to be false.

Secondly, in the last 150 years, political power has been increasingly attained by the working classes, within the framework of liberal democracy. Mechanisms such as limited working hours, minimum pay, graduated income tax… Who brought these into being? Not the capitalists – it’s losing them money! At best, they acquiesced to pressure from the working classes.

So the premise of Social Democracy is thus: there are far more middle class members than proletarians, and hence less need for a drastic, last-ditch revolution to change their situation. Also, we can use the bourgeois political system to our advantage.. use the ruling classes’ own weapon against them. Engels himself agreed that in advanced liberal democracies with a history of political culture, a violent revolution may not in fact be necessary, and peaceful, incremental steps may be preferable.

Yes, the changes are temporary. I understand that, as suggested here:

American autoworkers were doing quite well, far better than most Soviet workers. Their powerful unions demanded great pay and decent hours; an autoworker could be a suburbanite. But then, pressure from Japanese and German auto companies forced GM and Ford to move their plants out of the United States to stay in business. All of a sudden, all of the gains were destroyed.

But we can improve things – now – on the way to moving to a better system, well, later.

This brings me back to my on-going frustrations – as alluded to in my most-recent political posting. That is, we could at least make things more comfortable now and we are not. The people who would stand to benefit most from change do indeed have the ability to affect change. And yet, they are the ones ensuring their own difficulties.

The great mass of lower- and middle-class citizens (particularly the lower class, as it could be argued that the middle class is more complacent with their moderate successes) could enforce such actions as universal health care and a living wage, and yet we do not. (Again, my problem isn’t with people in these classes who are opposed for one reason or another, i.e. libertarians, but with those who are ignorant to what they could do for themselves.) The people could mass for change and yet they do not. Why? Are they stupid? Lazy? Is the system manipulating them into believing that they do not want things to be better?

But that’s rehashing. This topic is about moving forward toward political self-discovery. And, ultimately, I think this is the thought process that closes the deal for me toward socialism – and not being ready to go the distance to communism (and also why I’m anti-libertarian, even if many tenets of the libertarian party are appealing):

… the communist vision involves the disintegration of the state, but many socialists would argue that the state is important and [that] under a socialist government [we] can act to ensure that there is no poverty or exploitation in a much more efficient and thorough manner than can be achieved in a world without the state.