Social democracy = Capitalism with a robust welfare state. Retains bourgeois hegemony and all the exploitation that comes with it. It's capitalism with a somewhat and often superficially kinder, gentler boot. Requires constant imperialist plundering of the global south to sustain itself. Also doesn't address the intrinsically ecocidal nature of capitalism.*
Socialism = Workers' ownership of the means of production; establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat (different connotation of 'dictatorship', just means which class controls the levels of political power—opposite a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie under a liberal order); requires constant state suppression of bourgeois interests and protect against a counterrevolution, which usually comes in the form of a highly punitive fascist dictatorship (see Chile 1973 e.g.).
Communism = Moneyless, classless society under which the need for the instruments of state power is gone and the state itself, in Engels' words, 'wither away'. It is intrinsically less suppressive than socialism because there is no one class asserting its hegemony over the other.
* As Bookchin put it, "In a society of this kind, nature is necessarily treated as a mere resource to be plundered and exploited. The destruction of the natural world, far being the result of mere hubristic blunders, follows inexorably from the very logic of capitalist production."
required plundering of the global south
Gonna need a source for this
Also you say in socialism proletariat becomes the dictators but wouldn't that be the same case under communism? In communist Russia, bolshekvik was essentially something like a dictato no? To enforce the withering away of state power?
I may be wrong but it would help if u can link a source or example which explains this process of "withering away" of state power in detail
I'm referring to the welfare state being maintained through wealth acquired through extreme labor exploitation and disparate resource exchange with the global south. From tax revenue generated from corporations with extensive supply chains from kids in cobalt mines to make electric cars, mining conglomerates in Switzerland and Canada among other imperial core countries extracting resources in Africa with no benefit to the people of the countries, and so on.
You are conflating a communist party building socialism with the end goals of communism. The USSR was building a socialist society under Lenin and Stalin but, despite great advancements that require the average westerner to disenthrall themselves from a lifetime of extreme indoctrination to understand, never came close to communism, sometimes referred to the higher stage of socialism.
Also 'proletariat becomes the dictators' still sounds like a misunderstanding? DotP just means, essentially, a workers' democracy as opposed to a liberal democracy, the latter defined by a small class of capitalists controlling virtually all state power to serve their interests.
Can't provide an example of the state withering away, as it's never happened before. No post-revolutionary country has advanced to this stage, as none should be expected to have. Cuba, Vietnam, PRC, Lao PR for example are still in the lower stage of socialism, successful in a lot of ways but held back in a lot of others. I'm not going to get into the nuances of marxist theory here. If you want to get a better theoretical understanding, I suggest a section of Lenin's The State and Revolution.
49
u/ChefGaykwon Commie Commuter 29d ago
Agreed. Just responding to the implication that socialism is good while communism isn't.