This is a debate only for Communists, Socialists and those with Marxist political leanings.






The idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat comes straight from Marx, but it's an idea that even Marxists disagree on. Is it really the best option? Can it really work? Does it do all it promises?

Personally, I think it's a good idea in theory, but it's too easily corruptable. Anyone remember that old cliche about absolute power?

Thats the biggest problem I have with Communists/the US Communist Party, they either support dictatorships, or just shrug them off. This is why I am a Democratic Socialist, and not a Communist... if there was a Communist party that staunchly stood against people like Castro and for democracy, I would be part of it. A dictatorship is a dictatorship, and is oppressive and anti-worker in the end. Socialism truly cant be Socialism unless it is democratic.

I have to say no - but only because of my objections to dictatorship of any form. If you'd have said "dominance" or "on balance, tending to favour" the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, I would most likely have voted yes. Even then, it would be more of an unachievable but laudable aspiration, rather than an instrument of policy that I'd like to see applied.

i agree... it is the goal of communism to attain the dictatorship of the proletariat. it is true that power corrupts, but the dictatorship of the proletariat is basically impossible to obtain without a dictator. the people would have to overthrow the dictator and take power for themselves.

peter

first let me state that while am not declared as a socialist, I do consider myself one (social libertarian, actually, IE a socialist anarchist)

I think some people are confused as to what exactly a "dictator ship of the proletariat" is. it is not an ACTUAL dictatorship where one single person dictates, or says, what happens. it is democratically controlled and run organization of the working class which dictates what happens instead of the capitalist class. in fact, a SOVIET is a council, (soviet comes from the russian word meaning advice (cobet)) which was democratically elected (until stalin attained power)

also, from wikipedia:


an example of a "dictatorship" of the proletariat would be a factory in which the head boss was selected by the workers, as well as a board or commitee to represent their interests in the company. this board could do nothing with out the consent of the workers. if the head boss isn't doing a decent job the workers (including those on the board or commitee) would have the oppurtunity to vote to demote - or even fire - him. they then would be able to pick someone else to take his place.

I very much believe in a "dictatorship" of the proletariat. I think it is essential for the transition from captialism to communism, while laying the basic framework for an anarchistic society. it is the majority rulling over the minority.

interesting that you wrote the word "sovet" in russian letters... do you know russian or what?
anyway, yes i agree that people misunderstand proletariat dictatorship and that it is vital

That's false. That would be a more libertarian approach. Marx and Engels believed in using the state against the bourgeoisie. For example, let me quote what rattlesnake wrote:


Emphasis added.

Electing a workers council in your sense, I don't think would classify as a dictatorship of the proletariat. In fact, the transitional phase is the primary difference between Bakunin/Proudhon and Marx/Engels.

Is it really the best option?
No. I think a democratically elected worker's council, that workers elect directly from themselves would be the most viable option.

Can it really work?
I suppose it could work, in theory. In reality, it's a slim chance.

Does it do all it promises?
Don't we learn anything from history?

I'm a socialist, in that I believe a reasoning hand, not an invisible one, should guide the market. No one should be able to work people to death in sweatshops, steal their benefits, and pay them starvation wages, no matter how much profit is in it.

But I live in South Carolina, and there are some very ignorant people here. And I've seen (after September 11) what fear does to this nation. One poll showed a majority of Americans willing to endorse torture if the victims of said torture might be terrorists!

I'm a populist, I want to see more direct voting on issues, more control of government by the people. But I want the protection of a Bill of Rights (one that can't be altered save to add rights, never to reduce them or weaken them) so that someday a scared, ignorant population can't vote to send all red headed left-handed people from Idaho to a prison camp. Not that it helps much...look at the Japanese. But it's better than nothing.,

Even at my quite adult age, I have never embraced many of the writings of Marx and for that reason, I have not taken the time to contemplate many of his ideas.

I consider myself an odd independent who believes in regulated capitalism.

In the 5th grade, a teacher once said, "The Pony Express was the beginning of 'creeping socialism' in the U.S."

From that point forward, I desired less government but also held the notion spawned within me by another teacher in the 7th grade who said, "Democracy is a dictatorship of the majority."

Within that framework, I was happy and fairly content to be a voter for whichever candidate I thought espoused the ideals I most liked.

However, as has been said in this thread and in many other places. "Power corrupts and Absolute Power Always Corrupt".

I don't know what to call my idea of a perfect political system but it would certainly take lessons from history (the beginning of equal civil rights for minorities would have never happened by a vote of the majority - remember our courts forced equal access to education and other services so long denied to blacks, not to mention the emancipation of blacks who were were at one time in our history treated as the property of some white person.) Women waited until 1920 to VOTE!

Today, MONEY means votes. (The old axiom that 'if you tell a lie long enough, people will believe it' is the truth is by far the norm in today's political climate considering the power of TV ads.) Coalitions of believers in single separate issues have banded together to jointly empower themselves politically. The old saying, "Politics makes strange bedfellows" was never truer than it is today.

Promises, promises is the reason.

The Green Party is basically a single issue party. So is the Libertarian Party. Add the Peace Party, the Communist Party, the Socialist Party and you will note that those parties have mainly a single, driving issue that empassions them.

However, the power of the two Major Parties comes from their ability to convince large single-issue segments of the elctorate that their party can champion that particular cause best.

Democrats have combined, among other factions, the poor, the infirmed, the disabled, the un-employed, the unions, many minorities, the plaintiff attorneys, and many from the smaller parties who may feel they would be wasting their vote on their own parties.

Republicans have mobilized Christian fundamentalists, minimum wage earning Wal-Mart employees who are more interested in the World Wrestling Federation than politics, ex-jocks who believe in hitting the other guy harder than he hit you, Nascar fans, small businessmen who fear minimum wage adjustments and law suits, Doctors who are tired of high malpractice premiums, CEO's, and people who live off investment income.

The common denominator is the money behind the political machines which continues to hammer away at specific messages to specific groups. The messages are shallow and more often than not, untrue, but they do strike the nerve of the targeted group.

At the present we are entering an era when corporations and the money they bring to politics are overriding and overpowering the system's ability to ferret out the lies and the harm those lies may conceal.

While Nader has been preaching this for years, he doesn't have the machine to be elected and the only beneficial part of a Nader presidency would be corporate accountability and possibly truth in advertising. He would fail miserably at foreign policy, defense, trade and the other 50% of what makes our country productive.

The sheer brilliance of Karl Rove has put all challengers at a disadvantage. You see his fingerprints on almost everthing Republicans do. He has distilled complex issues into premises that can be explained in 90 seconds (sometimes truthfully but more often untruthfully).

He is the master of "sloganized representations". Kerry is no more a Flip-Flopper than Bush or any other politician but the charge has been repeated enough for Kerry to have to spend a good amount of energy defending the accusation. Soft on Terror, Sensitive, voted "For" before I voted "Against" are other examples of quick and hard-hitting assaults by Rove that are first pushed into the media through sympathetic outlets like Fox News or Talk Radio. They gain momentum and other media is forced to report on it since Fox is growing in ratings and it is hard to listen to an AM radio station that doesn't have two or three Republican pundits with three hour talk radio shows 5 days a week.

Even Kerry's vote for AUTHORIZATION to use force against Iraq when needed has be misrepresented to say he voted for the war.

It boils down to money. Rove has had access to the money to both run the political machine and to get out the message to unite single issue voters behind his candidate. He is a master. Huge corporations provide the bulk of Bush's money.

MBNA is his largest AL-TIME contributor at just over $508,000,000.00 with Enron STILL holding on to the number two ALL-TIME spot and just over $503,000,000.00 even though contributions stopped for the most part when they declared bankruptcy.

Bush appeals to Libertarians with his promise of less government regulation. However, he has actually grown government even without counting the troop buildup for the Iraq war. What he is doing is reducing some aspects of government regulation and government social programs which is not the same as reducing the size of government.

When you hear of reducing Government regulation or "Red Tape", it brings about a pleasant thought. You think of government leaving you freer to do as you please. Actually, the reduction of regulation of individiuals has increased with the Patriot Act while regulations of the Oil Industry, the Insurance Industry, the Pharmaceutical Industry, the Banking and Finance Industry, The Power and Utility Industry has been lessened.

Lobbyists from these very industries, through Presidential and Gubernatorial appointments have actually taken over regulating their own industries in many cases. This has resulted in a putting off of greenhouse gas and mercury contamination reduction deadlines mandated for the Utilities Industry by the EPA, higher insurance rates, the introduction of credit score-based rate increases even on policies paid in advance and a general reduction of overall coverage in the insurance industry, still high malpractice premiums even with only a 2% annual growth in damage awards (less than inflation), skyrocketing drug prices blamed on research when more is spent on TV ads than research, a new generation of predatory lending sources making "Payday" loans to America's poorest workers and legally charging fees and rates that can exceed 500% per annum, and we all will have to wait until the Enron trial is over to have ANY chance of seeing Cheney's energy grid notes. We can rest easier, however, knowing that the Federal Government got Martha Stewart, though.

The sheer outlandishness of corporate money controlling government dictates that Martha Stewart, who had a thriving company, is much more speedily brought to justice than an energy company run by thieves who had close ties in Washington!

I was okay when we had a dictatorship of the majority with truly agenda-less courts to look out for the constitutionality and interpretation of the laws and their enforcement but I see a much difference American today.

I see one that is run by money, and overseen by judges who accept campaign contributions from defendants who have cases pending before their courts. I see the ability by corporations to greatly influence or even eliminate the very regulations that used to be enacted for the good of the citizenry.

You do not understand the difference between formal democracy and real democracy. Real democracy is a social condition under which people have real power to influence decisions that affect their lives. Formal democracy is a set of legal forms under which people cast votes for candidates to government office. Contrary to American popular belief, formal democracy not only does not guarantee real democracy, but even may lay the foundation for an oppressive, undemocratic society. By the same token, compromised democratic forms do not necessarily preclude the exercise of real popular power, particularly in case the organized working class is in control of the government.

In the abstract, formal democracy is a desirable ideal; but particular conditions (notably incomplete transition to a classless society, which includes external or even internal confrontation with counterrevolutionary forces) may prevent it. But at least under the worker's dictatorship (which simply means that the organized working class reserves to itself the important decisions governing society) there is real democracy for the great majority. That is in contrast to bourgeois-liberal regimes like that in the United States, where formal democracy conceals and even facilitates the oppression of the many by the few.