Communism

AES referer to acutally existing socialism in this context. I think most socialist have to go through some traumatic internal development in order to mature and and grow their political views. The main part of Marxist theory, as per my understanding of it (still learning), is to analyze the means of production through the view of historical dialectial materialism.

I will explain these terms after a quick digression. The kernel of my belief in socialism is just the basic belief that every person by birth has the same right as me to have a good life. I also understand that earth's resources are finite and that our means of production are as well (although increasing, historically).

Thus the crux of the problem is this: If we both want something that is finite in supply, how does my gain not come at your expense? The answer is that it is not possible, which begs the question of who gets the pie? The easy answer is that we share it, but then how? This is where we begin to move away from morals and ethics and should start to analyze this objectively, more as a social contract. For me, that is what the origin of socialism is.

Now, anyone born today has no part of any pie by right. Sure, some get bestowed something by their parents, but the truth is that all of earth is owned by someone or something (with few caveats). Who owns what is clearly a matter of history (usually those that owned something yesterday owns that and maybe even more today).

So how does this fit in with the idea of a social contract that should serve the goal of an egalitarian society? It does not. It is clearly not in the direct personal interest (from a materialist point of view) for the people that own something to just give that stuff away and so we see that they don't.

I am already now hinting at the core Marxist idea of dividing people into classes according to ownership, since after all the poor have in common that they deserve a larger share and the rich have in common that they do not want to lose their wealth (after all it is finite at a global scale, so without the development of the means of production it is static). The unadressed term dialectical is in essence the study of contradictions within societies such as these, in order to solve them.

From the historical point of view we see the rise of capitalism as a bourgeoisie revolution (against the prior feudal economic structure on which another societal structure rested). Marxists do not believe that the vehicle of this revolution was that some people started nailing messages on doors nor that somebody just woke up and wanted to free themselves of feudal tyranny and so did. They instead argue that the technological and material development forced a shift in power away from those that held landed power and over to the mercantilist bourgeoisie.

Thus we only need to view the historical trend that the powerful rule, and the fall of feudalism seem almost inescapable. If we return to actual Marxist theory again, we can recognize that the means of production is dependant on a social class that does not really reap the full benefit from it: the workers. Analogously to the bourgeoisie revolution, we believe that the technological and materialist development of capital (i.e. the means of production) are what is needed for everyone to have enough to share, and that it must be wielded by the workers (the proletariat), whose interest it actually is to divide fairly among all people.

I have tried to make this more colloquial, at the unfortunate expense of accuracy. However, if parts of this story resonates with you, you might just be a budding socialist yourself. I would either way implore you to analyze the world from the pragmatic point of "what if everyone did/had the same as me" even if you do not believe that we are all more or less equal. In the same line, if you think you are entitled to more than anyone else, how would you stop those that disagree they deserve less from taking your wealth? If you think you are entitled to defend your wealth by force, why are those that need commodities not entitled to take what they need by force.

And thus we return to the necessity of a social contract or maybe just plain socialism.