Socialism or Communism?

Socialism and communism are modes of production, just like capitalism and feudalism, in the first two the workers either through the power of the state or some weird ass syndicalism/self-management shit own the means of production.

Marxism is a school of thought, it has historical materialism and dialectics.

Tbh I only advocate for socialism because I don’t think communism seems plausible in our lifetimes at all, and I don’t think it is generally conceivable that it could exist from the position we are in right now. But socialism is believable, comprehensible, so I consider that to be a fine goal.

I agree completely, we should dream only of what we can achieve now, let the future worry about itself.

are you implying that socialism is achievable but the abolition of classes, money and state after the consolidation of socialism isn't?
sounds pretty dumb to me.

OP do you mean communism as in a stateless, classless, moneyless society? Or Communism as in the Bolsheviks, Marxism-Leninism, the Comintern, etc?

I'm not saying communism is never achievable but with our current technology, no. It's silly to be like 'oh I'm a communist' 'what's that' 'oh it's the abolition of forced labour after we achieve post scarcity' 'what use is that now when we don't have post scarcity yet?' 'idk lol'

Striving for the shortest path to a classless moneyless stateless society necessitates lower stage socialism. All communists look for this goal. If one is a socialist yet not a communist, you may be a revisionist.

Yes but why over complicate things by telling people you're a communist when that is not currently achievable. Ordinary people want to hear immediate solutions to the problems in their daily lives.

Communism is the real proletarian movment to abolish the current state of things. Some Utopian Socialists don't have that as a goal so we wish to differentiate from them.

Why worry about the political debates of 50 years in the future and lose sight of the one we're having now? After we achieve socialism we can decide to go for communism.

Because I don't want to stop at socialism. Socialism is just the stepping stone to reach communism. I think someone who calls themselves a socialist is necessarily someone who doesn't want communism. They want to achieve socialism and then stop before things get too radical. They want to preserve as much of pre-revolutionary society as possible and not take things "too far". They're conservative, in a sense.

I'm not saying I don't want communism, I'm just saying it's not pragmatic to argue for it. It's like arguing for transhumanism when none of that shit exists yet.

Calling yourself a communist isn't a "debate" or an "argument", though. It's just a statement. Perhaps its aspirational, but isn't revolution about hope anyway?

YangGang2020

Attached: 03-28-2019_002.png (1142x972, 534.1K)

Socialism is just lower phase communism.

tbh as a practical advice (as most anons have already pointed out the character of socialism as lower-stage communism), it's better to call yourself a communist these days because socialism is so tainted with liberal connotations these days - people will think you are a Berniebro or support the EU or some shit. If the neoliberal centre-left parties of France and Spain call themselves socialist, it's a pretty tainted term.

socialists who are actually against communism are social democrats

both

Let me just get this shit sorted out seeing as the vast majority of Zig Forums its completely ignorant of the basic etymologies of the two terms.

These are definitions that predate Lenin but were popularized by him. He even went so far as to claim Marx made these distinctions, for reasons no one will ever know. It's pretty retarded because they reduce socialism and communism down to just "economic systems" to replace capitalism, which I loathe, as someone who sees socialism as a social process and the theory produced by said process.

This is a distinction that gained popularity after 1917. It is very rare to see people still use these definitions in this year and especially on this board. It's largely an outdated distinction as social-democracy is a dead movement that's never coming back. In the 80's most of them abandoned the label of "socialist" to the Soviet Union and never looked back. So it's astounding to see people here still regarding them as genuinely socialist. Still better than the shit this board uses though. People here will call any bourgeois philanthropist a social-democrat.

Not mentioned here are the countless definitions of socialism and communism that existed in their early days of the 19th century, which I don't have the energy to even begin going over.

Loaded term that doesnt work here. Replace it with incentive and it would be much better.
The definition of communism is straight up incorrect and something that shouldn't really be summed up in a sentence, but it is when a completely classless society has been achieved, meaning everyone is an owner of the means of production and a worker. That comes with countless stipulations, but that is what it is.

LIbertarian market socialism with the goal to achieve full communism in the far future.