[Marxism] Communism and socialism

[Jscotlive at aol.com]

Aaron:
 
Is "underdevelopment" definable in absolute terms, or is it relative to the  
level of "development" of the most "developed" countries
 
Reply:
 
Relative to the level of developed countries, whose development is in  
inverse relationship and largely contingent upon the continuance of  this imbalance.
 
Aaron:
 
Even the less industrialized countries today produce more material goods  per 
capita than the most advanced capitalist society did in the days of Marx and  
Engels. If they don't produce enough of basics like food, it's because their  
ruling elites would rather produce goods for export to the imperialist 
countries  in exchange for luxury goods and weapons
 
Reply:
 
Per capita as a measure of output is an onerous statistic  given that it 
doesn't measure distribution and levels of equality. But your  second sentence 
makes the point vis-a-vis the global system of economic  penetration, 
imperialism, which has kept the majority of the world's population  in poverty, both 
relative and absolute.
 
Aaron:
 
The planet can't afford "the superabundance of an advanced capitalist  
society". And, as long as that "superabundance" is desired, it's definition will  
expand to include a superabundance 
 
Reply:
 
Superabundance measured by the development of productive forces -  i.e., the 
ability to produce the means of existence. Exactly what is produced,  how it 
is produced and distributed, is where socialist planning comes  in.
 
Aaron:
 
That logic is absurd! You might as well say that "the social conditioning  
undergone by humanity under class society has lasted 3,000 years. [etc.]"  
Moreover, in many parts of the world, capitalism is fairly recent, except  perhaps 
as an alien force that ruled at the point of a gun.

But the need  for "a massive shift in consciousness" is real, and it's not 
helped along by  leftists who talk about "providing jobs" as if the highest 
human goal were to be  a worker bee in a capitalist or "socialist" hive, or 
producing more junk to  substitute quantity for quality of life.

Reply:
 
You appear to contradict yourself here. In the first para you claim it  is 
absurd, whilst in the second you agree that the need for a 'massive  shift in 
consciousness is real'. Of course no one can predict how long such a  process 
will take, but history can't be measured in years, can it? It's  measured in 
entire epochs. The point is that over the course of the life of  industrial 
capitalism generation after generation has come into the  world instilled with the 
received truth that capitalism, the capitalist  mode of production and the 
society it spawns, is as natural as the rain. This is  a huge factor in 
explaining its resilience even during times of massive  crisis such as The Great 
Depression, a period when capitalism was  not only facing complete collapse as a 
consequence of its own contradictions,  but was doing so at a time when a rival 
economic and social  system led by the SU was at its height as an example to 
the international  working class of an alternative.  
 
Socialism hasn't even had a chance to take root by comparison, much less  
communism.