Can anyone succinctly explain communism? Everything I’ve read in the past said that the state owns the means of production and in practice (in real life) that seems to be the reality. However I encountered a random idiot on the Internet that claimed in communism, there is no state and it is a stateless society. I immediately rejected this idea because it was counter to what I knew about communism irl. In searching using these keywords, I came across the ideas that in communism, it does strive to be a stateless society. So which one is it? If it’s supposed to be a stateless society, why are all real-life forms of communism authoritarian in nature?

  • lucullus
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    3 days ago

    Ah, so it is just a case of a specific definition of “state”. What are the attributes of a state in that definition (as they do not include "the Administration of Things)? Goes totally against my intuition with that word

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      The state is fundamentally a tool of class oppression. Such aspects would include private property rights, and other enshrinements of class distinctions, which are gradually erased as property is collectivized. Additionally, aspects like policing would transform to be more akin to social workers as the economic reasons for crime would be dramatically minimized, things like that.