Marxism Has Never Been Fully Tried, And

Contrary to popular conservative opinion, Marxism has never been fully tried. It wasn't fully tried in the USSR, it wasn't fully tried in China, and it wasn't fully tried in either Cuba or Venezuela. All conservative claims to the contrary are false. But why are they false?

The reason why those conservative claims are false can be answered in two ways. One way is to note how conservative opponents of Marxism tend to be opportunistic in trying to disprove Marxism. Thus, they conveniently latch on to what failed in the nations previously mentioned as experiments in Marxism in order to dissuade any leanings toward Marxism in people. So that is one way of looking at why those conservative claims are false.

Another way to note how conservative claims that the nations previously mentioned did not fully try Marxism is to look at the key missing ingredient of Marxism in those nations: the proletartiat dictatorship. Now, the proletariat dictatorship is kind of a misnomer. For what the proletariat dictatorship involves is a partial democracy based on class just as much as a nation like Israel runs a partial democracy based on ethnicity. Thus, the proletariat dictatorship, which allows for proletariat representatives to be elected by their peers, is really a democracy in which the proletariat clearly own the nation more than any other group. And when one looks at the structures of the government that ran the USSR and currently runs China, Cuba, and Venezuela, one sees the lack of ownership and control by the proletariat. Instead, one sees ownership and control by those who claim to speak for the proletariat but are merely ideological elites. And such can never be counted as a proletariat dictatorship.

Does that mean that we should seek to fully employ Marxism in our nation? If you are a Marxist ideologue, you would say 'yes.' But for those ideologues, how do you feel about a proletariat dictatorship where the proletariat do not follow Marxist ideology? Do you still want to fully employ Marxism? Can one fully employ Marxism under those circumstances?

I like to imitate Howard Zinn when saying I am a Marxist Socialist. That is because Zinn had said that he likes to call himself a Socialist if he can define what he means by that term. And I feel the same way about Marxist Socialism.

I very much like Marx, especially when it comes to his analysis of Capitalism. But I struggle with his overall view of reality and his solution to Capitalism. What are my struggles with Marxism? There are 4 points on which I disagree with Marx. They consist of the following:

1. I disagree with Marx's support for revolution. In too many cases, revolutions do not result in democracies.
    
2. I disaagree with Marx's materialism. I must disagree with him there because I am a Christian.
    
3. I disagree with Marx's utopian expectations. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't work to improve things. It means that we will never achieve utopia.
    
4. I disagree with Marx's proletariat dictatorship.

 Now concerning the 4th point, I have to make one clarification. I don't disagree with Marx's proletariat dictatorship the way that some professed followers of Marx disagreed with it. For what they wanted was  having the "right" people act as dictators instead of the proletariat dictatorship. Why I disagree with Marx's proletariat dictatorship is because I believe in a full democracy. When we have a democracy that is under control of either the bourgeoisie or the proletariat, we don't have a full democracy. That is because a democracy is not just defined by the procedures and processes made available to the people for picking their leaders or deciding on certain questions. Democracy is a certain state of being for the nation where the nation is being shared equally by all the different groups in the nation. And that can't be when we have a proletariat or bourgeoisie dictatorship. Nor could it be if we had a bourgeoisie democracy.

Now if I disagree with the proletariat dictatorship, how can it be that I am a Marxist? My claim here becomes a matter of opinion. But what I do believe in, in addition to Marx's analysis of Capitalism, is empowering the proletariat at both the workplace and the government so that they share the workplace and the state equally with the bourgeoisie. That means that they should have equal power both at the workplace and in government.

We should note that nations that come closest to following Marxism in terms of the proletariat dictatorship was neither the USSR nor China, Cuba, nor Venezuela. Rather Germany and Denmark are two nations that more closely follow Marx than any other nation. How is it that they are following Marx? They are following, or approaching to be more precise, Marx through their codetermination laws. What codetermination does is to require that any business with a certain number of employees must include workers, who are elected by their peers, to sit on the board of directors for a given company. That means that workers and owners share power in terms of controlling a company.

Now codetermination is not a proletariat dictatorship. Nor do most instances of codetermination require that the bourgeoisie and the proletariat share equal power over a given company. But codetermination approaches Marxism by empowering workers at the workplace.

What would be my ideal political-economic structure? That we have a codetermination that requires equal representation in the larger companies and approach equal representation in smaller companies on any company's board of directors. And such takes care of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie sharing power at the workplace.

But what about sharing power in government? We should note, and this comes from an observation by a friend of mine who is a religious conservative Christian but who is rather an independent political thinker but who leans toward conservatism more than any other position. What we are missing in our political structure is representation by vocation. Both the Senate and the House allows for representation by location. But because of the money involved in elections, both places of representation by location tend to create elected officials who tend to significant personal wealth and/or have the same jobs. The most common vocations held by our elected representatives are those who were in law, those who were in business, those who were elected officials in other levels of government, and those who were in education. We should note that those in law held a substantial lead in representation over those from the other vocations. This leaves housewives to go unrepresented in our government. It also leaves factory workers to go unrepresented. It also leaves people with jobs in the service sector to go unrepresented and so on and so on. In short, we need a legislative branch that allows people to be represented by vocation as well as location.

Would my dream government work? That would depend on the decisions made by those in charge. But what my dream government would do would be to employ a more equal sharing of power and thus the need for people with different interests to work for each others' interests and welfare. This could be partially accomplished by a legislative branch where people are represented by vocation.

In short, I am saying that it is good that a full Marxism has never been employed. But I don't say that for the same reasons that people like Lenin or Mao would say that. For they wanted to consolidate power under their own control. And that is the problem we have today. Instead of sharing power, we have become tribal and looked after the interests of our own group(s) believing that if we convince enough people to vote for our leaders, we have done nothing wrong. But we would be wrong if we don't share the nation as equals with others and we believed in democracy.