So the proletariat, an organized political movement with legal muscle, sets out to implement control of all capital--not all wealth, but capital, which means physical possessions along with wealth--of all people.We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.
Now if the proletariat tries to, fore example, redistribute all the peasant land at once, society may vote out or overthrow the proletariat parties before the bulk of society has become controlled by the state. So the move toward land seizure comes a little bit at a time. In a communist state there is no one law that nationalizes all land but instead, that is the end result of many laws passed over time.
"Means of measures...which appear economically insufficient and untenable..." means there is a progressive governmental decree which is unsustainable. Social Security and Obamacare in their current forms are examples. And in the name of fixing problems with existing flawed progressive programs, more far reaching progressive programs are imposed. So those "insufficient and untenable" measure "necessitate further inroads upon the old social order".
After writing this, Karl Marx lists ten goals known as The Ten Planks of Communism. All ten must be completely enforced in any nation before that country has been completely socialized. Only then can it move to communism.
- 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.
Take every goal on that list and rate percentage-wise how close is America to being at that goal?
After you've rated each goal between 0% and 100% find the average of all ten of these percentages. And I dont think any one of these ten things will be marked at under 50% by anyone in this thread.
For example, Plank #5 is 100%. The only difference between how America carried that out and Marxist's goal is that our centralized bank is a private bank with a monopoly on credit enforced by law. Being a private institution and not state owned, records of the spending activity of the Federal Reserve are available only to insiders of the Federal Reserve. So America really went one step further.
Plank #2 is also listed as 100%. A progressive income tax exists here for all people.
Plank #1 is Abolition of property in private hands and all land to be rented by occupiers from the state. Is it impossible in America to own land without renting it? If you dont pay rent on a home, you get kicked out. If you dont pay a property tax, what happens is the same thing. But it is still "normal" for a middle class person to own a relatively large yard and decent house.
This page details examples of laws in the United States which relate to every one of the ten planks. Use this to help brainstorm.