I doubt. As an example look at America's federal system. Power only goes one way, from the states to the central government. I think something similar will happen to our economy. There are already many other governments with a heavy hand in their respective economy. I think America, the beacon of capitalism, is heading down that route.
Anyways, here's Carl Marx's view on it
link
Anyways, here's Carl Marx's view on it
link
The Stages of History...
Primitative Communism...
The First Stage: is usually called Primitive Communism. It has the following characteristics.
Shared property: there is no concept of ownership beyond individual possessions. All is shared by the tribe to ensure its survival.
Hunting and gathering: tribal societies have yet to develop large scale agriculture and so their survival is a daily struggle.
Proto-democracy: there is usually no concept of "leadership" yet. So tribes are led by the best warrior if there is war, the best diplomat if they have steady contact with other tribes and so forth.
The primitive communism stage most likely begins soon after the dawn of humanity itself, at the stage where fire is developed, and communal living therefore becomes more convenient. Primitive communist societies tend to be very small, consisting of a maximum of a few hundred members, with size being dependent upon the environment. In this stage humanity is no different from any other animal, in that it has not yet found ways to bend nature to its will.
This stage ends with the development of private property, especially with the development of large scale agriculture. This in turn produces productive property, such as cattle and slaves.
Slave Society...
The Second Stage: may be called Slave Society, considered to be the beginning of "class society" where private property appears.
Class: here the idea of class appears. There is always a slave-owning ruling class and the slaves themselves.
Statism: the state develops during this stage as a tool for the slave-owners to use and control the slaves.
Agriculture: man learns to cultivate plants and animals on a large enough scale to support large populations.
Democracy and Authoritarianism: these opposites develop at the same stage. Democracy arises first with the development of the republican city-state, followed by the totalitarian empire.
Private Property: citizens now own more than personal property. Land ownership is especially important during a time of agricultural development.
The slave-owning class "own" the land and slaves, which are the main means of producing wealth, whilst the vast majority have very little or nothing. The propertyless included the slave class, slaves who work for no money, and in most cases women, who were also dispossessed during this period. From a Marxist perspective, slave society collapsed when it exhausted itself. The need to keep conquering more slaves created huge problems, such as maintaining the vast empire that resulted (i.e. The Roman Empire). It is ultimately the aristocracy born in this epoch that demolishes it and forces society to step onto the next stage.
Feudalism...
The Third Stage: may be called Feudalism it appears after slave society collapses. This was most obvious during the European Dark Ages when society went from slavery to feudalism.
Aristocracy: the state is ruled by monarchs who inherit their positions. Or at times marry or conquer their ways into leadership.
Theocracy: this is a time of largely religious rule. When there is only one religion in the land and it's organizations affect all parts of daily life.
Hereditary classes: castes can sometimes form and one's class is determined at birth with no form of advancement. This was the case with India.
Nation-state: nations are formed from the remnants of the fallen empires. Sometimes to rebuild themselves into empires once more. Such as England's transition from a province to an empire.
During feudalism there are many classes such as kings, lords, and serfs, some little more than slaves. Most of these inherit their titles for good or ill. At the same time that societies must create all these new classes, trade with other nation-states increases rapidly. This catalyzes the creation of the merchant class.
Out of the merchants' riches, a capitalist class emerges within this feudal society. However there are immediate conflicts with the aristocracy. The old feudal kings and lords cannot accept the new social changes the capitalists want for fear of destabilizing or reducing their power base, among various other reasons that are not all tied to power or money.
This proto-capitalist and capitalist classes are driven by the profit motive but are prevented from developing further profits by the nature of feudal society where, for instance, the serfs are tied to the land and cannot become industrial workers and wage earners. Marx says, Then begins an epoch of social revolution (The French Revolution of 1789, Cromwell in Britain, etc) since the social and political organization of feudal society (or the property relations of feudalism) is preventing the development of the capitalists' productive forces.
Capitalism...
Marx pays special attention to this stage in human development. The bulk of his work is devoted to exploring the mechanisms of capitalism, which in western society classically arose "red in tooth and claw" from feudal society in a revolutionary movement.
Capitalism may be considered the Fourth Stage in the sequence. It appears after the bourgeois revolution when the capitalists (or their merchant predecessors) overthrow the feudal system. Capitalism is categorized by the following:
Free Market economy: in capitalism the entire economy is guided by market forces. Supporters of Laissez-faire economics argue that there should be little or no intervention from the government under capitalism. Marxists, however, such as Lenin in his Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, argue that the capitalist government is a powerful instrument for the furtherance of capitalism and the capitalist nation-state, particularly in the conquest of markets abroad.
Private property: the means of production are no longer in the hands of the monarchy and its nobles, but rather they are controlled by the capitalists. The capitalists control the means of production through commercial enterprises (such as corporations) which aim to maximize profit.
Parliamentary democracy: the capitalists tend to govern through an elected centralized parliament or congress, rather than under an autocracy. Capitalist (bourgeois) democracy, although it may be extended to the whole population, does not necessarily lead to universal suffrage. Historically it has excluded (by force, segregation, legislation or other means) sections of the population such as women, slaves, ex-slaves, people of color or those on low income. The government acts on behalf of, and is controlled by, the capitalists through various methods.
Wages: in capitalism, workers are rewarded according to their contract with their employer. However their hours or rate of work are often subject to increase outside their immediate control, and their wage is, in any case, but a fraction of the true value produced by their labor. The unpaid labor of the working class is the essential component of the profit for the capitalist, because the worker is not paid the true value of his labor: he is exploited
Warfare: capitalism spreads from the wealthiest countries to the poorest as capitalists seek to expand their influence and raise their profits. This is done directly through war, the threat of war, or the export of capital. The capitalist's control over the state can thus play an essential part in the development of capitalism, to the extent the state directs the warfare or other foreign intervention.
Monopolistic tendencies: the natural, unrestrained market forces will create monopolies from the most successful and/or vicious commercial entities.
In capitalism, the profit motive rules and people, freed from serfdom, work for the capitalists for wages. The capitalist class are free to spread their laissez-faire practices around the world. In the capitalist-controlled parliament laws are made to protect wealth and the wealthy.
But, according to Marx, capitalism, like slave society and feudalism, also has critical failings - inner contradictions which will lead to its downfall. The working class, to which the capitalist class gave birth in order to produce commodities and profits, is the "grave digger" of capitalism. The worker is not paid the full value of what he or she produces. The rest is surplus value - the capitalist's profit, which Marx calls the "unpaid labour of the working class." The capitalists are forced by competition to attempt to drive down the wages of the working class to increase their profits, and this creates conflict between the classes, and gives rise to the development of class consciousness in the working class. The working class, through trade union and other struggles, becomes conscious of itself as an exploited class.
In the view of classical Marxism, the struggles of the working class against the attacks of the capitalist class lead the working class to struggle to establish its own collective control over production - the basis of socialist society. Marx believed that capitalism always leads to monopolies and leads the people to poverty; yet the fewer the restrictions on the free market, (e.g. from the state and trade unions) the sooner it finds itself in crisis.
Socialism...
After the working class gains class consciousness and mounts a revolution against the capitalists, Communism, which may be considered the Fifth Stage, will be attained, if the workers are successful.
Lenin divided the period following the overthrow of capitalism into two stages: first socialism, and then later, once the last vestiges of the old capitalist ways have withered away, communism (Lenin: The State and Revolution). Lenin based his 1917 work, The State and Revolution, on a thorough study of the writings of Marx and Engels. Marx uses the terms the "first phase" of communism and the "higher phase" of communism, but Lenin points to later remarks of Engels which suggest that what people commonly think of as socialism equates to Marx's "first phase" of communism.
Socialism may be categorized by the following:
Decentralized planned economy: without the market, production will be directed by the workers themselves through communes or workers' elected councils.
Common property: the means of production are taken from the hands of a few capitalists and put in the hands of the workers. This translates into the democratic communes controlling the means of production.
Council democracy: Marx, basing himself on a thorough study of Paris Commune, believed that the workers would govern themselves though system of communes. He called this the dictatorship of the proletariat, which, overthrowing the dictatorship (governance) of capital, would democratically plan production and the resources of the planet.
Labor vouchers: Marx explained that, since socialism emerges from capitalism, it would be "stamped with its birthmarks." Economically this translates into the individual worker being awarded according to the amount of labor he contributes to society. Each worker would be given a certificate verifying his contribution which he could then exchange for goods...
Communism...
Some time after socialism is established society leaps forward, and everyone has plenty of personal possessions, but no one can exploit another person for private gain through the ownership of vast monopolies, and so forth. Classes are thus abolished, and class society ended. Eventually the state will "wither away" and become obsolete, as people administer their own lives without the need for governments. Thus, communism is established, which has the following features:
Statelessness: there is no government or nations any more.
Classlessness: all social classes disappear, everyone works for everyone else.
Propertylessness: there is no money, all goods are free to be consumed by anyone that needs them...
Facebook
Twitter