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?
Central Planners, elected officials, managers, etc. Similar to how it is done in the government already in Capitalist nations like the Post Office. Communism would have a government, just not a “state” as Marx outlined it.
But it’s state-like
In the colloquial sense, yes, hence the widespread misundertanding of Marxism among those who haven’t read him. For Marx, though, organization and hierarchy aren’t a problem in classless society, and are rather essential tools to provide for all.
Power always corrupts.
That’s the Anarchist critique of Marxism in its barest and simplest form, to be sure. I don’t generally agree with this, though, such a statement ignores material democratic structures and methods of ensuring accountability.