Depends on what you mean by communism, if you mean single party rule with a near totalitarian dictator at the helm then that is bad, but if you mean socialist policies that put workers well being at the forefront of government policy then that is good.
Basically, marx good, lenin bad
No part of Leninism, in theory or practice, supports the idea of a single, near-totalitarian dictator. The term “dictatorship of the proletariat” originates in the era of Marx, and refers not to any individual dictator, but the working class itself as the rulers, makers, and dictators of society. The heads of state in socialist countries have all been selected with democratic processes, be they approval votes, votes based on elected delegates, etc. The heads of state have not had absolute power either, but instead often have less power than, say, the US head of state.
The necessity of a single party is because socialism is, in effect, a unitary system meant to represent a single class, the working class. Democratic centralism does not mean the absence of democracy, but the absence of organized factionalism and opposition within the socialist system. The necessity of a single system was already present with Marx, the advance of the vanguard path to socialism by Lenin was made based on Marxist understandings of class and the state.
If you believe Lenin is bad, then thinking Marx was good is hypocritical. Your issues with Lenin are based on a combination of sanitizing the views of Marx and accepting bourgeois misdirection about existing socialism as fact. If you truly believe Lenin was bad, then Marxism itself should also be seen as bad.
Ok, then marx bad too, single party rule is a horrible idea that consolidates power in a new class if elites.
Your’e just trading capitalist robber barrons for party leaders, it’s the same thing, different name.
Rule of law should derive from mandate from he masses, not a small group of party officials or powerful politically aspiring billionaires.
Single party rule is bad, two party rule is bad, the people should be represented by an amalgam of many varying policy views and have the ability to quickly remove politicians who fail to represent the people effectively.
That’s not how class works, or the state. Class is not merely a level of power, but a social relationship, to ownership of the means of production and distribution. In any given class society, this distributes society into two broad classes, with various subcategories. The state is a result of this class struggle, and represents the ruling class of society, based on which class owns the commanding heights of the economy.
In socialism, the commanding heights are socially owned. Administrators do not have unique relations of ownership, but instead occupy socially necessary roles for the continuation of advancing production and distribution. In such a unified system, competing political parties do not at all prevent corruption, they enable it and accelerate it. The idea that decentralized competition in the political sphere is made to support a collectivized system is a bourgeois worldview of politics that sees the mechanisms of capitalism as eternal, rather than specific.
Contrasting with capitalism, the competition in the political sphere is the competition of the ruling class, which does not seek collectivization but instead a bigger individual slice of the pie. Where socialist administrators seek further collectivization and unification, capitalist administrators represent this or that wing of the capitalist class, which all fights in unity to preserve private property, and against each other for a bigger slice of the pie.
Socialist political parties are organizations of the most advanced of the working class politically. The most active, the most trained, the most developed. This does not make them a distinct class, this is a bourgeois view of class. Instead, it makes them occupy the social role of “proletarian intellectual” to borrow from Gramsci, which isn’t a statement on intelligence at scale, but the social role they play in determining and shaping the thought of the entire proletariat as a class.
How do you envision socialism, with multiple political parties, not devolving into factionalism and breaking-up of society in a manner that allows the bourgeoisie to resurge?
giving one group of people a different level of power to influence policy than another creates a class, to pretend like there wasn’t nepotism or quid pro quo in the soviet union is to ignore the reality of human behavior and history.
as we see with systems with one political ideology, including the american capitalist system, a positive feedback loop commonly occurs that accelerates suffering, see the great famine in China, and the american healthcare system today.
these systems appear because the ruling class ingrains itself into power and controls cultural ideas through propaganda.
for example, the american anti-communist/anti-socialist propaganda that this meme references. communism and socialism are not the boogey-men that the capitalist politicians and billionaires want the american people to think they are. if we had a substantial communist party and socialist party in congress, this propaganda would be seen as ridiculous by most americans, because they would see that good that these political ideas do because they would have examples of it on the daily.
I would propose a lottery:
firstly, a mandatory, standardized civics course for all citizens that teaches varying political theories and views and their historical contexts.
all voting age citizens who have passed their civics curriculum would be eligible to hold office in the city/county/district/state they live in.
a percentage (for sake of argument let’s say 1% of the constituency) of individuals would be selected, once selected they would present their policy platform.
a ranked choice vote is held, the selected individuals are ranked by the voting age citizens and one is elected to office (run-offs would be held like any ranked choice election)
the officer would serve a term of (for sake of argument let’s say one year), at the end of which a vote-to-keep is held where their constituency would have one checkbox per office again, a checked box is a vote-to-keep their officer in their seat.
if they do not receive a number of votes (lets say for purpose of argument 50%) they are removed and can never hold office again and a new lottery is held to select a new officer from the pool of eligible individuals.
a vote-of-no-confidence would also be available to the people to remove officers at anytime that a petition for such passes (for sake of argument lets say the petition requires 25% of the constituency) (for sake of argument let’s say 50% passes)
to account for competency, officers who have retained their office would be granted another ballet in the hat so-to-speak to increase their odds of attaining higher office and increasing overall competency in the electorate.
benefits:
this would create a more accurate representative government as the lottery effectively selects a sample of the electorate to hold office, meaning class divisions and personal backgrounds within the population are equally represented in the halls of government.
this puts the people directly in the hands of power, the lottery nearly removes any form of nepotism as people are selected at random, not based on who they know or how much money they have. (nepotism within the halls of government would still happen as officers work together in quid pro quo dealings but officers who fail to improve the lives of their constituency would be easily removed thanks to the vote-of-no-confidence) and as the system of democracy is based on coalitions and compromises, this is expected behavior.
this system nearly removes party politics from everyday people’s lives. no more months long political campaigns with misinformation, no more special interested packing races with money.
this would greatly increase the prevalence of new political ideas as more people from more varying backgrounds would have access to power, as increasing the amount of legislation designed to directly improve the lives of the largest demographics in the country.
what if someone doesn’t want to do the job? they can elect to avoid the lottery for any reason, we are selecting from a pool of nearly the entire population of the country, we have plenty of willing participants. this is also why a vote-of-no-confidence can work, plenty of competition for the job.
the vote-to-keep, or dead-man election as I like to call it creates a system where an officer can only maintain power by voter enthusiasm, you as a voter have to feel empowered to go and vote for your representative, a corrupt politician who is doing nothing for his constituents would not last long under a dead-man election system.
the shear size of the electable, the vote-of-no-confidence, and the simplicity of the vote-to-keep creates real political consequences for officers who do a bad job, unlike the single party or two party system, officers in my system will never hold office again if they are removed from power. this would not eliminate corruption, but it would greatly deter it and any corruption that exists would not last long.
why the lottery? to more accurately reflect the demography of the electorate and to select individuals who might otherwise never hold office to put more political ideas and lived experiences in the halls of government particularly those of backgrounds we rarely see in government today. and to create an expectation that governing power is all of our responsibility and it has real consequences for our daily lives.
Right off the bat, you are already ignoring what I said. I never said nepotism and corrpution did not exist in the USSR. I said that power is not class, class is a social relation to ownership of the means of production. Managerial workers are not their own class, just like plumbers are not their own class. You are confusing a type of labor for a relation to ownership, and thus conflate the two into class.
Your next example is again, confusing the nature of the state. Socialism and communism cannot be brought about by a socialist party winning electorally and replacing the state bit by bit into a socialist one via policy. There is no generic “state,” there are capitalist states, socialist states, etc, and one state is broken and a new one takes its place through revolution alone.
As for replacing socialist democracy and scientific, planned organization with random lottery, this is a recipe for disaster. A truly democratic society is one where the working class as a whole is organized and capable of electing the best among themselves to higher organs, that can prove themselves through practice to their constituents. This can be organized via a single political party, that being the organization of the most politically developed of the working class.
You are explicitly rejecting a competency-based, democratic selection process with one that results in chaos and an easy-to-manipulate state that the bourgeoisie can overturn incredibly easily. This chaos is the foundation by which the bourgeoisie can bring about their own persistence.
In any case, you are getting into the weeds about a specific form of electoral democracy, while entirely ignoring the nature of class and the state. By your own definitions, you would be creating what you believe to be a ruling class. This is why it’s important to actually understand the theory and history you are trying to critique, because all you have done thus far is wax poetic about lottery-based elections while vulgarizing class and the nature of the state.
your’e the one saying ‘power is not class’ I disagree, I say dividing people by the power they have inherently creates classes, which is why I suggest a lottery to divide that power equally among the demographic makeup of a nation.
how are plumbers not a class if they control the means that create and maintain the plumbing industry? its all still a class.
I propose a system that puts a percentage of plumbers into the halls of government equal to their percentage in the population. same with scientists, and psychologists, and doctors, and electricians, and mechanics, and fry cooks, and teachers, and cashiers, etc. the
government should be made up of people.
I reject the idea that certain groups of people among us are more fit to govern, particularly when that system removes demographics of largely under-represented groups and replaces it with more affluent individuals.
revolutions are a last resort, the people deserve a means to change their government without violence.
there is no generic state? only socialist and capitalist? have you heard of mixed economies?
“A truly democratic society is one where the working class as a whole is organized and capable of electing the best among themselves to higher organs,”
who decides who is the best among you? the party leaders already in power according to single party rule. that is why I propose a ranked choice vote of those individuals selected from the lottery based on their policy proposals.
“You are explicitly rejecting a competency-based”
no, I am explicitly rejecting the idea that the party in power is selecting the most competent. rather they are picking their friends and family or who ever can pay more in money or quid pro quo.
my electoral process removes money and nepotism from the equation by selecting individuals first from the general population, then allowing them to come up with policy proposals then allowing their constituents to elect them in a ranked choice vote. no campaigns means no campaign finance, no special interested counter funding candidates, no political parties platforming their insiders.
persons selected from the lottery will post their policy proposals on the same election website as every other candidate, debates will be organized by the election office and all candidates would be present.
" This can be organized via a single political party, that being the organization of the most politically developed of the working class."
who decides who is the most politically developed of the working class? the party, thus nepotism, not a mandate of the masses
I propose a system that puts a percentage of plumbers into the halls of government equal to their percentage in the population. same with scientists, and psychologists, and doctors, and electricians, and mechanics, and fry cooks, and teachers, and cashiers, etc.
What you describe of people from every profession being involved in government is essentially how the Vietnam Fatherland Front works. It’s composed of 44 member organizations, primarily unions, a broad cross section of society that anyone can easily be a part of, and they conduct oversight over Vietnam’s elections. The actual administration of the government is done by elected officials, who do not have to be members of the Communist Party, or the Fatherland Front. It’s similar to what you proposed, except more democratic, since the cross section of society that makes up the Fatherland Front only oversees the elections, while policy is decided through the elections themselves. Even if you claim that the Fatherland Front secretly manipulates the outcomes, the system you’re proposing seems to be one where something like the Fatherland Front would rule outright. The only thing missing is the element of randomness, which only makes the people making decisions less accountable and leaves the possibility of someone who’s views don’t represent what the people want getting into power.
“The only thing missing is the element of randomness, which only makes the people making decisions less accountable and leaves the possibility of someone who’s views don’t represent what the people want getting into power.”
hence the vote-of-not-confidence I suggested and the randomness is intended to keep one group from being over represented in government than it’s demographic make-up in the populace.
but yeah that sounds great. I’m not against socialism, I’m against unrepresentative forms of government and obviously a socialist nation can find ways to be more representative and ensure the power ultimately derives from the people.
very cool, and thanks for sharing that!
The reason I am telling you that classes are not simply any way we can categorize people but instead have specific relations to ownership of the means of production and distribution is because I am explicitly agreeing with Marx that the history of class society is the history of successive societies of 2 broad classes in conflict, defined by their relationship to ownership of the means of production and distribution.
Plumbers are not a class. Managers are not a class. Both are workers, and share the same relation to ownership of the means of production. Power is not the enemy, the system that divides us based on ownership is.
The rest of your comment is a ridiculous strawman of a party that is unaccountable and that dominates all. Nowhere in socialist history has this happened in practice or in theory. The working class as a whole decides who should be in the party and government. The party is a subset of the working class, with the same social relations to the means of production and distribution. You are arguing against a caricature.
As for revolution, it’s the only way to change a state historically.
As for “mixed economies,” all economies are “mixed” today. What separates them is their principal aspect, and the class in control of the state.
you make the same mistake again, creating a single party where the party leaders get to decide who is in the party simply creates a new ruling class. they control all the means of production, and if the party leaders are not beholden to the workers, that is totalitarianism. this same issue exists largely in the united states but we have two parties instead of one, and the wealthy largely control who is in power, this is equally as bad as a single party.
I dont care to what level the state controls private property, I only care that if the state begins to abuse that power, the workers can intervene and stop them.
Maybe you could think about it like that: capitalists are the class that, in order to exist, is forced to continuously take capital and invest it to make profit or they are outcompeted by other capitalists. It’s not that they are all evil or “corrupted by power”, they are not just incentiveized, but forced to act in destructive ways: steal surplus value from workers, increase exploitation above what people can take, chase profits on an exponentially expanding mass of capital in a finite world destroying the planet, cause a crisis about every seven years, cannibalize their own state and infrastructure that they rely on for short term profit, etc.
They inevitably run into these contradictions due to living on a finite planet and having to put individual interests above all else while the modern economies distribution of work and global value chains absolutely require working together.
What you are worried about is real too in a way, but it’s not a class. In a socialist state, a managerial part of the working class is not forced by competition to continuously pursue personal gain, but some of them still might become corrupt and do so anyway. At that point, they have betrayed the working class and they might even do so in favor of real capitalists domestic or abroad who haven’t yet completely disappeared as a class. It’s a possible problem, but other than the class conflict between workers and capital, it’s not inevitably the dominating principle of society.
Rather than worrying about a hypothetical future betrayal of fellow workers in thriving and prospering China, we should focus on how many western workers have already often betrayed the rest of the global working class and continue to do so by supporting terrible imperialist wars, mostly in turn for cheap goods at Walmart.
“What you are worried about is real too in a way, but it’s not a class. In a socialist state,”
oh no, im not against socialism, im against non-representative governments. and this isn’t hypothetical, we see it all over the world including the US right now with voter suppression and super PACs.
I just argue that the single-party rule that many communists espouse is not a great solution to the ills of capitalism, which themselves are very real.
I’m all for the state owning the means of production at what ever breadth is required to provide dignity, safety, and health to the people, but the people must wield ultimate power to turn the government without having to resort to violence.
Depends on what you mean by communism, if you mean single party rule with a near totalitarian dictator at the helm then that is bad, but if you mean socialist policies that put workers well being at the forefront of government policy then that is good.
Basically, marx good, lenin badNo part of Leninism, in theory or practice, supports the idea of a single, near-totalitarian dictator. The term “dictatorship of the proletariat” originates in the era of Marx, and refers not to any individual dictator, but the working class itself as the rulers, makers, and dictators of society. The heads of state in socialist countries have all been selected with democratic processes, be they approval votes, votes based on elected delegates, etc. The heads of state have not had absolute power either, but instead often have less power than, say, the US head of state.
The necessity of a single party is because socialism is, in effect, a unitary system meant to represent a single class, the working class. Democratic centralism does not mean the absence of democracy, but the absence of organized factionalism and opposition within the socialist system. The necessity of a single system was already present with Marx, the advance of the vanguard path to socialism by Lenin was made based on Marxist understandings of class and the state.
If you believe Lenin is bad, then thinking Marx was good is hypocritical. Your issues with Lenin are based on a combination of sanitizing the views of Marx and accepting bourgeois misdirection about existing socialism as fact. If you truly believe Lenin was bad, then Marxism itself should also be seen as bad.
Ok, then marx bad too, single party rule is a horrible idea that consolidates power in a new class if elites.
Your’e just trading capitalist robber barrons for party leaders, it’s the same thing, different name.
Rule of law should derive from mandate from he masses, not a small group of party officials or powerful politically aspiring billionaires.
Single party rule is bad, two party rule is bad, the people should be represented by an amalgam of many varying policy views and have the ability to quickly remove politicians who fail to represent the people effectively.
That’s not how class works, or the state. Class is not merely a level of power, but a social relationship, to ownership of the means of production and distribution. In any given class society, this distributes society into two broad classes, with various subcategories. The state is a result of this class struggle, and represents the ruling class of society, based on which class owns the commanding heights of the economy.
In socialism, the commanding heights are socially owned. Administrators do not have unique relations of ownership, but instead occupy socially necessary roles for the continuation of advancing production and distribution. In such a unified system, competing political parties do not at all prevent corruption, they enable it and accelerate it. The idea that decentralized competition in the political sphere is made to support a collectivized system is a bourgeois worldview of politics that sees the mechanisms of capitalism as eternal, rather than specific.
Contrasting with capitalism, the competition in the political sphere is the competition of the ruling class, which does not seek collectivization but instead a bigger individual slice of the pie. Where socialist administrators seek further collectivization and unification, capitalist administrators represent this or that wing of the capitalist class, which all fights in unity to preserve private property, and against each other for a bigger slice of the pie.
Socialist political parties are organizations of the most advanced of the working class politically. The most active, the most trained, the most developed. This does not make them a distinct class, this is a bourgeois view of class. Instead, it makes them occupy the social role of “proletarian intellectual” to borrow from Gramsci, which isn’t a statement on intelligence at scale, but the social role they play in determining and shaping the thought of the entire proletariat as a class.
How do you envision socialism, with multiple political parties, not devolving into factionalism and breaking-up of society in a manner that allows the bourgeoisie to resurge?
giving one group of people a different level of power to influence policy than another creates a class, to pretend like there wasn’t nepotism or quid pro quo in the soviet union is to ignore the reality of human behavior and history.
as we see with systems with one political ideology, including the american capitalist system, a positive feedback loop commonly occurs that accelerates suffering, see the great famine in China, and the american healthcare system today. these systems appear because the ruling class ingrains itself into power and controls cultural ideas through propaganda. for example, the american anti-communist/anti-socialist propaganda that this meme references. communism and socialism are not the boogey-men that the capitalist politicians and billionaires want the american people to think they are. if we had a substantial communist party and socialist party in congress, this propaganda would be seen as ridiculous by most americans, because they would see that good that these political ideas do because they would have examples of it on the daily.
I would propose a lottery: firstly, a mandatory, standardized civics course for all citizens that teaches varying political theories and views and their historical contexts.
all voting age citizens who have passed their civics curriculum would be eligible to hold office in the city/county/district/state they live in. a percentage (for sake of argument let’s say 1% of the constituency) of individuals would be selected, once selected they would present their policy platform. a ranked choice vote is held, the selected individuals are ranked by the voting age citizens and one is elected to office (run-offs would be held like any ranked choice election) the officer would serve a term of (for sake of argument let’s say one year), at the end of which a vote-to-keep is held where their constituency would have one checkbox per office again, a checked box is a vote-to-keep their officer in their seat. if they do not receive a number of votes (lets say for purpose of argument 50%) they are removed and can never hold office again and a new lottery is held to select a new officer from the pool of eligible individuals.
a vote-of-no-confidence would also be available to the people to remove officers at anytime that a petition for such passes (for sake of argument lets say the petition requires 25% of the constituency) (for sake of argument let’s say 50% passes)
to account for competency, officers who have retained their office would be granted another ballet in the hat so-to-speak to increase their odds of attaining higher office and increasing overall competency in the electorate.
benefits: this would create a more accurate representative government as the lottery effectively selects a sample of the electorate to hold office, meaning class divisions and personal backgrounds within the population are equally represented in the halls of government. this puts the people directly in the hands of power, the lottery nearly removes any form of nepotism as people are selected at random, not based on who they know or how much money they have. (nepotism within the halls of government would still happen as officers work together in quid pro quo dealings but officers who fail to improve the lives of their constituency would be easily removed thanks to the vote-of-no-confidence) and as the system of democracy is based on coalitions and compromises, this is expected behavior.
this system nearly removes party politics from everyday people’s lives. no more months long political campaigns with misinformation, no more special interested packing races with money. this would greatly increase the prevalence of new political ideas as more people from more varying backgrounds would have access to power, as increasing the amount of legislation designed to directly improve the lives of the largest demographics in the country.
what if someone doesn’t want to do the job? they can elect to avoid the lottery for any reason, we are selecting from a pool of nearly the entire population of the country, we have plenty of willing participants. this is also why a vote-of-no-confidence can work, plenty of competition for the job.
the vote-to-keep, or dead-man election as I like to call it creates a system where an officer can only maintain power by voter enthusiasm, you as a voter have to feel empowered to go and vote for your representative, a corrupt politician who is doing nothing for his constituents would not last long under a dead-man election system.
the shear size of the electable, the vote-of-no-confidence, and the simplicity of the vote-to-keep creates real political consequences for officers who do a bad job, unlike the single party or two party system, officers in my system will never hold office again if they are removed from power. this would not eliminate corruption, but it would greatly deter it and any corruption that exists would not last long.
why the lottery? to more accurately reflect the demography of the electorate and to select individuals who might otherwise never hold office to put more political ideas and lived experiences in the halls of government particularly those of backgrounds we rarely see in government today. and to create an expectation that governing power is all of our responsibility and it has real consequences for our daily lives.
Right off the bat, you are already ignoring what I said. I never said nepotism and corrpution did not exist in the USSR. I said that power is not class, class is a social relation to ownership of the means of production. Managerial workers are not their own class, just like plumbers are not their own class. You are confusing a type of labor for a relation to ownership, and thus conflate the two into class.
Your next example is again, confusing the nature of the state. Socialism and communism cannot be brought about by a socialist party winning electorally and replacing the state bit by bit into a socialist one via policy. There is no generic “state,” there are capitalist states, socialist states, etc, and one state is broken and a new one takes its place through revolution alone.
As for replacing socialist democracy and scientific, planned organization with random lottery, this is a recipe for disaster. A truly democratic society is one where the working class as a whole is organized and capable of electing the best among themselves to higher organs, that can prove themselves through practice to their constituents. This can be organized via a single political party, that being the organization of the most politically developed of the working class.
You are explicitly rejecting a competency-based, democratic selection process with one that results in chaos and an easy-to-manipulate state that the bourgeoisie can overturn incredibly easily. This chaos is the foundation by which the bourgeoisie can bring about their own persistence.
In any case, you are getting into the weeds about a specific form of electoral democracy, while entirely ignoring the nature of class and the state. By your own definitions, you would be creating what you believe to be a ruling class. This is why it’s important to actually understand the theory and history you are trying to critique, because all you have done thus far is wax poetic about lottery-based elections while vulgarizing class and the nature of the state.
your’e the one saying ‘power is not class’ I disagree, I say dividing people by the power they have inherently creates classes, which is why I suggest a lottery to divide that power equally among the demographic makeup of a nation. how are plumbers not a class if they control the means that create and maintain the plumbing industry? its all still a class. I propose a system that puts a percentage of plumbers into the halls of government equal to their percentage in the population. same with scientists, and psychologists, and doctors, and electricians, and mechanics, and fry cooks, and teachers, and cashiers, etc. the
government should be made up of people. I reject the idea that certain groups of people among us are more fit to govern, particularly when that system removes demographics of largely under-represented groups and replaces it with more affluent individuals.
revolutions are a last resort, the people deserve a means to change their government without violence.
there is no generic state? only socialist and capitalist? have you heard of mixed economies?
“A truly democratic society is one where the working class as a whole is organized and capable of electing the best among themselves to higher organs,”
“You are explicitly rejecting a competency-based”
my electoral process removes money and nepotism from the equation by selecting individuals first from the general population, then allowing them to come up with policy proposals then allowing their constituents to elect them in a ranked choice vote. no campaigns means no campaign finance, no special interested counter funding candidates, no political parties platforming their insiders.
persons selected from the lottery will post their policy proposals on the same election website as every other candidate, debates will be organized by the election office and all candidates would be present.
" This can be organized via a single political party, that being the organization of the most politically developed of the working class."
How do elections work in Vietnam?
What you describe of people from every profession being involved in government is essentially how the Vietnam Fatherland Front works. It’s composed of 44 member organizations, primarily unions, a broad cross section of society that anyone can easily be a part of, and they conduct oversight over Vietnam’s elections. The actual administration of the government is done by elected officials, who do not have to be members of the Communist Party, or the Fatherland Front. It’s similar to what you proposed, except more democratic, since the cross section of society that makes up the Fatherland Front only oversees the elections, while policy is decided through the elections themselves. Even if you claim that the Fatherland Front secretly manipulates the outcomes, the system you’re proposing seems to be one where something like the Fatherland Front would rule outright. The only thing missing is the element of randomness, which only makes the people making decisions less accountable and leaves the possibility of someone who’s views don’t represent what the people want getting into power.
“The only thing missing is the element of randomness, which only makes the people making decisions less accountable and leaves the possibility of someone who’s views don’t represent what the people want getting into power.”
The reason I am telling you that classes are not simply any way we can categorize people but instead have specific relations to ownership of the means of production and distribution is because I am explicitly agreeing with Marx that the history of class society is the history of successive societies of 2 broad classes in conflict, defined by their relationship to ownership of the means of production and distribution.
Plumbers are not a class. Managers are not a class. Both are workers, and share the same relation to ownership of the means of production. Power is not the enemy, the system that divides us based on ownership is.
The rest of your comment is a ridiculous strawman of a party that is unaccountable and that dominates all. Nowhere in socialist history has this happened in practice or in theory. The working class as a whole decides who should be in the party and government. The party is a subset of the working class, with the same social relations to the means of production and distribution. You are arguing against a caricature.
As for revolution, it’s the only way to change a state historically.
As for “mixed economies,” all economies are “mixed” today. What separates them is their principal aspect, and the class in control of the state.
you make the same mistake again, creating a single party where the party leaders get to decide who is in the party simply creates a new ruling class. they control all the means of production, and if the party leaders are not beholden to the workers, that is totalitarianism. this same issue exists largely in the united states but we have two parties instead of one, and the wealthy largely control who is in power, this is equally as bad as a single party.
I dont care to what level the state controls private property, I only care that if the state begins to abuse that power, the workers can intervene and stop them.
Maybe you could think about it like that: capitalists are the class that, in order to exist, is forced to continuously take capital and invest it to make profit or they are outcompeted by other capitalists. It’s not that they are all evil or “corrupted by power”, they are not just incentiveized, but forced to act in destructive ways: steal surplus value from workers, increase exploitation above what people can take, chase profits on an exponentially expanding mass of capital in a finite world destroying the planet, cause a crisis about every seven years, cannibalize their own state and infrastructure that they rely on for short term profit, etc.
They inevitably run into these contradictions due to living on a finite planet and having to put individual interests above all else while the modern economies distribution of work and global value chains absolutely require working together.
What you are worried about is real too in a way, but it’s not a class. In a socialist state, a managerial part of the working class is not forced by competition to continuously pursue personal gain, but some of them still might become corrupt and do so anyway. At that point, they have betrayed the working class and they might even do so in favor of real capitalists domestic or abroad who haven’t yet completely disappeared as a class. It’s a possible problem, but other than the class conflict between workers and capital, it’s not inevitably the dominating principle of society.
Rather than worrying about a hypothetical future betrayal of fellow workers in thriving and prospering China, we should focus on how many western workers have already often betrayed the rest of the global working class and continue to do so by supporting terrible imperialist wars, mostly in turn for cheap goods at Walmart.
“What you are worried about is real too in a way, but it’s not a class. In a socialist state,”