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Eva asked:

Does Marx's theory of communism discredit human nature and its complexities? If it does not than
why are we not living in a true state of communism now? If communism is the ideal way of life, then
why does is its philosophy biased on the "evil" structure of capitalism? In communism, would man's
natural aggression disappear?

============

Scanning down the questions, I came on this... no one else has answered, so I'm going to comment.
The proviso is that this is notmy field of expertise. However, I became curious about Marx once, and
attempted to look up a description of the goal state, so to speak, i.e., the end to which his system
moves and which he claims is inevitable. I could find virtually nothing. There was a vague description
of someone working in the fields, then going fishing, then reading... so absurdly unreal and
impractical that it was quite amazing. Perhaps somewhere in his writings there is a clear description
of where, precisely, he believed society was going... but I couldn't find it. Now, my question is, given
that there is no clear statement of what an ideal society is, how it runs, etc., and I mean clearand
precise,as many details worked out as possible, howcould he, or anyone, claim to know the path to
that state of affairs, much less claim it to be inevitable? How do you plan change without knowing the
end to which you're aiming?

That's problem one. Problem two, in my opinion, is that given the enormousamount of data
supporting territoriality and dominance/ submission behaviors throughoutthe animal kingdom, and
indeed into the insects and plants, it seems to me that anyone with any sort of modern education
would have to reject the possibility any sort of "classless" society. That kind of idea is one which could
only be formulated before our modern knowledge of anthropology, ecology, and evolutionary
psychology. We are part of a planetary ecosystem which seems hard-wired, genetically programmed,
if you wish, for obtaining territory, defending it, and controlling it. And "territory" can encompass, for
humans, quite abstract areas, such as one's dominance in a field of learning, for example... as well as
a social hierarchy, like most animals.

So given all that, and given communism's failure globally, how anyone, at this point, could imagine it
could exist stably except perhaps on a very small scale, e.g., in a small religious group like a kibbutz
(and indeed those are usually controlled by some dominant figure — a "prophet", "guru", or
whatever), is beyond me.

Steven Ravett Brown