"... 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 centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized 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 revolutionizing the mode of production.
These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
- Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
- A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
- Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
- Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
- Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
- Centralization of the means of communication and transport in he hands of the state.
- 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.
- Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
- 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.
- Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. "
"In the 1993 movie Bram Stoker's Dracula [Columbia, American Zoetrope/Osiris], there is a scene where Count Dracula, confronted with his pursuers, turns into a figure made of rats, who then scatter and run in all directions. This is rather like what has happened to Communism since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Few in the West today would identify themselves publically or self-consciously as Communists, but a large body of leftists and even advocates of "liberal" opinion, when taken together, can more or less be reassembled into Soviet attitudes and policies."
"Marx did predict that the whole world would be made over in the western image and he was right. Capitalism has conquered the world. It just so happened that capitalism developed in the west and has proved the most aggressive all conquering economic system the world has ever seen but to be fair that's not Marx's fault. He just understood the nature of capitalism, that capital has to constantly expand itself. It has to expand itself geographically around the world and expand itself into more and more areas of our life. Hence the privatization of public space, Malls etc. Also think of how many more areas of life have come under market relations in the last 20 years. ...
The old Marxist Leninist idea of a unified socialism being imposed the world over has been rejected. Instead there's a huge diversity of projects, of fighting back but also attempts to create different ways of living. You could imagine these different lines of flight out of capitalism leading to a world which contains many different worlds. Once we've escaped from the all conquering rules of capitalism, you could see history beginning, with people free to develop all sorts of creative experiments in how to live as full human beings. Anarchism is one tradition feeding into all this."
"The socialist state requires greater and greater degrees of force to make it function. If resources and wealth are allocated on the basis of need rather than production, people will compete to be more needy rather than more productive."