Ah, now we’re starting to get somewhere

Marx was in fact a socialist, since socialism is the intermediate stage towards communism. There are some communists who aren’t socialists (yes, Marxists tend to be both), but they are frequently disproven and written off due to the fact that communism isn’t something you IMPLEMENT, it’s something that EMERGES far into the future. It’s a promise that requires post-scarcity, and for work itself to eventually become so automated and efficient that it’s an optional thing. Capitalism itself doesn’t provide that because the market mechanisms don’t function otherwise, leaving us to simply be reliant upon the companies themselves under a UBI. That kind of capitalism is private business staring into the abyss and crapping its pants, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The goal of Communism is for the people, the workers, the average citizen, to quite literally BE the state as long as they work. Everyone gets a say in what happens in their group, and everyone works in order to get a say. Property rights themselves don’t die, owning a house or a car or a toothbrush is still YOUR thing, it’s private property, defined by Marx as most anything that produces value, such as a factory, a business, or a local market. Communism takes centuries, that’s why socialism is such a big part of it, because the transitory stage takes a LONG time, and is at its most efficient, moral, and practical when it is under socialism, since it’s overall maneuverability is maximized by such a large amount of people capable of giving ideas and solutions to problems. Communism also is NOT idealistic and “happy sunshine rainbows”, Engels debunked the use of communism’s irrational little brother Utopian Socialism mercilessly, strongly favoring scientific or practical socialism instead, with a heavy focus upon rational economics.

Stalin promised eventual communism, something that takes a long time. His policies solidified the ability of socialism’s functioning in…  Read more their society, but he didn’t “scam” them by any means. Stalinism is also its own ideology under the MASSIVE, umbrella of socialism. The whole ideology is one of the most varied and extensive systems out there, it could have almost no Stalinist aspects at all if someone wished, but saying voting for socialist policy is aligning with Stalinism is like saying voting for capitalism makes you Ludwig von Mises.