Theory has it that capitalism progresses to socialism and socialism to communism.

It seems that the state acquires a prominent position in the socialist phase, but it isn't clear what function it has or what happens to it in the communist phase.

It seems that the state acquires a prominent position in the socialist phase, but it isn't clear what function it has or what happens to it in the communist phase. — Apollodorus

This is more of a Leninist idea and of course critical to Soviet understanding of Marxism (obviously, Soviet Union believed in an important role of the state).

However, Marx had good things to say about the Paris commune, which was what we'd call direct democracy and what Marx called the proletariat managing their own affairs.

Marx had a fierce dispute with Bakunin, who was essentially the Castro of his time advocating daring revolutionary acts to overthrow states. Marx satirizes Bakunin's idea he needs only 100 revolutionaries to bring about socialism, which, to be clear Bakunin actually says

There need not be a great number of these men. One hundred revolutionaries, strongly and earnestly allied, would suffice for the international organization of all of Europe. Two or three hundred revolutionaries will be enough for the organization of the largest country. — Bakunin, The Program of the International Brotherhood, 1869

So, Marx's view is much more nuanced than just daring acts of what we'd call "communist revolutionaries" in the 20th century, which of course brings up the matter of your OP.

Can anyone explain what is meant by concepts like the “withering away of the state” in Marxist theory? — Apollodorus

This is concept more associated with Proudhon, which Marx doesn't like to credit with anything, so (possibly due to intellectual arrogance) he never makes it abundantly clear he believes the same thing.

But the basic idea as expressed by Proudhon, is that what matters is the beliefs of the people and awareness of the working class of their ability to organize.

The communist manifesto repeats this theme in the idea that the communist is always a friend of the working class and always helping the working class in their struggles of the moment; so, this is very clear incrementalism. At the same time, the communist manifesto makes very bold assertions and talks about revolution a lot, and makes clear that's the goal, so we could interpret this as a call to violent revolution right now or a more mundane "social revolution" as we'd understand our social activists of today (Bernie Sanders sense of "revolution"; profound change but not necessarily immediate or super violent).

Of course, our mundane social activists of today following Bernie Sanders, for example, are only mundane because democracy does actually exist (even in US democratic change is easier than violent revolutionary change, as the Bolshevik style storming of Capital Hill shows us). If we contextualize to Marx's time, politics was of Europe was simply more violent as a matter of fact. So, though we expect from our intellectuals today to condemn violence, it was more just a mundane fact of political life, which Marx, as a political realist, accepts as an unfortunate part of political life and doesn't really advocate against but doesn't really advocate for more of either, as his opposition to Bakunin makes clear.

We can easily interpret the "withering away of the state" as the social democratic process of Europe. Individual citizens in Switzerland and Nordic countries for instance, can genuinely be argued to be free from state oppression and managing their own affairs through fair, or then fair enough, political process. As local awareness increases and local political entities take more active rolls of government management, the "state" becomes less and less relevant to political life; Switzerland's complicated power sharing and power nesting of cities and cantons with direct democratic initiatives possible at every level, that really are effective democratic power, make the Swiss "State" extremely limited in its power and (if you go to Switzerland) no Swiss citizen talks about being repressed by state power.

Of course, Switzerland is wealthy and does have a market, and therefore advanced as a "de facto capitalist success", but this is assuming state capitalist policies maintaining capital's dominance (in opposition to real democratic participation) is the source of Switzerland's wealth in the first place. The counter argument is that real effective democracy brings political stability, little interest in costly wars, good management decisions by the people of "their own affairs" which creates conditions for the accumulation of wealth and an easy time for working class people to, through democracy, ensure decent access to wealth in the form of free education, free health care, good public infrastructure everyone can enjoy, and excellent worker rights to protect against oppression on the job.

If we carry this social experiment of Switzerland, the Nordic's, New Zealand, forward, it is possible to imagine "the State" becoming less and less important, until it is, maybe nominally there as an administrative body of regional issues, but does not and essentially cannot exercise any real oppressive political power. Contrast this, of even the state of affairs of these countries today if you prefer not to speculate about the future, with the French Monarchy, the Tzars, "Communist" China, Nazi Germany, or the Roman Empire for that matter, and it gives a pretty good idea of what "the State" can be in terms of both centralization of power and capacity to oppress. Compared to these states: Nordic countries, Switzerland, and the like essentially don't have states with power over the working class noticeable on any non-logarithmic scale.

Though I touch on it in the above post, I think it's worth expanding what is meant by "revolutionary" in Marx's writing.

Marx writes well before the Soviet Union and a proliferation of communist insurgencies that bring to mind the idea of the "communist revolutionary" who lives in the forest, wears a beret, and dabbles in post-modernist critique on the side.

The meaning of revolution by Marx is more similar to how we use it today in that pretty much anything can be "revolutionary" in the sense of profound change.

This is made clear in Marx calling capitalism revolutionary and continuously revolutionizing itself with new technology and social changes; what we would call "innovation".

For Marx, real large scale revolutions start well before any political conception of them, in the material changes to the economy. The only reason our capitalist economists don't draw our attention to the material nature of our real economies, but rather stay focused on abstract representation of potential economies that may or may not exists is because A. they are profoundly and willfully stupid as it's their job to be that utterly, relentlessly and irredeemably stupid and B. it would be a segue into discussing whether Marx meant the same thing by materialism (aka. our modern understanding of science as dealing with objective phenomena in the material world).

Once these material changes get underway, it disrupts the old political structures (which could be more-or-less stable for a thousand years and all conception of an alternative basically doesn't exist) because the material interests of people to keep doing what their doing changes and this is impossible to go unnoticed indefinitely. Changes in material processes lead to changes in effective access to power. With new technology, comes new trade, large scale and stable trade that makes the need for "tight nit" and autonomous local political units (aka. fiefs) less needed for survival, and an ascendance of a trading merchant class that, with new found wealth and power and a profound (aka. revolutionary) changes to the real economy, find themselves at odds with aristocratic privilege which is now (for them) standing in the way of further revolutionary changes they are the leaders and masters of. For Marx, humanism and secularism is caused by these material changes in the economy and real wealth and power structures that call for a justifying philosophical framework once this ascending class of merchants and bourgeois factory owners and the like become conscious of their common interest to overthrow the old political order (what Marx calls the superstructure).

There is not really any reason to assume Marx believes there is any shortcuts to this process of the material changes of the economy under bourgeois capitalism in turn creating an ascending class of proletariat that, in a similar way to the bourgeois ascension to power, become conscious of their power and overthrow the superstructure with it. Signs of this ascension to power would be things like literacy.

The analysis always seems quaint because we don't say "bourgeois" or "proletariat", but there's not really any reason to not use Marx's words when discussing his though. However, you can basically read "bourgeois" to mean "investor" and "proletariat" to mean "working class". There are nuances that these substitutions don't pickup (the "bourgeois" have their own distinct culture that, according to Marx, they export everywhere and when the whole world wears blue jeans and suits and watches Hollywood films of damsels in distress in their cute little mansions ... it's a pretty accurate prediction).

So, if we read Marx as meaning processes that could play out over centuries -- just as it took centuries for bourgeois ascendance and consolidation of power in the first-past-the-post representational secular state (free from church and aristocratic interference, in which the working class is easily cajoled into following, if not the right, at least not the wrong, popular politician, be it Obama or Hitler) -- then the "withering away of the state" is perhaps a good way to describe Marx's idea (but of course that would give credit to Proudhon, which Marx would never do, so we may never know).

Can anyone explain what is meant by concepts like the “withering away of the state” in Marxist theory? — Apollodorus

Yeah, that's the theory that holds as much truth as, "I'll always love you."

Well, obviously Lenin and others had their own interpretation of Marxist concepts.

However, according to some analysts like Andrzej Walicki (Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom) both Marx and his successors like Lenin often use concepts inconsistently and the authors I quoted above, Adamiack and Bender, are of the same opinion. Have you read any of them?

If we look at Marx and Engels' own statements, it becomes clear that this is indeed the case.

For example, it is said that “the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the state dies (or withers) away" (Anti-Dühring).

But the state can't wither away if is assumes an administrative role, can it?

Also, I'm not sure that Marx really saw the Paris Commune as an example of socialist revolution. His statements on the Commune seem to be inconsistent. That's what makes it so hard to establish what he actually meant by some concepts that are so central to Marxist thought.

Yeah, that's the theory that holds as much truth as, "I'll always love you." — synthesis

You might be right there and it looks like you aren't the only one who thinks so. But I think it's only fair to hear how Marxists see the matter. Just out of curiosity if nothing else.

Another related key concept is the "dictatorship of the proletariat".

As already noted, Marxist theory has it that capitalism must progress to socialism and socialism to communism. Marx himself stressed that the socialist state, i.e. the transition phase from capitalism to communism, cannot be anything else than "the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat" (Critique of the Gotha Programme).

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels defined the proletarian movement as “the movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority”.

However, there was no “immense proletarian majority”. Germany in the mid-1800s was still two-thirds rural and the urban industrial workers whom Marx and Engels referred to as “proletariat” were a very small minority. Making proletarians the ruling class would have been an undemocratic endeavor.

This was precisely why the vast majority of the population rejected Marx's revolution, because they didn't feel that it represented their interests. The same happened in the Russian Revolution of 1917. The vast majority, farmers, etc. did not participate and the revolution had to be carried out by a handful of revolutionary intellectuals in collaboration with radicalized workers (another minority) and elements of the military.

However, according to some analysts like Andrzej Walicki (Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom) both Marx and his successors like Lenin often use concepts inconsistently and the authors I quoted above, Adamiack and Bender, are of the same opinion. Have you read any of them? — Apollodorus

I don't have time to look into it now, but I will do so.

However, on this topic, I completely agree concepts are used inconsistently. If we want to critique from a modern perspective, Marx's concept of science is fairly rudimentary, but that's common to the intellectual period. And to be fair to Marx, he has a far better conception of science than other important "scientific discipline founders" such as Freud, who has basically no conception remotely in common with modern science and is just basically riffing it.

If we're critiquing a sense of "what mistakes could Marx have avoided", then this is a more historical question.

For example, it is said that “the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the state dies (or withers) away" (Anti-Dühring).

But the state can't wither away if is assumes an administrative role, can it? — Apollodorus

For this, I think it's easy to defend Marx. The concept of the state they are working with is the apparatus of the absolute monarchy, the bourgeois start overthrowing the monarch but they keep the state (as, just like the kings they depose, they too are terrified of the "little people" taking their property, and they need the state to protect them).

The state is by definition repressive, because those are the only states that exist.

Our modern definition of the state is inclusive of more-or-less socialist paradises by the standards of the 19th century, but it is anachronistic to put in Marx's conception of the state something like Norway or Switzerland. Norway and Switzerland are far advanced on this road of the state becoming an administrative body genuinely working on behalf of working people.

Another related key concept is the "dictatorship of the proletariat". — Apollodorus

This question I have looked into. For me it's clear "dictatorship of the proletariat" simply means "majority rule" to Marx.

However, when a thinker writes thousands of pages and a phrase only appears once, I think it's also safe to say it doesn't matter much and shouldn't be used to come to any conclusions that are not obviously supported by the major published works. If Marx had Leninist "vanguard" ideas and desire to capture the state and mold people into socialists using state power, I think it's fair to assume he would have wrote about that idea.

Now, both the soviets and their foe the US wanted to attach Marx to statism, so it's an easy phrase to use as pretext and neither side is going to argue with it, but, for me anyways, that Marx provides clear analysis and approval of the Paris commune, the first direct democracy experiment and first "proletariat administrating their own affairs", is pretty clear indication Marx is not a statist.

The problem with Marx for people who don't like Marx, is that he's just extremely tame. He spends most of his time deconstructing (from his point of view) the delusions of the bourgeoisie, in extremely poignant and cutting prose, and very little time planning revolutionary forest squatting.

However, for non-statist Marxists, anarchists and socialists writ large, the state is simply not the main focus of political analysis. Rather, the real arena of politics is the ideas people have: change those ideas and society changes and the state changes. Get the idea into people's heads enough that they are not in anyway "subjects" of the kings of old or the states of new, and the power of the state fades away (just not in the delusional libertarian sense, which is just bourgeois hallucination; any society requires rules and organization etc. and the "bottom up" administrative control called "direct democracy" today is more-or-less "administration" as used by Marx; the people have the power, but they nevertheless need to administer things with administrative councils of some sort nominally similar to state apparatus, but without the oppression which is the essential nature of the state as understood by Marx).

In other words, the sate is centralized power, somehow made possible by "the people" but without any effective influence on this centralized power and in every way their lived dictated from this center. This is in stark contrast to real "people power" who then might nevertheless elect some central authority over certain appropriate tasks. We would call both "a state" in modern political theory, but the second kind simply didn't exist in the remotest sense of the words and to explain that government was possible without oppression nor chaos without rules, the term "administration" as apposed to the state gives a glimpse of this meaning. Otherwise, if what you are talking about has never been seen to exist, it is easy to make the criticism that "we can't function without a state" and everyone having a clear idea of what a state "is", as there's only one kind of example. A similar example is that we might want to stop calling the country the "kingdom" if we aim to not have any kings.

However, on this topic, I completely agree concepts are used inconsistently. — boethius

Well, you have no choice but to agree given that the statements are there, black on white. I would recommend you read the articles I suggested because the authors make some very interesting and very strong, in fact irrefutable arguments, in support of their findings.

It may well be the case that, as you say, "when a thinker writes thousands of pages and a phrase only appears once, it's also safe to say it doesn't matter much and shouldn't be used to come to any conclusions that are not obviously supported by the major published works".

However, what happens when the thinker doesn't address the issue anywhere else or when the major published works do not support any alternative conclusion?

As for it "not mattering much", I beg to differ. These are concepts that are central to Marxist theory.

How can you advocate revolution and write thousands of pages justifying it and "forget" to clarify what the actual goal of the revolution consists of, apart from vague statements about "freedom", "equality" and the like? And even these are controversial because on closer scrutiny there are some glaring inconsistencies even there.

Let's not forget that Marx spent most of his life thinking, talking and writing. He had nothing else to do for many years and he believed to be one of the best thinkers on earth. How do we explain these curious holes in his theories?

Edit: If you offer to take someone on a journey and fail to tell them where you're taking them and what's going to happen to them once they arrive at the destination, then this raises some very important and highly justified questions about your offer, does it not?

Well, you have no choice but to agree given that the statements are there, black on white. I would recommend you read the articles I suggested because the authors make some very interesting and very strong, in fact irrefutable arguments, in support of their findings. — Apollodorus

Yes, I'll look into them.

To be clear, I would not call myself "a Marxist", and I wouldn't say Marx develops what we would here call "a philosophy" at all, as he never really addresses the question of "why get involved in politics" in the first place.

However, what happens when the thinker doesn't address the issue anywhere else or when the major published works do not support any alternative conclusion? — Apollodorus

I don't think this criticism is fair. Marx has zero clue about the Soviet Union and Pol Pot and co. and is focused on what he thinks is relevant, which is almost entirely critiquing the bourgeoisie. They have the power and he's trying to reveal how that power really works.

As for it "not mattering much", I beg to differ. These are concepts that are central to Marxist theory. — Apollodorus

Depends which Marxist theory. If we're talking about Marx's theory according to Marx, then if he doesn't talk about an issue it's clearly not important to him. Perhaps he should have talked about it, but it clearly doesn't play an important role in his actual theory and writings.

How can you advocate revolution and write thousands of pages justifying it and "forget" to clarify what the actual goal of the revolution consists of, apart from vague statements about "freedom", "equality" and the like? And even these are controversial because on closer scrutiny there are some glaring inconsistencies. — Apollodorus

Though I understand it doesn't "look good" and perhaps the criticism is fair. However, in defense of Marx, if one is advocating "people power", then one doesn't really know what the people are going to do once they have the power. Marx believes people can take a much larger role in determining how their lives are governed, and once that happens he trusts people will make society better (as they live in society); it can be argued as both the apex of foolishness or the summation of wisdom to stay silent about what will actually happen once people "administer their own affairs".

One could say Marx is only showing the door, but that people will need to walk through it.

However, I will need to look into things more carefully. You are asking, to your merit, a more scholarly rebuttal, and so may require not only reading the material you reference but also reading and citing Marx in context, which may take some time.

We can easily interpret the "withering away of the state" as the social democratic process of Europe. — boethius

?

Individual citizens in Switzerland and Nordic countries for instance, can genuinely be argued to be free from state oppression and managing their own affairs through fair, or then fair enough, political process. As local awareness increases and local political entities take more active rolls of government management, the "state" becomes less and less relevant to political life; — boethius

Living in one Nordic country and knowing all my life the local Social Democracy, I'd say this is not true.

The central government might transfer authority to local communities, but that hardly takes away the role of public authorities, likely it simply increases it on another level. Great, you don't have to ask permission from a central ministry, but your local communal authorities.

If we carry this social experiment of Switzerland, the Nordic's, New Zealand, forward, it is possible to imagine "the State" becoming less and less important, until it is, maybe nominally there as an administrative body of regional issues, but does not and essentially cannot exercise any real oppressive political power. — boethius

Yet this doesn't decrease the power of the public authorities, be they on the communal level or not. You see, to decrease the role of the state /public sector would simply mean to give freedom for people to act when before they had to ask permission from an authority. To do away with previous supervision and control. This isn't what modern Social Democracy has as it's objective.

? — ssu

I say process. We could imagine the Swiss / Nordic experiment as some point in a process towards "withering away of the state".

Living in one Nordic country and knowing all my life the local Social Democracy, I'd say this is not true. — ssu

I too live in a Nordic country, and if I compare to life in the 19th century, there is simply no way to get around the fact a large part of the demands of "socialist agitation" of the 19th century is realized in these countries.

Worker protections, minimum wage, wellfare, healthcare, free day-care, primary, secondary and advance education, subsidized public infrastructure etc.

If you went back to the 19th century and said to people working in mines 80 hours a week, that they could have all these things but it wouldn't be "socialism", that you were advocating these things but not "socialism", they would say you had lost your mind. Capitalist or even just state agents sent to stop your "socialism but not" agitation would not at all care about whatever distinctions you are trying to make.

Living in one Nordic country and knowing all my life the local Social Democracy, I'd say this is not true.

The central government might transfer authority to local communities, but that hardly takes away the role of public authorities, likely it simply increases it on another level. Great, you don't have to ask permission from a central ministry, but your local communal authorities. — ssu

There is nominal power and there is real and effective power. Power is not simply administrative process, power is the ability to effectuate desired change in the real world. In real effective democracies, people effectuate power not only through administrative process and votes, but also through public opinion, strikes, and agitation of all sorts.

If the prime-minister of Finland started using state power in the way Louis 16 understood and used it, two things would happen: first, the immediate realization that there's no way to actually do that, and second, the removal from office nearly immediately. Xi wields effective state power today; the prime minister of Finland is an effective representative of the people on such a scale.

The effective power and who has it in Finland is simply in no way similar to the absolute monarchies of the 18th and 19th century, which is the centralization of authority Marx was critiquing (and then taken over and wielded by the bourgeoisie in much the same way kings did; to protect their property and keep the "little people" in line).

To be clear, I wouldn't say Marx develops what we would here call "a philosophy" at all, as he never really addresses the question of "why get involved in politics" in the first place. — boethius

That's very interesting because on the other thread I was attacked for questioning whether Marxism is a philosophy and not something else.

I still can't find the thread, I don't know what they've done with it.

I too live in a Nordic country, and if I compare to life in the 19th century, there is simply no way to get around the fact a large part of the demands of "socialist agitation" of the 19th century is realized in these countries. — boethius

And fortunately (or unfortunately) to those that waited for the revolution to happen, it never came as the problems and the largest injustices were dealt with. Yet those demands from "socialist agitation" were taken to heart by other political factions too.

Yet from the 19th Century the government and the public sector has grown in every Nordic country.

Capitalist or even just state agents sent to stop your "socialism but not" agitation would not at all care about whatever distinctions you are trying to make. — boethius

I'm not so sure about that, when you look at the actual history in these countries or in Europe in general. Who created the first state social insurance program? Bismarck. Not a socialist, on the contrary.

Power is not simply administrative process, power is the ability to effectuate desired change in the real world. — boethius

Yet the individual confronts that administrative process in his or her life. It's only optional (luckily!) to take part in the democratic process, the laws and the norms of the state aren't optional.

The effective power and who has it in Finland is simply in no way similar to the absolute monarchies of the 18th and 19th century — boethius

I agree. And how effective was that power of absolute monarchies in the 18th and 19th Century or earlier?

The issue was that they had to rely on the threat of violence as the central power was actually so weak. They didn't have an efficient modern organization as now the state enjoys. The Sun King Louis the XIV tried to get accurate statistics of how much trade was going through an important port (was it Rouen or Le Havre, I don't remember) and didn't get it in his lifetime. The court in Versailles was a way to control the aristocracy, which had been a problem for his father.

The real nightmare can be perhaps Xi's China, when you have an authoritarian power elite with the resources and the capability to use modern technology to create the police state of the new millennium. Luckily no political parties in our countries are such authoritarians as the Chinese communists. All I'm saying that the state isn't withering away in the Nordic countries.

The idea of ​​the disappearance of the State arises as an ideal in Kant (as a cosmopolitan society) and explicitly in Fichte. Every state that serves what it claims to serve ends in the suppression of the state. In theory, the State has a pragmatic justification as an instrument to resolve conflicts between individuals and promote institutions oriented to the public good. However, in reality, the State is a coercive element. It goes from the right to the far-right. It is always in the hands of the ruling classes. Lobbyists run the state and promote fascism. A politician can enter politics to improve the lives of others, but soon the only thing he wants is to stay in politics, that is, to live off others. This parasitism is not achieved in vain. Those who sponsor his party, receive a change in favor of oppressing the majority. There comes a time when the alienation of a society is such that the majority defend interests that harm them and are unable to even imagine that another reality is possible.

To be clear, I would not call myself "a Marxist", — boethius

Well, you may not be a Marxist in theory, but from your comments you may still be a Marxist in the context of this discussion, given that you seem to be defending the position of Marxism. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it's useful to know from the start who is on which side in order to facilitate understanding and debate.

And since you're saying that Marx didn't develop a theory that would be called here a philosophy, with which I tend to agree, it may be worthwhile mentioning the fact that according to critics his system isn't a science or scientific either.

For example, Walicki points out that "Marx was possibly the most extreme utopian" because he didn't support his views by "any scientific arguments whatsoever".

May I ask if you have read Walicki at all, or are you only familiar with pro-Marxist literature?

Personally, I think it is important to consider the views of the critics as well, lest we should end up with a biased, pro-Marxist approach that tends to either overlook or dismiss all the inconsistencies of Marxist theory.

And, of course, there are other Marxist concepts as well, such as "classless society" that would need to be looked into in order to get a better picture.

What is meant by "classless society"? How does it fit in with the concept of "dictatorship of the proletariat"? Has it ever been achieved in any socialist state? Etc.

The idea of ​​the disappearance of the State arises as an ideal in Kant (as a cosmopolitan society) and explicitly in Fichte. Every state that serves what it claims to serve ends in the suppression of the state.... — gikehef947

That sounds very interesting, but I don't think it explains how the state "withers away". As we've already seen, the state can't assume an administrative function and at the same disappear. And even if it did disappear, how will society function without a state? Can we imagine a society without a state? I don't think so. Sounds a bit too fanciful in my opinion. And that's a major flaw. What was the purpose of Marxist revolution if we don't even know what the objective was?

You are asking about the mistakes. Trying to understand a topic by pretending to confirm your own opinions is not an honest orientation.
Extrapolating your "reasoning": "What is the purpose of life if we don't even know what the objective is?" Is that also a major flaw to live on?

Extrapolating your "reasoning": "What is the purpose of life if we don't even know what the objective is?" — gikehef947

That is some extrapolation, I must say. There are thousands of reasons why life has a purpose for most people. Having fun is one of them. Life just is, it doesn't need a purpose unless you're manic depressive or something. Revolution is something else. You must know what you're risking your life for. Marx failed to convince the masses, therefore his system, whatever we choose to call it, failed.

In other words, the state is centralized power, somehow made possible by "the people" but without any effective influence on this centralized power and in every way their lived dictated from this center. This is in stark contrast to real "people power" who then might nevertheless elect some central authority over certain appropriate tasks. We would call both "a state" in modern political theory, but the second kind simply didn't exist in the remotest sense of the words and to explain that government was possible without oppression nor chaos without rules, the term "administration" as apposed to the state gives a glimpse of this meaning. Otherwise, if what you are talking about has never been seen to exist, it is easy to make the criticism that "we can't function without a state" and everyone having a clear idea of what a state "is", as there's only one kind of example. A similar example is that we might want to stop calling the country the "kingdom" if we aim to not have any kings. — boethius

Well said.

Maybe this would be a good point to bring up how Marx saw society as structured by means of production and exchanges of value. Marx views the state as a product of the capitalist exploitation of labor. The clueless gullibility of the Proletariat to accept the deal as given will change when those conditions are no longer as accepted as necessary. The top down view of Lenin pushes this kind of perspective into future generations. Nothing can change if we don't break the existing order. The "withering" has been postponed for an indefinite period of unrecognizable time.

The importance of Proudhon in Marx's discourse does play a major part in the "bloody revolution" question in Marx's writings. Marx's book, The Poverty of Philosophy is a reversal of Proudhon's title: The Philosophy of Poverty. At the end of the book, Marx recognizes that people will get hurt when deals change. Pandora opens a box.

As an alternative perspective on the centrality of the means of production, there are thinkers like Ivan Illich who resisted global forces of money and use of tools for the purpose of maintaining more control of one's own environment in a decidedly conservative way.

The consciousness of the proletariat is the most important quality left up for grabs.

Since you are not going to get out of life alive, the only purpose of life will be death. Another thing will be that we imagine other intermediate ends.
That the majority is convinced of something does not determine the truth of that something.

That the majority is convinced of something does not determine the truth of that something. — gikehef947

That's exactly what I'm saying. That the majority is convinced of Marxist theory being sound does not determine the soundness of it.

Maybe this would be a good point to bring up how Marx saw society as structured by means of production. — Valentinus

Yes. This will definitely account for the inconsistencies in Marxist concepts like "the withering away of the state". Or maybe not.

Your idea of Marxism is childish. You know nothing. Even what you claims to criticize is anecdotal. Talking to you is a waste of time.

Even what you claims to criticize is anecdotal — gikehef947

How is it "anecdotal"? The inconsistency of concepts like "the withering away of the state" is all over the Internet and in hundreds of articles and books as well as in the original texts:

“Socialists from Marx and Engels onwards have always held that with the establishment of Socialism the State will disappear”

The Withering Away of the State – From Marx to Stalin, Marxists Internet Archive

Withering away of the state, Wikipedia Article

Original German text in Marx-Engels Werke (MEW), Vol. 20, p. 262:

“An die Stelle der Regierung über Personen tritt die Verwaltung von Sachen und die Leitung von Produktionsprozessen. Der Staat wird nicht »abgeschafft«, er stirbt ab.

English translation in Marx-Engels Collected Works (MECW), Vol. 23, p. 268:

“State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous and then dies out of itself: the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not "abolished", it withers away”

A state that assumes an administrative function can't "wither away"

@boetius has already admitted it. You can't deny or suppress facts and tell people that "they don't know anything" when even those who do know admit it. But it's entirely up to you, I'm not forcing you.

You talk about something anecdotal to criticize what you haven't bothered to read. Come on!: One step further and you will criticize communism because Marx had warts or hairs on his butt.

You talk about something anecdotal to criticize what you haven't bothered to read.You talk about something anecdotal to criticize what you haven't bothered to read. — gikehef947

That's a pretty anecdotal statement in itself the way I see it.