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America is in the process of synthesizing a capitalist thesis with a socialist antithesis.
History as a progression of dialectical occurrences is known as Hegelian Synthesis and was posited by the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel as an explanation for the necessity and constancy of progress, tension, and change.
His The Philosophy of History is a good starting point.
By "capitalism" I mean an economic system characterized by private property and voluntary exchange. By "communism" I mean an economic system characterized by public property and compulsory exchange.
That's a very skewed view of Capitalism. A Marxist would argue that there is nothing voluntary about a capitalist market, since Marx viewed Capitalism as based on a dialectic between the haves and the have-nots. Those with power manipulate Capitalism to mantain that power and privilege.
Successful societies like successful organisms use and keep what works and discard what does not. The problem with our society and economy is we are keeping the things that do not work for the majority and discarding the things that do. The result is a tremendous range of economic disparity enforced by the few over the many. This has been shown by countless revolutions to be an unsustainable process resulting in the disintegration of the society and collapse of the economy. Some times the successors are a little wiser in their choice of what to keep and what to discard.
^
Should we rely on Marx's definition of capitalism?
Yes, because Marx did not see communism as "public ownership of goods" and "compulsory exchange". That is more like Leninism, not Marxism.
Marx's Communism was simply that the workers own the means of production and set the prices using the Labor Theory of Value. There is no compulsion in such an economic system. On the contrary Marx would argue it is Capitalism that is filled with compulsions of the powerful against the powerless, specificly in the form of "profit", which according to Marx is money that is stolen from workers and given to the burgeoisie- managers and investors. These forced transactions are glossed over by propaganda, rhetoric, and religion. In Marxism, investors and managers would work for workers, not the other way around.
I find it funny how this topic posed a question on capitalism or communism and laid out the marx 10 plankets to communism in our own country and we are arguing if marx was a commie. Sounds silly to me. The point is what is everyone's view that communism idealogy has been build into our government. I believe we dont have true capitalism and more of a corrupt socialism and communism idealogy built to destory freedom and captialism. I would like to have the socialist and communist people in these threads explain how our government got these laws and polices passed within our government.
I find it funny how this topic posed a question on capitalism or communism and laid out the marx 10 plankets to communism in our own country and we are arguing if marx was a commie. Sounds silly to me. The point is what is everyone's view that communism idealogy has been build into our government.
Marx was most definitely a Communist and I don't believe anybody can argue against that. But Communism as Marx defined it, has never been practiced anywhere in the world in government. Leninism and Maoism both have significant differences with Marxism, and in many ways are more "state capitalism" coupled with anti-democratic authoritarianism. So, in short, I don't believe the US was founded on "communism". Has the US been influenced by Communism? Not really. Both the US governments founding fathers and the Communists and Anarchists were influenced by the Enlightenment, however, and they do share some common values. For instance, both groups rejected concepts such as divine right and aristocracy. Both groups valued science and reason over religious appeals. So of course there is some overlap between Communism and the ideologies that created the US Constitution and similar documents and works.
Marxism is essentially a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. According to Karl Marx, industrialisation polarised society into the bourgeoisie (those who own the means of production, the factories and the land) and the much larger proletariat (the working class who actually perform the labour necessary to extract something valuable from the means of production). He saw the industrialisation process as the logical dialectical progression of feudal economic modes, necessary for the full development of capitalism, which he saw as in itself a necessary precursor to the development of socialism and eventually communism.
Both the US governments founding fathers and the Communists and Anarchists were influenced by the Enlightenment, however, and they do share some common values. For instance, both groups rejected concepts such as divine right and aristocracy. Both groups valued science and reason over religious appeals. So of course there is some overlap between Communism and the ideologies that created the US Constitution and similar documents and works.
I reject this theory. Marx was a collectivist and not an individualist. The marxist ideology he would not agree with the founders visions of America and not a thomas jefferson. They believe in the people first concept but how the people are equal and have rights is quite different.
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Most people see communism completely different as Marx himself sees it. 
