Anyone out there with leftist special interests?

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I began as a democrat and moved further left to a Democratic Socialist. I am now a communist. I enjoy researching Marx's theories and discussing them on a leftist blog that I found a few months ago. I am currently in the process of starting a leftist club at my university. So, that's where I am right now.

Any others out there who like the theories or would like to know more about them?

Ned Flanders. He owns a left handed store.

(Sorry, I was too lazy to read the post, so if it has nothing to do with the agenda of left handed people, I apologize.)

Why would one believe such a murderous ideology?

on the same token, why do those who hold such ideologies not think of themselves as ideological?

Its not really a murderous ideology in itself. Its really good on paper, but when you get into handing all economic and political power over to one centralized entity, there's really no reason to believe that it'll truly represent the will of the people it governs over. Its much more likely it'll just represent the will of itself. Its a form of ideological extremism and misses the nuance in the world. It was an almost superstitious belief that history could be broadly predicted and that a classless society would be the necessary next step after capitalism. Its a one-size fits all assumption too, the idea that if we just have the perfect system, everything will naturally fall into place, which just isn't true. A functioning and affective society can only be achieved if one is able to make decisions based on context and situation. Some things work in some situations but not in others. Sometimes government intervention is good, and sometimes its not. Sometimes business is good for some things, and sometimes its not. Finding the proper balance in anything requires critical thinking and reason, where ideology, of any kind, is just an excuse not to think and to blindly follow an extreme.

Tell that to a Ukrainian. Specifically the 7 million dead ones that Stalin starved to death.

They put ideas above people. That's the temptation of any ideology, and very few have been as bold as the Left because they believe in Progress, NOW! The road to progress is inevitable and why be on the wrong side of history...

I marvel at how the Left looks to china with giddy. If only they could displace people on mass to reconfigure society in a pragmatic way.

It's not a murdering ideology. No country in the world has every practiced true communism. True communism calls for equality of all. There are no "dictators" under communism, because there are no "governments." Saying "communist government" is like an oxymoron. They're complete opposites. And really, how can we say it looks good on paper, but it wouldn't work? It worked fine for many years. Just look up "primitive communism." Today we live in a society where a few people have the power over the majority. We are exploiting resources, and destroying our planet. Capitalism is an economic system that creates problems that it can not fix, and we are beginning to see that. It has waged wars throughout history to get the resources that it desires and it will continue to do so through its spread of "imperialism." Maybe communism isn't the system we need, but we can't say that capitalism is either.

That is the root of the problem. Commmunism is like sharing a bank account with the community. They call it tradegy of the commons. Everyone wants to take out no one wants to put in.

If you wish to understand the society we live in today or make any effective study of Social science you cannot ignore or so readily dismiss the work of Karl Marx and his successors in the Neo-Marxist movement.

The only contemporary opposite to Marxism for awhile was Functionalism.

With Marxism the focus is on power, and how an injustice system is maintained and defended by the very people who are exploited by it. The need for justice and the need for equality. Which at the time was a very real issue if you were living in Europe at the time were very few Democratic governments if any existed at the time.

Functionalism looks at all of society as a functioning complete organism and that even the poverty, crime and deviancy are part of what contributes to its ability to function.

For all its faults we still talk about Marxism today, write thesis on it, even PHD's are still being written from a marxist perspective. Because the issue of power in society is still relevant. The inequalities and the suffering caused by such inequalities still remain a problem all over the world.

Functionalism just dropped off the radar. Why? Because it's an apologetic perspective everything is working as it should do. Consensus and uniformity are what societies are all about. Ignoring several millenia of human conflict, suffering and all the rest.

Marxism and Neo-Marxism is going to be with us for awhile yet till we find a way to resolve the consequences of capitalism and have such growing gaps of inequality in our societies.

I don't think it's exactly like sharing a bank account with the entire community, because there is no money aspect. I also don't think people would have a problem putting in. It's really quite simple. If our ancestors were hungry, they foraged for food, if they were cold they built shelter and made clothes. They didn't just sit around and freeze in the dark expecting someone else to take care of them. Today, if the toilet's clogged, we don't just sit around and smell it. We get in there and plunge it. If people want to be provided for, they will contribute, as they always have. They won't just sit around and starve, just like they don't just sit around today and starve. They will do work and contribute, and in turn they will be given food, shelter, and water. If they want more, they put in more work. It's no different than how it is under capitalism, except under capitalism only the top benefit while the working class is exploited and made to survive off of the scraps. You know trickle down economics? There's a reason why they changed the name. Originally it was known as Horse and Sparrow Theory: 'If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.'"

We've never had real communism, in the sense of an actual classless society, outside of a few isolated examples, like the Kibbutzim in Israel or tribal societies. The problem with Russia wasn't that everything was actually shared in common but rather that there was a very tiny elite controlling everything, which really doesn't set it that much apart from neo-liberalism, other than that one single entity managed and controlled all the resources rather than a handful.

What is so superstitious about believing that changing the means of production can begin another era of history?

"Market socialism" is a non-capitalistic system that can work in place of a centrally planned economy. There's also forms which retain some degree of private ownership. The idea is that as a company grows in terms of the number of people it employs, employees gain the rights of share holders, vote on the distribution of wages/salaries, etc...

Tragedy of the commons applies to most shared resources not only money. But money example is easy for anyone to understand.
IF my own PRIVATE toilet was clogged, I would unclog it or pay someone to do it. If it is shared in the community like the public sewage. I aint touching it.

In a money less system the only way to get someone down there is by force,fear or let the toilets turn to squealer.

Because on a fundamental level it's a rejection of humanity as it exists in favor of a humanity as it should be. It requires a person to have faith in the good of humanity, in the same way a religious person has faith in god. Ayn Rand is actually much closer to a realistic appraisal of humanity in her writings than Marx is in his. If you accept humans as being primarily nurture, I suppose that Maxism isn't as Utopian it first appears to a reasonable critical thinker. However, if humans are primarily nature, and we all embody the traits that helped our ancestors survive, then Marxism is a fantasy, written in academic language, to indoctrinate the unfortunately in society, much like Thomas Paine's "Common sense" was a propaganda piece made specifically to rile the American people (then British subjects) to fight against the king.