I hope not.
Communism takes away every persons right to succed.
It takes away individuality.
This country provides no real goods to export,
Only financial services.
Communisim simply would not work in this country.

By comparison, capitalism is perfect. Take off your blue glasses and look around you. The unacceptable face of capitalism is in a state of chaos.

Consumerism has become this nations God. People buy and buy, spend and spend, then they justify their expenditure by claiming it's necessary in order to express their 'identity'.

Not sure if any A2 Sociology students check by, by postmodernity is ruining our lives! (Loss of trust in metanarratives, uncertainty etc)

Communism will happen. The question is when will the government succumb?

Marx is my homeboy.

Ofcourse he's right!

My god, the man was a genius! Any man with a beard that bushy must be extremely trustworthy:)

I say we take his ideas, right, and apply them to a country which doesn't actually fit in with his ideas, but we'll liberally interpret them a bit. We'll form a political party, hold a revolution, and form a government. We'll all rule in the name of the workers, but we won't actually let them have a say in how things are run. We'll then create the biggest state system ever known, controlling almost every aspect of everyone's lives, restricting everyone's freedom. We take all the wealth, redistribute it equally (but, obviously, we'll take a more equal share of it) and thus make everyone poor, giving no-one the option to get richer.

We then spread this idea to other nations in the world by invading them and making them do what we tell them. We'll then come face to face with an ideologically contrasting superpower and we'll wage a 60 year pointless war which gets no-one anywhere and nearly brings the world to the brink of annihilation several times, for absolutely no reason.

What an original idea I've come up with...

Well hold on a minute!
That sounds like a capitalist horror story, not dear old Karl’s vision of communism! The perfect communist system would probably not be run in that manner because that assumes there is resistance. We might not have a traditional working class anymore, but if that has become the middle class, if they really wanted communism then I think we’d end up with it! If we’ve all become indoctrinated to capitalism, then are we any different from the mind controlled commies we’re all afraid of? Maybe the communists are laughing at us trundling away with capitalism and only being free at election time!
Besides, Marx made it sound in that extract like we didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter - perhaps we really need to group together and work as a collective for the good of the nation.
With that said, I don’t really think that’s going to happen anytime soon; it would require major reform of practically all of society and also there are the reasons for us going out of debt – people aren’t going to be happy about the house they’ve had to bankrupt themselves to pay the mortgage for, say, being demolished and then replaced by a communal tower block while the rest of the street becomes a farm, thus coming back to the whole resistance issue, which means we may well end up with the whole scary soviet scenario. Perfect equality is near impossible – especially at the moment.

That's not a capitalist horror story, that's the reality of Communism, as evidenced by the former Soviet Union. We don't have to try Communism anymore. They already tried it, and it failed miserably. It was a complete mess up, ending with the deaths of MILLIONS over a 70 year period, for absolutely no reason. The flaw with it was that it was more a revolution from above than a grassroots revolution. This meant that society didn't spontaneously change; it was forced to change. The middle classes, most of whom had earned their money fair and square, were robbed of their possessions and killed. I do not want to live in a society which runs on fear, repression, murder, and dictatorship. Now, that may not be the ideal, the communistic theory, but it is the reality, a reality which I do not want to see repeated here or anywhere else.

Seriously, capitalism and representative democracy may not be perfect, but it's good enough for me.

Communist propaganda suggests that there were some amazing successes under the soviet model (and some mistakes). Capitalist propaganda suggests that communism was a failure and capitalism is wonderful - enhancing freedom. We all have to be careful about believing propaganda.

I went to Moscow at the time of the cold war and was astounded at how friendly the people were. More recently, I went to St Petersburg and was appalled how criminalized it was under a freer market economy.

There is a good argument for saying that representative democracy is a con. Do you really believe that putting a cross on a piece of paper every five years is good enough (while bank managers spend/waste/control/are given billions)?

We need a more democratic society which would see all citizens playing a role. The nearest we have to a democracy in the UK is a vote in X-factor.

Surely nobody is being serious! Communism will NEVER occur in Britain. Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn good. The vast majority of Britain is middle class, what is wrong with that? There is no proletariat. There are no workers to unite and rise up.

All it takes is a blip in what has otherwise been an almost perfect economy since WW2 and people are saying communism is inevitable?

Stalin killed 50,000,000 Mao killed 60,000,000.. and you're telling me it's a good idea?

I completely agree with you. But there is no doubt that Communism in Russia was a complete disaster. Yes, it advanced the Soviet Union into a super power, but at the expense of peoples' lives and the workers that the Communist Party was supposed to represent. 70 years of outright repression, murder, secrecy, and nuclear proliferation is not my cup of tea.

Dr Jepson, you cannot honestly judge the respective models of capitalism and communism by visits to Moscow and St Petersburg. That will tell you very little about their situations, particularly if you simply judge them on how criminal or how friendly they are (moreover, you don't know what St Petersburg was like during the Cold War, so you can't say that it became more criminalised post-Cold War. If it did, then that is only because the people didn't have the KGB after them:D)

Don't get me wrong, however- I am no right-wing capitalist, and I am in no way a supporter of the current systems of government in either the UK and the USA. The USA has one of the most insidious and effective propaganda regimes in history, making US citizens believe that there are imminent threats of terrorism in order to spread their empire of democracy and rid people of their freedom. Despicable. The UK is just as bad, being run by a bunch of elitist, middle-class morons who are not truly elected by a fair democratic system.

Let me tell you what we need: complete reform of Parliament and the political system. AMS electoral system, destruction of the nonsensical "Parliamentary Sovereignty" and further devolution of power away from Parliament. The creation of a codified constitution enshrining a complete separation of powers and institutions and codified, enshrined civil and human rights and liberties. We need a directly elected second chamber with equal power to the House of Commons, and the removal of the monarchy in favour of a Republic with an elected Prime Minister during the general election and a separate Presidential election. That would go some way into improving this country. Alas, it shall never be. At least, not in the foreseeable future.

"the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism"
I have to agree with Conor's revolution from the top issue here; if the state takes the road that leads to communism you get the massive problems with society from forced change.
I think the biggest problem with Communism is to be found in Robert Michels Iron Law of Oligarchy, or even Wyn's Bronze Law of Bureaucracy - people are always going to go for control and as there would be no popular support you end up with issues - even if it is grass roots you can still have extreme tyranny of the majority, with action against the minority - I suppose you could use "the horror" during the French Revolution as an example.
However, while I agree that there is far too much to go wrong with communism that essentially resigns the true form to some beautiful dream of society, the fact the quote makes this sound truly inevitable means for now I'm going to wave my red flag and bang my shoes on the table. If Marx is right, I won't be first against the wall when the revolution comes. If he's wrong, I can just call it freedom of expression!

Capitalism is wonderful because we are in a continuous state of revolution. 3,500 jobs lost with one company yesterday. Plus, thousands of firms going bankrupt every week.

Its wonderful to see people sit back and smile as wealthy bankers are given billions of pounds to gamble with. This going on while the country can no longer afford to give University students grants while they study. Capitalism, and the free market, is evidently wonderful.

We are all, as subjects (we are not citizens), free to complain - just like all students are free to put a suggestion in my suggestion box.

I promise you I will read your suggestions.

Thank you mister media. There has never been a Comminsit state, mainly because it can't exist, there would be following the Dictatorship of the Proletariate a complete roll back of the state. This was the final stage of Marx, following the collapse of the evils of Capitalism, there would then be a period of Socialism followed by Communism. Have you read any Communist literature at all? You are sadly just a poor misguided fool.

You live currently in a world of fear, repression, murder and dicatatorship. You are not affected by them directly. You and your life is supported and indeed improved by the working class, you would be nothing without them. Look at the ideas of surplus value, surely there needs to be a change?