• Marxism and what will communism be like?

I don't mind you taking issue with what I've actually  written , such as your comment that nano socks have been invented. Fair enough. Thanks for telling me.

But, its a bit tiresome to have to correct you when you take issue with what I've not written. For instance, when I write "Unfortunately there is no benevolent Mother Earth " you've  misinterpreted  that to mean that I'm falling back on a Mother Earth argument.

And, even after I've given you the dictionary definition of the word 'religion' and  I've explained that I don't believe in God, Gaia , Mother Earth  or anything  Supernatural you still manage to get it wrong again, by saying  by saying that "I don't share your religious earth worshipping" !

I don't mind debating with you,  but you really need to practice and improve your abilities of English comprehension.

OK lets get the discussion back on track.

For the last 15 years its been increasingly difficult to put forward a Socialist agenda. Capitalism has been enjoying a boom. Marx, and left wing politics generally has been considered to be old fashioned. If you listen to rightwing political commentators, you'll notice that they are very fond of terms like 'reform', 'streamlining',  'modernisation' , when what they really mean is abolishing previously hard won working class advances.

Let me stick my neck out and say that we are on the brink of deep recession  or even a depression. The first thing that you'll notice is that there will be a much increased concern about the housing market. Prices will start to level out. Many properties in Australia are vacant and have been purchased by speculators for investment only. Incidentally, I should say that the coming crash won't happen just in Australia. It will probably start off in the USA and spread from there. As it becomes clear to the speculators that there is no more profit to be made they will start to offload them on to the market. Prices will start to fall , slowly at first, then later panic will set in and the market will crash. You'll hear the term "negative equity" quite a lot as homeowners find that they owe more on their property than it is worth. Some will just walk away and hand in their keys to the bank. Prices will crash even more as forced home sales become commonplace.

The share market will probably do OK for a time as some of the speculators money is diverted away from property into shares. However, much of the recent boom has been fuelled by perceptions of increased wealth , leading to increased personal debt. That will all change, as people look to reducing their debt and spending will slow down. Profits will fall, and in turn share prices will fall. Lower share prices will lead to lower investment and in turn higher unemployment.

In 3 or 4 years time Western capitalism will be a very sick puppy indeed. It will be time to get out the socialist arguments once more.

David Mc made a comment which cropped up on another thread about the UK SWP being 'social fascists'. I would say that this thread is a more appropriate one to use for the reply. If we aren't going to end up with an unpleasant surprise in the future it is important to have a good understanding of what socialism is, and also what it  isn't, as understood by various strands of political opinion. I'm not claiming to be a spokesperson for the SWP or any Trotskyite group  but, however much you may disagree with them, to call them fascist is either just a name calling exercise, or shows a complete misunderstanding of their politics. One justification for the term was that they opposed WW2. 

The Quakers opposed WW2, maybe they were they fascist too? It does seem slightly unfair to complain that Trotsky was against the war when he was actually murdered at a time when the Stalinists were themselves very much against the war, having signed a pact with Nazi Germany. In fact, to say that Trotsky opposed the war is a gross oversimplification.  The Trotskyite militia had a good record in the Spanish Civil war which can very much be regarded as a precursor to WW2. George Orwell was lucky to escape with his life. The danger wasn't so much being shot at by real fascists, though that must have been bad enough, but that he was declared to be a social fascist by the Spanish Communist Party simply because he had fought with the Trotskyite P.O.U.M. Can any intelligent person who's read George Orwell believe, for one moment, that he was a 'social fascist' or that he was so politically naive that he allowed himself to be duped by fascists?

The SWP didn't exist at the time of WW2 but the position of similar political trends is well described by Ernest Mandel
in  http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article800

I'll just quote the following  " First, there was an inter-imperialist war, a war between the Nazi, Italian, and Japanese imperialists on the one hand, and the Anglo-American-French imperialists on the other hand. That was a reactionary war, a war between different groups of imperialist powers. We had nothing to do with that war, we were totally against it."

and  "there was a just war of national defence of the Soviet Union, a workers state, against an imperialist power."  
Mendel identifies 5 parallel wars. 4 of which are justified. It's an analysis which seems pretty reasonable. You'd have to give a weighting to each particular one and decide overall whether you were 'in' or 'out' of course.

Its also worth noting that if the Stalinist KPD, in the 30s,  hadn't also wrongly labelled the SPD "social fascists" (Stalinists do seem very fond of that endearing term! ), and instead had formed a unified working class alliance, as Trotsky had suggested, Hitler probably would never have come to power. The whole history of the world would have been very different! No Israel, no Vietnam war, no Iraqi war .......