Ha, I’ve never read Marx myself but that’s a great viewpoint. And it’s on my list.
Saying "the people own" is just a way of saying the state owns something. The state owns all the things under Communism. Every business is a state business.
The state owns nothing under Communism as Communism assumes no state, social classes, private property and money. I do not think Communism can be achieved though, maybe in prehistoric society of docile gatherers of which we are not.
But that's no reason to give up and make greed mandatory.
Under original doctrine there is no State because "the people" will have evolved enough to do without it.
Well, yes, since “capitalism” was literally coined to describe a particular then-existing system in which the instrumentality of the state not only exists but also, most particularly through a specific structure of property rights, directly serves the interests of the capital-owning class to the relative disadvantage of other segments of society, and has consistently since then referred to that system (or ones sharing some of its salient features) both for those who have advocated moving farther from it and for those advocating its adoption or a return to it in places which have moved on, in whole or in part, from it.
Other than it's gibberish? Capitalism, a system where money is used to purchase property by individuals, is a society ... without issued currency or individual property rights, you say?
Look around you, are capitalist countries stateless, and are stateless countries Capitalistic?
As you say, the difference is whose interests dictate these ends: those of ordinary citizens or those of the monopolies and international finance.
https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions/influence-w...
6.7% of the country runs 92% of the boardrooms.
... If you're not a woman, gay, trans, black, poor, ...
So, yes, in the meantime, the state takes control over some amount of enterprise and manages it for its own goals rather than to generate profits for a small number of owners. Is that a bad thing? In a world where for-profit healthcare in the US is famously more expensive and less effective than nationalized healthcare in any other OECD country, where the (unionized!) USPS is one of this country's most-popular and most-reliable services even despite years of meddling from capitalists in government pushing to gut it, in a world where famously most of our R&D is publicly funded, is it really so hard to imagine that it might be an effective way to manage production?
> doesn't have the same connotation of "ruling over others without their consent".
Usually taking things by force requires violating consent. That is a very basic tenant of Commmunism. The bourgeoisie are forcibly removed from power, with arms, usually killed, and their property taken.
> whose contradictions are propped up by a force-monopoly in the form of "a state"
And how is the dictatorship of the proletariat preserved against the minority who disagrees? Hint, it involves rifles and usually firing squads.
> society can be transitioned over time into one where a state no longer needs to exist
Yes, that's gone so well up to date. Dictators with extreme powers over entire states are well known for quietly surrendering their power and moving to a form of utopic anarchy.
Even Marx couldn't answer how the utopic Communist post-state society actually continued it's existence without a state. "The vanguard" who at best are stateless secret police?
> in the meantime, the state takes control over some amount of enterprise and manages it for its own goals
Correct
> Is that a bad thing?
DMV, VA, Census Bureau, the IRS.
> USPS is one of this country's most-popular and most-reliable services
and is private but government directed
> In a world where for-profit healthcare in the US is famously more expensive
and has no waiting lists compared to 14.5 weeks in the UK at the moment and 20.9 weeks in Canada
> and less effective than nationalized healthcare
The US is in the top 10 for survival rates for most diseases/conditions (eg cancer) and we beat out the UK and Canada significantly. We have a lower life expectancy because we are too fat.