I will confess that I know very little about the Revolutionary Student Union, though from what I can tell it seems to be a club in favor of a communistic economic model. Being raised in the United States, and communism being somewhat of a taboo subject for in-depth conversation, I admittedly know very little about communism.

To help educate myself I have started reading the Communist Manifesto on Dailylit.com (see: http://www.dailylit.com/books/communist-manifesto/1)

So far from what I understand the goal of the communist or socialist is to take the power of production and industry out of the hands of the wealthy ruling class, and put it in the hands of the people directly. Destroying the system of classes altogether giving all of the citizens equal power over production, industry, and the means by which goods are distributed to the people so that their needs are met.

My primary question is how would such a system work?
Or perhaps you could correct me if I have misunderstood the agenda of the Revolutionary Student Union.

To be fair, I'm going to categorize my response in two ways. On behalf of the club and on behalf of myself.

The club itself is non-tendency. This is to say that we welcome everyone, but only those people of an anti-capitalist stance(communist, Marxist, Anarchist, Socialist) are welcome to become voting members.

Now, my response is this. My goal, personally is the abolishment of Capitalism. Your reading of Marx is accurate, basically, there are two classes, Bourgeoisie and Proletariat(or Capitalist and Workers). One owns the means of production and the other doesn't. One invests capital and makes profits off of those means of production, the other actually owns nothing but their labor, the physical and mental use of their bodies. In order to merely exist and be alive, the Proletariat class must sell their labor for a wage to purchase subsistence. This is a relationship of exploitation of one class by another.

Now, how does a revolution occur? I'm reading Lenin, and basically he feels that there must be a vanguard party, made up of the most theoretically advanced members of the proletariat class who become professional revolutionaries, whose full time job it is to organize the proletariat as the revolutionary class. It is also vital to seize the state. Lenin's view of the state is that it is used by one class to suppress another. So the capitalist uses the state to suppress the workers. In taking over the state, the function is inverted, and you have the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the transition phase of society, that I believe necessarily entails a centrally planned economy. Who knows what we'll need during, and after the revolution, especially if(as history has shown) that the revolutionary site is always under siege.

Now, your primary question is, how does this work? That is, this communist society that has taken the reigns of the productive forces? Well, ostensibly production continues, because people need to eat, wear clothes, etc. However, now that the means of production is held in common, people would actually have a say in what is produced. I don't want to tread into utopia fantasies(as Marx will warn us of in the latter portion of the Manifesto), but the main thing to consider is, there will be justice. Having one class exploit another for profit is an injustice and the system that is based on it must be abolished.

I don't feel like I may have adequately answered your question, perhaps you could clarify your concern?

Sorry for the late response I’ve had my job and homework keeping me busy.

So we would all still be workers, but instead of working for single entities we would be working directly for the people. This would seem to indicate that production and the economy in general would have to be run by a democracy thus allowing the people to direct what work is done and how goods are to be distributed, or the means by which goods can be obtained. Do I understand the ideal correctly?

I guess my real question is how would you structure the economy and government? The ideal sounds interesting to me, but I’m particularly interested in the mechanics of how the ideal would actually be implemented in a practical scenario.

I read this, and I want to respond, however, I've got some stuff to do right now.

If you're on campus tomorrow, the RSU has a table at Club Rush in the Hall of Flags, you're more then welcome to stop by and grill us on those concerns.

However, I'm maybe late on a response to this.

I thought I could chime in here as an RSU supporter (most of the time), but a rather layman thinker as political philosophy is hardly my emphasis of study. I've found the RSU to be a collection of very intelligent people, but they don't always see directly eye to eye (it is non-tendency). I speak for myself here and don't advocate unpeaceful revolution. For me, I would never categorize myself as a "communist" as that connotes to me a Stalinist-like regime and totalitarianism (I'm a Social Democrat in the Western European sense). I also advocate property (which Chirs and Crystal have argued with me about) but not disporportunate wealth. Also: the idea of owning land is rediculous. You don't own it; you only use it. But I digress.

Essentially, Capitalism has allowed certain people to dominate others with their wealth--essentially screwing them. This is not cool. I see how those with power and resources wouldn't like anything "socialism" (a word people have been carelessly throwing around lately--as a bad word) because they are very happy in their power and wealth (I would be too if I were wealthy and had no moral sensibility). They will make profit off of others on their terms: this is using others as a means to a selfish end. This is the epitome of exploitation. Now thank God we don't have the type of unrestrained insanity of the early industrial revolution, but it's still not too good. (Engels, btw, was the son of a textile firm owner during the period of great abuse of workers in England). There are reports of factory owners not even stopping the machines to pull child laborers' mangled bodies out because it would hamper profit-making. Workers were taken advantage of because of low, low wages and terrible working conditions. Could they quit? Sure, but there were hundreds of people waiting just outside the door to take their job in a second. I would hardly say that thing are that bad nowadays in the Western world (still in some parts of the world though; just read about the companies Wal Mart buys from), but I personally don't make anywhere near enough to barely get by, and they could replace me in a second in this economy. I often can't afford things I need and am forced to shop at Wal Mart, which perpetuates the problem. But what can I do? I have to live. For those who don't have many options because they don't have the resources to even take adequate care of themselves, revolution is their only option.