“Techno-feudalism”?

[FireIceTalon]

I don't think any system on its own is strong enough to be self-sustaining.

This is true in the sense with any system that has distinct class relations. The State is an organ of class rule. The form that State takes doesn't matter so much here, be it a Monarchy, a liberal democracy, a fascist dictatorship, social democracy, or State Capitalism. The ruling class needs an agency of sorts to protect and ensure the perpetuation of its long-term interests and manage its everyday affairs.

 I don't think (true) communism is even possible unless all your neighbors also play by the same rules.

Before I respond to this directly, I need to elucidate what communism is. There is no ‘true’ or ‘fake’ communism - there is just communism as defined by Marx and Engels: a classless/stateless/moneyless society. Nothing more, nothing less. They used this term interchangeably with "socialism" as well (to my knowledge, a distinction between the two terms, in a Marxist sense, didn't come about until Lenin. But this distinction is superfluous imo). For more on this, Paul Mattick gives a good overview: https://www.marxists.org/subject/left-wi...munism.htm

Another important detail here is that many people (even self-proclaimed communists) think of communism as "the common ownership of the means of production". While it is true that this is a necessary component of communism, it is not a sufficient one. We have worker owned co-ops that already exist within the capitalist system, which is proof of this point. A much better description of communism is the abolition of "The Law of Value" (or the value-form), which is the core economic law of capitalist production and its social relations. I can speak more on the value-form if necessary but this should do for now.

But, communism is absolutely possible. In truth, humans organized themselves in largely communist-like societies for literally 10's of thousands of years - this fact alone pretty much confirms its "possibility". Make no mistake, the goal isn't to de-industrialize and go back to a primitive organization of society, but simply to eliminate the value-form and reorganize production along use-values instead of exchange-values. Of course, this presupposes the disappearance of the processes that make capitalism what it is: namely, the valorization of value, and the law of capitalist accumulation. There is nothing unrealistic about this, as capitalism is neither transhistorical nor infallible.

But for a communist society to be possible, it requires a very high level of developed social productive forces, and therefore a high level of social value (productivity) and abundance. This precondition is very much in place now, but that doesn't mean we will or can transfer into a communist society. The contradictions of capitalism have to be at a point where they are no longer sustainable, and we aren't there yet. This is why Marxist-Leninists framing is wrong. Communism cannot be (and will not be) imposed on the populace through a party, in an ideological sense. It will be imposed on them when the conditions of capitalism reach a point of collapse (which IS inevitable), and they come to realize that a reorganization of the production process is absolutely necessary for their very survival. Most workers probably won't even comprehend themselves as communists so much as they will see that material conditions of capitalism are a existential threat to their being, and will thus take actions that are naturally the antithesis to capitalist production.

Now, this doesn't make communism inevitable, but it does make it historically necessary. When capitalism inevitably collapses, there will only be two alternatives: it either takes us down with it, leading to complete ruin of humanity, or a reorganization of production eliminating the value form. Capitalism, at one point too, was also a historical necessity, as the productive forces that characterize it were developing beyond the mode of production and institutions that composed feudal society. We are seeing the same thing now, albeit the very beginning, of the productive forces become more advanced than the current mode of production, which is entirely outdated. These are the laws of history; which Marx and Engels discovered in very much the same way Darwin discovered the laws of evolutionary biology.

And by that mindset, would you say that the universe of Star Trek The Next Generation was communist, despite (in the show) claiming to be democratically run by elected leaders? Everything in that show points to a communist-like system, and I can't help but wonder if Gene Roddenberry thought of TNG as a communist utopia.

No, because communism isn't a utopia. That isn't what it promises, nor is that even its goal. In fact, communists do not even promise total equality, as is often asserted (incorrectly). Just a higher form of production and better (albeit much better) living conditions for human beings than what capitalism has been able to provide.
Marx and Engels were in fact extremely critical of utopianism, and Engels wrote a whole text on this called Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, which is one of the pillars of Marxist literature. Per Engels:

   

[FireIceTalon]

I would even go as far to say that, Marx's concept of the class struggle, while fundamentally correct, needs to be transcended in a sense with the current conditions of capitalism, and where it seems to be going. It is no longer just 'bourgeois vs. proletarians', but something even bigger.....namely humanity vs capital. If we follow capitalism's internal logic (its endless [drive for] accumulation) to its conclusion, it will be a very significant threat to our existence (if it isn't already). A communist revolution would simply be humanity pulling the emergency brake before we tumble off the cliff.