Capitalists already steal value from workers by paying them less than the value they create. One short bout of “theft” to take back what was stolen over centuries isn’t really theft, it’s returning what’s owed.
You’re mixing up the revolution and ensuing socialist period with the communist, fully collectivized period. “From each according to their abilities to each according to their needs” applies to the fully collectivized communist period, and doesn’t need to be “enforced at gunpoint,” it just exists without capitalists anymore. The revolution does have appropriation from capitalists, as well as the socialist period of gradually collectivizing society’s production and distribution.
Capitalists already steal value from workers by paying them less than the value they create. One short bout of “theft” to take back what was stolen over centuries isn’t really theft, it’s returning what’s owed.
That’s what I was getting at. Don’t soft pedal it.
“There WILL be a Robin Hood type taking shit at gunpoint”.
You’re mixing up the revolution and ensuing socialist period with the communist, fully collectivized period. “From each according to their abilities to each according to their needs” applies to the fully collectivized communist period, and doesn’t need to be “enforced at gunpoint,” it just exists without capitalists anymore. The revolution does have appropriation from capitalists, as well as the socialist period of gradually collectivizing society’s production and distribution.