Good answer. Perhaps we're debating semantics here, e.g. the definition of a government. Here's my answer (and also why I asked that question).
Strictly speaking, the definition of socialism is for the state to take control of all wealth and restribute it to their owners as they deem fit. In communism, there is no ownership. In that way, USSR, Cuba, et al, were socialist whereas Sweden is an uber welfare state.
Pure Marxism means no government, no economical control. Everyone takes what they need and provides for those who need it. As you say, the only true Marxism occurs in hippie comunes and families. This is because the effort it takes to maintain this system without an enforcing body scales exponentially to a point that it is unsustainable beyond a few dozen people.
My point in asking the question was that classical Marxism doesn't require a government as defined by a military, an elected body, and so forth. In an anarcho-capitalist system, I would imagine that people would corral themselves into tribes as a matter of survival: the only difference between such a system and classic Marxism would be the degree of a concept of ownership. You can see this by the fact that anarchists very closely associate themselves with communists.
This isn't to say that libertarianism doesn't have a lot of good points either; I am a small-l libertarian, after all.
hmmm... yea, I think we are mostly dancing around definitions. Let me try it this way:
In pure Marxism everyone takes what they need and provide for those who need it - the Communist utopia. What people need and what people should provide those in need is not defined - there is no need to define it because 'whatever the perfect answer is' will already be known by the 'educated masses'. The people ARE the state and since none of them disagree with the state then there is no need for any enforcing body etc... If no one committed any crime then there would be no need for police. So whether I say everything is owned by the state, or you say everything is owned by the people - is a bit of a moot point, cuz the people are all sheep and all think the same (hence the bloody, hellish attempts to brainwash entire populations through terror and doublethink). If everyone was a policeman, there would not be a need for what we think of as an official police force, but the line between saying there is NO police force and that there is a TOTAL police force is almost non existent.
In extreme (and not the kind that a vast majority of Libertarians subscribe to) Libertarianism, more accurately described, as you put it, as Anarchist Capitalism, all (or almost all) needs will be met and those that need will be provided. Indeed, a society will form that is very similar to the pure Communist one. A key difference is that the giving and providing is 'voluntary' (a Communist utopia is ‘voluntary’ too, but everyone 'chooses' the same thing - as soon as one person doesn't conform then the masses must pounce on him/her and a ‘state’ forms and the society reverts to Socialism). In an Anarchist Capitalist society it is unknown what % of people will give, but assumed that the prosperity will be so great that there will be more then enough for all. So there are no sheep. People will think and act differently with varying shades of 'generosity'.
The differences are most glaring between these two ideologies in the beginning, Communists have to fight for more state control and anarchy capitalists have to fight for less state control. So, it is a bit curious to me that the Communists and Anarchists have allied together as much as they have.
After the Russian revolution I believe the Communists were initially allied with the Anarchists, but soon brutally purged them. A similar event occurred in the Spanish civil war. I think the historical Anarchists were a bit different in ideology then what we consider Capitalist Anarchists or extreme Libertarians. Or? It is a bit ironic that, in reality, Communists could get closest to their goal by doing the exact opposite of what Marx suggests.
The author of the original piece is full of it because the actual results and pathways of the two different ideologies are so different that it is absurd to even compare them. Movement in the Libertarian direction yields only goodness, while movement in the socialistic direction yields only evil. IF such a utopia as the Communists and extreme Libertarians strive for really exists, it can certainly only be reached by the Libertarian path. And I have yet to see any historical example where government progressed so far towards the Libertarian extreme as to become hurtful.
I dunno... It this is all a bit confusing to think about for too long. :)
btw that site on your tag line is a neat site, I read the entire thing through a year or two ago.