And Now for Something Completely Different...
...politics, which is something I used to talk about a lot more.There is a fund attempting to install a Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, D.C. It seems a rather popular cause: Freespace gave 'em five hundred bucks, Volokh linked to that, and Alan Kors is being quoted:
No cause in the history of mankind has produced more cold-blooded tyrants, more slaughtered innocents, and more orphans than communism. It surpassed, exponentially, all other systems of production in turning out the dead. No one honors those dead. No one does penance for them. No one pays for them. No one is hunted down to account for them. It is exactly what Solzhenitsyn foresaw in The Gulag: “No, no one would have to answer.” Communism was not a “god that failed.” Rather, it was an intellectually organized slaughter and slavery that succeeded, but that could not sustain itself against the productivity and resistance of free men and women.
This is RO: Recieved Opinion, or something that is taken as truth simply because it is often repeated. Let us think about what he is saying. Communism, in and of itself, produces cold-blooded tyrants of the Stalin variety; communism churns out dead; communism is "intellectually organized slaughter and slavery."
It's what now? Communism is not a system of governance. Communism—communal property, everyone putting in and taking as they can and need—is an economic system like capitalism, feudalism or barter. It explains who owns what and why. Governments are not economic systems. They are systems of authority that enforce, among other things, economic systems.
Example: the government of the United States enforces capitalsim. Our police prevent theft (unless bribed), ensuring the capitalist idea of private property; our courts enforce contracts, a function of capitalism. And so forth. Now republican government like ours (republican as in representative government, not political party) can enforce a capitalist system. But there is still a distinction. It can also enforce a communist system, for example the utopian communities of the 1890's or the Kibbutzim of 1970's Israel.
Those, of course, are small-scale systems. Communism, like democracy, cannot function in a secioty larger than a small town. (That is why we have republicanism, which maintains as many of democracies positive attributes as possible and socialism, which does the same with communism.) The thing is, communism is such a good idea—better than democracy—that a number of governments have decided to try their luck and use communism on a large scale.
That was the mistake: for while republicanism can support capitalism or socialism (or, in Canada, both at once) it cannot support communism. In order to get a large number of people to combine their property, the government must be totalitarian. Hence, Stalin, Mao, Castro. But the fault does not lie with communism. While it's a bad economic system, the dead are killed by the dictators, by totalitarianism; not by the communism itself.
This is where the snappy wrap-up conclusion is supposed to go. I can't seem to think of one, so here's a picture of some rotting vegtables a homeless bum in downtown Charleston fished out of the trash and tried to sell for a dollar each. It gave people something to throw at anyone they didn't like, and it relates to communism v. capitalism, if you think about it.
Good article. I have some disagreements with it, but it is interesting. The final paragraph is really good. But back to the article. An interesting question is why did Communism appeal to so many really smart people (intellectuals)? I asked many of my poly sci professors and none (by their own admission) had a good answer. There probably isn't one. But of course the best questions don't have answers. In art as well as politics. By the way, I think one could easily argue that religion has produced more slaughtered innocents, orphans etc than Communism. I don't advise you to ask Freespace for $500 to make that case however, Guy
Posted by@ 4:34 AM
Albeit well written, I'm not sure that I can agree entirely on your analysis of the communist system. You write that:Post a Comment
"But the fault does not lie with communism. While it's a bad economic system, the dead are killed by the dictators, by totalitarianism; not by the communism itself."
I am of the opinion that this death is not caused solely by tyrants. Rather, there is a reciprocal relationship between the rulers and the economic system. Communism requires individuals in a broad spectrum to disavow their claims to private property--these are essentially the bourgeois who are generally the most reluctant to fully embrace a collective system (in the USSR, there was a population segment referred to as kulaks--wealthy peasants, essentially).
Perhaps one of the more damaging aspects of communism is that it does not seem to function as well while incurring dissent from the general population. Picture yourself, having undertaken education, harboring a positive work ethic, and all of a sudden, a revolution negates your progress, collectivizes property, and puts you on equal footing with the lower class. Few are proponents of systems that give them less than they had previously.
Yet the communist system requires faith to survive--despite many of these regimes being labeled "atheist," it is well-known that the "Party" becomes a religion in and of itself. Leaders such as Mao, Stalin, Lenin--their status is delegated to that of an immortal.
My point is, a system that requires almost absolute submission across a wide scale is not favorable. However, it is well-known that in order for a young communist government to succeed, it must first, in the words of Stalin, "break the backs" of the middle-class (the ruling class generally being exiled or executed).
When it comes down to it, I cannot begin to understand how communism is a better system than democracy when viewed in a realistic light. On paper, or in the idealized thoughts of Marx and Engels, it has some merit; however, its application on a large-scale is relatively impossible given human nature.
Communism is the last resort of the downtrodden, and in my opinion, will remain that way.
--Still was an interesting post though...
--Jeff, [email]
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