Communist Musings
Posted 3/10/06
Posted 3/10/06
In 'John Kerry and Foreign Policy' it is stated:
Communism is the greatest evil that man has ever known. It is responsible for more than 100 millions deaths (more than all the wars in history combined), millions and millions of refugees and the subjugation and slavery of over 2 billion people since WWII (70). Communist regimes always follow a similar pattern. A Communist regime has never been elected, so first Communists must orchestrate a revolution, often with the support of funding from preexisting Communist regime. Next, Communists dissolve private property, nationalize media and begin a brutal purge of political prisoners and the upper classes. To conduct it's class warfare and maintain control of the revolting people, the state will militarize, establish a large secret police presence, and create horrific labor/reeducation camps. The economy collapses, failed farm policies result in starvation, refugees flee, and the government begins to export Communist revolution abroad. How far the government is willing to push the Communist philosophy will directly equate with the severity of these events and the suffering of their people. This exact pattern has come to pass in the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, North Korea, Angola, Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Cuba. A few countries on this list have not experienced the true hell of Communism because the governments either didn't last long enough to take full root, or total Communist policies were not pursued in earnest. (67)
Now, this is certainly true, and happens to some extent in highly socialist/dictatorial countries such as those in the Middle East and Venezuela. However, a deeper analysis of pure Communism theory yields interesting results.
Present day Communists, modern day liberals, and others often argue that Communism, according to pure theory, has never existed. They are correct; Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro, Kim Jong 'Mentally' ILL and all the rest are not communists per se, but murderous dictators. Curiously, what many do not see, I say 'curiously' because it has played out historically every time, is that murderous dictatorships are in fact, the predictable result of pursing the Communist ideology. Yet, this is only because those pursuing its ends have chosen the wrong means.
Pure Communist theory operates on the premise that each person should receive according to their
needs and produce according to their ability.
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,
ie each other, there is no need for any enforcing body etc... But, 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 (as opposed to a pure stateless Communism). Whether one says everything is
owned by the state, or everything is owned by the people - is a bit of a moot point, as the people
all think and act the same. If no one committed any 'crime' then there would not be a need for
police. In the same sense, 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 stating there is no police force and that there
is a total police force is almost non existent. IMO, this is quite an interesting concept.
So, we have a simple and elegant theory of utopic equality. Far from being
radical, this is sort of how families, churches, and some communes operate. But, in practice, when
one moves beyond small unit trusting relationships the system breaks down.
The reason it breaks down is because the path Communists have chosen is one of
revolution, violence, intimidation, and murder. Their tool is expanded and militarized government.
They have a vision and have set out to forcibly implement it on the populace. The people must think
the same, but it is not the people who are determining what they must think, it is the Communists
who are deciding - hence the bloody, hellish attempts to brainwash entire populations through terror
and doublethink and the predictable concentration of ultimate power in a dictator.
Now, what if Communists choose the opposite path? Instead of implementing their
vision by expanding government, what if they worked to reduce it. Instead of using force and
coercion to change minds, what if they removed the influence of government from culture and society?
The utopic goals behind ideologies such as anarcho-capitalism
or the various blends of extreme libertariansm are actually identical to the utopia of
Communism. The key difference is that they recognize this vision cannot be enforced on the populace,
they must choose it for themselves. So, as opposed to mob Communist rule, where the 'masses'/state
'correct' anyone who steps out of line, these theories opine that the vast majority of people, if
not everyone, will discover the pertinent 'truths' on their own, work according to their ability,
and everyone will be provided according to their needs by the voluntary
generosity of their fellow citizens, aided by the dizzying amount of wealth created in such a
society. This also negates the presumption that a small group of elites, or, ultimately, a single
person, can know the 'objective truth' or 'right action'. Just like the Communist utopia, the state
can now be defined as non-existent, or all prevalent, depending on your semantic preference. People
will think and act similarly, but they will all have chosen to do so and dissent/innovation will be
tolerated. Contained in these beliefs is an understanding that a chief cause of rampant immorality
is largely the intolerable power and corruption of expansive government, injected as a poison
into society.
There is a certain beauty to this way of thinking. Instead of viewing people as
animals that must be 'trained' and 'punished' by their ‘betters’ (other humans), it purports
that, by virtue of their intrinsic natural endowment, people are good and individually worthy and
capable of attaining the 'proper' truths, provided roadblocks in their way are removed. Similar to
medical postulations (osteopathic etc..) on the body's ability to heal itself. It equalizes people
in that it assumes that no man is better than or accountable
to any other man, but ultimately only to God.
So, these are the two competing theories, starting and ending at the same points, and differing only in their direction of advocacy. But this is what makes all the difference. As Ronald Reagan said:
Today we are told we must choose between a left and right or, as others suggest, a third alternative, a kind of safe middle ground. I suggest to you there is no left or right, only an up or down. Up to the maximum of individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism; and regardless of their humanitarian purpose those who would sacrifice freedom for security have, whether they know it or not, chosen this downward path.
In practice, history has sided with those advocating freedom. With freedom,
people are choosing to work according to their abilities and most often take care of the
needs of those less fortunate. The prosperity of free countries is more than apparent, we have the
highest standards of living, most scientific innovations, and there has always been a wave of
immigration from less free to more free countries. You don't see any Americans moving to Cuba for
their purported 'literacy rates', but hundreds of thousands of Cubans have risked their lives at sea
in order to come here. And they don’t come
here for ‘universal health care’,
‘universal education’,
or ‘welfare’. In fact, they are leaving
those failed promises back in Cuba...
So, it is somewhat of an irony that Communists could actually attain their
laudable goals by working in the opposite direction as they have historically.
Indeed, as Marx said, "We have nothing to loose but our chains."
The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community.
-
David D. Boaz
Posted 12/20/06 (By Travis)
12/4/06 Scott Manning
Mathew White
Posted 12/20/06 (By Travis)
Soviet liberation of women may have been grand and radical, but it was imposed from above by brutal force and was therefore deeply inhuman. Of course, compared to forced industrialization and collectivization, liberation of women was benign. It did not cost millions of human lives. But the results of gender equality inflicted by the state are inevitably quite different from women's rights secured by generations of public activism.
(Added to 'Communist Musings' and 'Social Conservatism')
How
Private Property Saved the Pilgrims
The
Hoover Digest (The Hoover Institution's r ^ | Jan. 1999 | Tom Bethell
Also see, 'Inequality, Aid, and the Nature of Governments'
Also see, 'Voting with your Feet (Las Vegas Vs. Detroit)'