Democracy vs Communism: Lessons from History Kamala Sarup
In the social sciences, theories won't get us very far. Instead, we should look at the economic systems, e.g., USSR, CPR, Egypt, Great Britain, and the thousands of small communist and anarchist utopias around the world throughout history.
There we will find that all communist economies eventually floundered because of lack of monetary incentives. They reduced the lowest levels of poverty, but could not advance the general material welfare. Internal violence was reduced, but not necessarily international violence. The only societies that had successful communist economies were primitive native tribes, e.g., American Indians, where most goods were owned by the tribe and personal possessions were few.
It is true, democracies, dictatorships, etc., are forms of government that have little connection with economic welfare. To understand that subject, we have to look at the economic systems, e.g., capitalism, socialism, communism, etc. Any of the above governments can and have worked with these different economic models with success (and failure). To date, capitalism has shown better results than any other system. However, the current forms of western capitalism are heavily modified by government "rules of the game" that ameliorate the unfavorable side-effects, such as, depressions, excessive inequality, poverty, etc.
Furthermore, socialist, and communist economies all over the globe, from small utopias (New Harmony, Lanark, Oneida in the U.S.) to colossal nations (Russia), with very few exceptions, have given up on their attempts to establish egalitarian societies because equality and incentive are incompatible.
Where they failed, leftists removed these governments, but ultimately failed to provide an adequate prescription for income advancement. They are mostly obsolete today. Additionally, all attempts by leftist governments to create classless societies, resulted in merely replacing the capitalist classes with bureaucratic classes, the general population remaining as poor as ever. This was certainly true of the U.S.S.R., and all eastern European countries under the U.S.S.R.
All the richer countries have capitalist economies. In these countries when inequalities generated by capitalism became too great, the exploited and oppressed masses pressured their representatives to pass laws that relieved the poorer segments of the population. Returning to new, revolutionary leftist governments, in the modern world, where would such a government obtain capital and trade to improve the living standards of its people?
Redistribution benefits the poor at the expense of the rich, but it does not promote increased incomes generally because of the lack of incentives. Therefore, where does it obtain the capital to increase incomes, if the capitalists will not provide it? Inexorably, the lack of incentives under socialism, communism, or any other leftist brand will lead to malaise and poverty, as it did in Russia, eastern Europe, Cuba. There are ample lessons in the 75 years of wars to reach the simple conclusion that democratic capitalist nations are successful, and totalitarian socialist nations are not.
Nepali Journalist and Story Writer Kamala Sarup is specialising in in-depth reporting and writing on Peace, Anti War, Women, Terrorism, Democracy, and Development. Some of her publications are: Women's Empowerment (Booklet). Prevention of trafficking in women through media,(Book) Efforts to Prevent Trafficking in for Media Activism in South Asia, Nepal (Media research). Two Stories collections. Her interests include international conflict resolution, cross-cultural communication, philosophy, feminism, political, socio-economic and literature. Her current plans are to move on to humanitarian work in conflict areas in the near future. She also is experienced in organizational and community development.
Kamala is an editor for www.mediaforfreedom.com. Her specialties are in-depth reporting and writing stories on peace and anti-war issues, women, terrorism, democracy and development. Some of her publications include: Women's Empowerment in South Asia, Nepal; Prevention of Trafficking in Women Through Media; Efforts to Prevent Trafficking in for Media Activism. She has also written two collections of stories.
I believe that your first mistake was to try to explain a plethora of different combinations of economic systems is such a brief article. I disagree that there are only two types of economic systems in the world, the democratic capitalist system and totalitarian socialist system.
In some European countries, there is a mix of capitalism and socialism.This can be seen most clearly in the Nordic nations.These are usually referred to as Socialist Democracies or nations whose governments govern using Democratic Socialism.
Sweden, maybe viewed as one of the most successful of these Socialist Democracies, recently voted out the Social Democratic Party in favor of the New Moderate Party. This may seem like a defeat for Democratic Socialism, but it’s not. It’s a defeat of scandal caused by complacency.It’s amazing that the Social Democrats have headed up the Swedish government for 60 or so years out of the last 70 or so years. It’s taken the Social Democrats that long to find a zone so comfortable that they finally abused what seemed like their insurmountable power.
However, Sweden is a Democracy.The Social Democratic Party was voted out of office and the population steered the country a bit more away from the left. Note I didn’t say a bit more to the right.Although it’s basically the same thing, I do perceive a slight difference.No matter how far away from the left the governments of any of the Democratic Socialist nations move, I believe that the citizens will never give up what has become to them a natural state of existence.That state of existence involves the assurance of their welfare by their governments.The Nordic Countries have been very successful with their brand of Socialism/Capitalism.
Capitalism in those countries has maintained a sense of competition and innovation. Areas which produce what some may consider necessities in today’s world but are truly not necessities, like televisions, computers and automobiles, are under the private sector and rightly so.Volvo is just one example of success from capitalism in these countries.
On the other hand, there are areas that are truly necessities to preserve, to use part of the preamble to the American Constitution, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Schools are paid for by all of the citizens, medical care is paid for by all of the citizens, care for the elderly is paid for by all of the citizens and the citizens try to provide meaningful employment for their fellow citizens.
I could have said that “the state” pays for all of the above, but, in a democracy, either the citizens are the state or the citizens choose who the state is.
I could have said that all of the above is paid for by taxes, but if we look at how much we pay per capita for medical care in The Former United States of America (The FUSA), for example, we would learn that taxes that go toward a National Health Program which covers all of the citizens don’t even come close.
To get back to how long the Social Democrats governed in Sweden before they took advantage of their power, we should look at how brief a time The Republicans have governed, or refused to govern, in The FUSA before they took advantage of their power.In the Capitalist FUSA, where everything is gained by zealous, dispassionate and ravenous competition, even the health of the citizens, it takes no time whatsoever for a ruling party to assume that it’s cornered the market on leadership power and to begin to use that power for self gain and against the citizens of the country.
I believe that to put economic systems into two camps, democratic capitalist nations and totalitarian socialist nations, is short sighted and does a disservice to the many forms of government that make use of both of those economic systems.
It also plays into the simplistic neocon world view that nations are either with us or with the enemy.According to this world view, straight, unadulterated Capitalism is good, everything else constitutes the enemy.
Michael Bonanno
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Michael Bonanno (87 articles, 19 quicklinks, 24 diaries, 124 comments)
on Wednesday, August 1, 2007 at 1:13:28 PM
i read the authors article and it sounded like an excellent conservativevpropaganda piece taught to first year economic students.The author should have paid more attention to history as her article implies.Cuba is a failed economy because of the us boycott which cut off tourism there big source of income and a boycott of ther farming products so they couldn"t purchase needed supplies.France and England did pretty well under social democracy and after Thatcher got in many people were sorry they voted for a conservative capitalist economy.Looking at The United States which our foreign author isn"t too familiar with from 1860-1929 when proedator capitalism such as bush and Regan use was in full force we had sweat shops,child labor,no concern for human life and slum tenaments and much poverty among large groups of citizens much like is developing today under Bush.Fdr showed capitalism can work if it is put under restraints which was his goal despite empty headed rights who cry he tried to destory capitalism.When you allow labor unions,price controls,and prevent monopolies so captilaism works for the people then it may be the most effective form of economy.When you allow capitalism to run rampant it becomes an economy benefitting only the pigs at the trough .fdr proved this and America became the land all foreignors like our author wanted to escape to and help destroy
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liberalsrock (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 126 comments)
on Wednesday, August 1, 2007 at 2:40:04 PM
Sorry, that's laughable unadulterated bilge. A naive person
who doesn't understand the first thing about the subject nonetheless presumes to publish a hyper-simplistic essay aiming for the grand last-sentence ideological conclusion: There are ample lessons in the 75 years of wars to reach the simple conclusion that democratic capitalist nations are successful, and totalitarian socialist nations are not.
This essay is capitalist indoctrination, not "the lessons of history." When the writer ridiculously asserts that capitalist nations are "successful," what she means is that they've been very successful at plundering the land, resources, & labor of other nations & indigenous peoples, & at exploiting their own working classes. It's certainly true that sending in large ruthless armies to murder defenseless people & loot their wealth has been very profitable, in history. That's what the Spaniards, Dutch, British, & Americans did. It paid off nicely -- at least, until the next pack of imperialist vultures arose, to challenge the pack that preceded it. In the US, slavery also paid off nicely, until the culture that it spawned came into conflict with Northern bankers & industrialists over tarriff policy, & other issues pivotal to an emerging struggle for national economic dominance.
Note that despite the cruel despotism of the authoritarian Russian czars, the West never had any deep objection to how Russia was governed, because Russia still offered Westerners opportunities for profitable investment. It was only when Russia attempted to chart an independent economic course for itself, that the West began howling about "totalitarianism" and "tyrannical dictatorship" in Russia. Similarly, the US was fine with Batista in Cuba, even though the island was run as a whorehouse, hotel & rum-sugar-cane plantation by the Mafia and US businesses. It was only when these parasites were thrown out that the US began howling about "dictatorship" in Cuba.
A major reason that attempts to build socialism have not been economically "successful" is that the US has systematically sought to crush it, wherever it appeared -- even when voted for by democratic elections, as in Chile under Allende. There's not the slighest justification for equating, as this author does, the word "capitalist" with "democracy", and the word "socialist" with "totalitarian." On the contrary, as we see in the US today, unfettered capitalism is incompatible with meaningful democracy. It leads to militarism, imperialism, social inequality, & a total corruption of society.
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Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1211 comments)
on Wednesday, August 1, 2007 at 3:12:30 PM
3 comments
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