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August 1, 2007

Democracy vs Communism: Lessons from History

By Kamala Sarup

In the social sciences, theories won't get us very far.

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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.


Authors Website: http://mediaforfreedom.com

Authors Bio:

Journalist, poet and editor Kamala Sarup works at the Cape Collection. Kamala specializes in reporting news and writing stories covering journalism, Peace, Public health, Democracy, Women/Children, development, justice and economic development. She is an editor for mediaforfreedom.com


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