Capitalism is superior to communism

uccellacci

In order to debate about communism, one must first define communism. Communism, according to Marx, is a stateless, classless, moneyless society that comes after a socialist transition period from capitalism. By this definition, despite misleading names, no modern society can be considered “communist”. At best, modern societies labeling themselves as communist is in expression of their communist ideals, instead being socialist. At worst, this is done in a purposeful attempt to mislead by countries that are not even socialist at all. What differs socialism from capitalism is that there will be a “dictatorship of the proletariat”. Many confuse this with a literal dictatorship, but this is not the intent of this expression. Under capitalism, workers are exploited for their labor by the bourgeois. Why is it that people such as CEOs can give themselves exorbitant salaries, while their workers, which are the source of the labor that brings them this money, often make minimum wage? Wage labor is inherently exploitative, and by the “dictatorship of the proletariat” it is meant that the proletariat will seize the means of production, under socialism they will no longer be exploited by wage labor, instead they will be able to organize themselves. Considering this, countries such as modern China and the USSR at least towards its end are absolutely not socialist. In them there is still wage labor and the exploitation it brings. The only difference between their structure and other forms of capitalism being that instead of the bourgeoisie taking the profits, the state itself often does. This is not socialism, but instead an authoritarian form of capitalism called “state capitalism”.

Another important consideration on the subject of modern socialist societies is the interaction of capitalism with imperialism. Not only does capitalism exploit individual workers, but with the contribution of imperialism, countries at large can be deprived of resources. It is because of this that Marx suggests socialism must be “worldwide”. When already deprived of resources, “third world” (imperialized) countries cannot ensure adequate distribution of resources to all their citizens. In order for socialism in our modern world to work imperialized societies must have support of more affluent nations. Much of the starvation and poverty many associate with socialism is not result of it itself, but of imperial nations refusing to support imperialized socialist nations. Think of the effects on Cuba the US embargo brought.

Despite the unequal distribution of resources even on an international level, there is more than enough for everyone around the world to live comfortably. There is no justifiable reason for anyone in this world to starve. The world produces more than enough food for everyone to survive comfortably and healthily, and in fact we have enough food that every year in just the US millions of tons of grain are left to rot as they are considered “overflow” (1). One third of the world’s food produced is never consumed (2). How can this be when still 9,000,000 people die from hunger and hunger-related diseases a year? (2) To quote worldhunger.org, “The principal problem is that many people in the world still do not have sufficient income to purchase (or land to grow) enough food or access to nutritious food.” (3) Capitalism creates scarcity, the rich cannot exist without the many being poor.

Lastly, many may argue that while communism “is good in theory” that in practice it “goes against human nature.” This is patently untrue. Humans have both the capability for greed and compassion, which triumphs depends on the structure of the society one lives in. For most of human history people lived as hunter gatherers in societies that were classless, stateless, and moneyless (4). This is referred to by Marx as “primitive communism”. The only reason much of the world transitioned to a class based society was because the development of agriculture led to surplus resources, which needed to stored, creating a concept of private property, and only with surplus could some members of society exploit others. Even today however, there are still primitive communist societies, such as the Hadza, !Kung, and Mbuti peoples. They live a good quality of life, to quote one article: “Are twentieth century hunter-gatherers really worse off than farmers? Scattered throughout the world, several dozen groups of so-called primitive people, like the Kalahari bushmen, continue to support themselves that way. It turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal, and work less hard than their farming neighbors. For instance, the average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only 12 to 19 hours for one group of Bushmen, 14 hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania. One Bushman, when asked why he hadn't emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, "Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?"” (5) If with so little technology these peoples can live as such, imagine what this same structure in a technologically advanced society would bring.

1. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-grains-storage-analysis-idUSKBN17D0EO

2. https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/quick-facts-what-you-need-know-about-global-hunger

3. http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-statistics/#produce1

4. https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/18020/1/TSpace0052.pdf

5. http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race