"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" - Lord Acton
Definitions:
What is Socialism?
What is Communism?
The Differences Between the Two: The Six Shared Truths
Problems with Communism:
Communism in Practice
Communism's Flawed Theory
Marx Misjudged the Middle Class!
Free Will Cannot be Suppressed
The Bad Always End Up on Top
Communism's Massacres
Failed or is Failing...
The Modern Socialist and Communist Movement: 4 sub movements of fraud
Poser Commies - the anti-social fraud
Ideologue Communist Movement
Demagogue Movement
The Old Guard Movement
Communism in Practice: Disaster after Disaster
What is Communism? Again to many this definition is often a matter of great confusion. Some think it means socialism with force, others think it is socialism gone bad. A better definition is a utopian plan to enforce complete economic equality and achieve this by means of forced income redistribution and economic management. In short it is the same idea of socialism operating most often under a smaller branch of the socialist following known strictly as the communists. The ideas are practically the same only the name "communists" tend to attract more ideologues due mostly to a desire among them for alienation from a dissenting opposition, the capitalists, and for a hope of haste in implementing their utopian schemes. As displayed below, communism is in essence and in practice the same thing as its euphemized sister socialism.
The Differences Between the Two: The Six Shared Truths: It is hard to fully explain the idea of communism compared to socialism (due much to the fact that communists and socialists have never been able to agree upon and solidly establish exactly what distinguishes one from the other) but a few truths are undeniable:
(1) Both communism and socialism have an end utopian goal of complete equality in their ideal state.
(2) Both communism and socialism employ the practice of centralized economic managing and income redistribution as their primary means of working toward this so called "equality."
(3) Both communism and socialism experience the same types of problems in accomplishing this economic managing - the unintended side effect.
(4) Both socialism and communism are structured in such a way that an inherent inequality develops from the administrative top of the power structure for such is necessary to enforce compliance. Such compliance must be mandated in a socialist system due to the fact that human nature creates skepticism, opposition to the control of others, and a desire for free will.
(5) In both systems when this unequal elite inevitably emerges, the concentration of widespread power in a single space must intensify. This naturally attracts individuals seeking widespread power, or it corrupts individuals already in power with the lure of the same widespread power.
(6) As a result of the government structures found in both systems,
the intensification of power and control on the upper level necessarily
translates into the usurpation of remaining personal freedoms during its
expansion.
Communism's failures in practice: Communism's main failure in practice comes from the failure of a centralized economy to function. Though socialists often attribute it to problems elsewhere, the simple reason behind this occurrence is the mathematic and physical impossibility of managing an economy from a centralized form. One of communism's main ideals is complete control over industries. In order to efficiently plan industries, communism must simultaneously account for all industries (there are billions of different industries) and their relationship with each other at the same time. Within each specific industry certain goods are internally consumed to produce more of a certain product. An example of this occurrence, which is true in any economic system, is the market for oil. For instance, to drill more oil requires the use of gasoline for transportation, generators, machinery operation, refinery operation, and a dozen other things. Therefore to get more gasoline and drill more oil wells, some existing gasoline must be used up in the process, or internally consumed. This occurrence exists in every industry to varying extents resulting in a massive structure of interlining and constantly changing relationships between all industries. Further, if production in one industry changes, this change effects all other industries in one way or another due to inter linking relationships and internal consumption. On top of these complex internal relations exists a tendency of change relating to substitute and complementary goods effecting related markets and further entangling the complex relationship between industries of a large economy.
This great complexity provides the root of the problem
that inherently dooms communism and socialism from the start. To
efficiently manage a centralized economy, all variables of that economy
must be accounted for mathematically. This means that internal consumption
must be fully compensated for and tightly controlled at optimal level by
the government. In that case a centralized government would have
to develop methods to accurately calculate the internal consumption rate
of all other goods by any one particular industry. The only non free
market way to do this is through the form of Leontief input-output equationing
where detraction rate relations for one particular industry to all other
goods are calculated. Taken that an economy can often have several
hundred thousand distinct industries, businesses, and goods, a great deal
of information must be accumulated to form an equation for one single industry.
This would then have to be repeated for every other industry in the economy.
Your result: a million distinct equations with a million distinct internal
consumption relationship figures within each of these equations (in other
words a million large polynomial equations each with a million variables
to be solved for i.e.. 0.3x+2y+0.6z+.....=X, large X being the optimal
level of production for that particular industry X as desired by the centralized
government). Therefore at any given time the centralized economy could
require 1 million squared pieces of information, or 1,000,000,000,000 distinct
relationships between specified goods in an economy.
The greater problem arises as things are complicated
more. Not only must these trillion figures of information be researches
and related, but this must be done simultaneously. In other
words, the established input-output equations for each industry must be
solved in a simultaneous multiplication of matrices incorporating the equations
of each and every distinct industry at once (remember solving 3 equations
together with 3 variables, x y z, in high school algebra? Imagine that
only with 1 million equations and 1 million variables). On top of
that, this process must be repeated constantly as relationships change
due to external conditions (i.e.. a bad crop or striking a new oil well).
Since all markets are tied together in varying degrees of relationships,
a change in the corn market due to a bad crop necessarily changes each
and every other market on varying degrees. Therefore when one market changes
in even the slightest form, the entire process of equationing must be repeated
and adjusted.
Taken that such massively complex mathematical relationships
are far beyond the capabilities of even the strongest and most modern super
computers, it is practically impossible to manage an economy through a
centralized government and succeed in doing so (for as has always and will
always happen, a non accounted for variable destroys any attempt to manage
an economy).
Fortunately there is a system where all factors
are accounted for by natural forces and are adjusted for by the forces
of self interest working in check to each other requiring no mathematical
relationships to be established. The capitalist free market automatically
does what socialist managing attempts and fails at doing mathematically.
Natural forces of self interest drive a natural and efficient use of resources
and natural compensatory adjustment when a change in one industry spreads
through all others. The Soviet Union and other socialist countries
failed due to the physical impossibility of managing the complex relationships
of industry and resources yet capitalism has survived and thrived by naturally
carrying out these tasks for they form the very root of the capitalist
system. 1.
Examples of "the bad" on top in control economies:
Josef Stalin, Soviet Union
Pol Pot, Kmehr Rouge
Adolph Hitler, Germany under the National Socialist German
Workers Party (nazi in short)
Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet Union
Fidel Castro, Cuba
Mao Zedong, China
Kim Il Sung, North Korea
Tito, Yugoslavia
Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
Huey P. Long, communist leaning governor of Louisiana in the 30's famous
for 'removing' opposition
- Soviet Union: between 20 and 50 million were put to
death at the hands of this evil empire. (some estimates exceed upward of
50 million. As people were sent to camps, the Soviets often deleted all
records of that persons existence making exact totals hard to find)
Intentional starvings and man made famines were a major killer in the USSR.
Worse were the gulag concentration camps (the Soviet equal to Hitler's
concentration camps). At one point in 1940 Stalin held over 10 million
people in the gulag camps. Enemies of the government were enslaved here
then worked and tortured to death. Others were lined up in forests, shot,
and buried in unmarked graves. In one Polish site from Stalin's occupation
of Poland after treaty with Hitler in 1940, almost 5 thousand captured
Polish POW's were lined up and shot at one time. Other cases involved 10
to 15 thousand being lined up and shot. The majority of these killings
took place under Stalin's regime, often referred to as a "reign of terror."
Stalin is estimated to have put 20% of Russia's population to death.
- Cambodia: Under the Kmehr Rouge and regime of Pol Pot in the
1970's, one of the most extreme forms of communism ever was attempted.
2 million were massacred in killing fields in attempts to move
toward this "equal form of communism." The reason behind these massacres
came from an attempt to build an "equal" society though the only equality
which resulted was death. Those who had distinguishing differences
from the government's planned economy of farmers were murdered. Scientists,
doctors, laborers, and teachers with non-agricultural professions were
targeted and murdered because they differed from the agricultural profession
and created inequalities in jobs. Pol Pot murdered an estimated one
fourth of the population of Cambodia.
- China: Mao Tse-Tung's "Great Step Forward" is widely known
as the greatest disaster in attempt of a centralized economy. Countless
millions were murdered and starved to death in China during this period.
China also established a series of gulag concentration camps under Mao,
complete with slave labor employing over 10 million people on numerous
occasions. In fact, China still employs widespread forced labor today.
Estimates on China suggest the total to be about 40 million dead.
- Vietnam: Though the totals on Vietnam are unknown due to poor
record keeping and the fact that Vietnam remains communist today, several
hundred thousands were murdered in Stalinist fashion of execution and slave
labor camps.
- Others: other death tolls caused by communism by failed schemes
in communist China and other communist countries add to the count as do
the political prisoners of communism: many who only dared to think freely
and differently from the government. Tito's Yugoslavia has estimates of
around 1 million deaths to its credit. Mass murders occurred under the
communist/socialist regimes of Fidel Castro in Cuba, Kim Il Sung's North
Korea, Sandinista's in Nicaragua, Laos, and Ethiopia. In many of these
places we will never know the extent of death caused as a DIRECT result
of communism and socialism. 4
Suggested Link:
Museum
of Communism
Failing Communist and Socialist Societies: Forced to abandon
their theories for moderation, pushed to the brink of failure.
-Cuba: all but abandoned socialism due to poverty, has become a dictatorship
-China: seeking capitalist-like reform with an expanded free trade
ever since Mao's failures
-North Korea: on the brink of starvation due to disastrous failure
The Poser Commie Movement:
Possibly accounting for over 90% of the people who
claim to be socialists or communists, the poser commie movement is typically
followed by those of younger age groups. Most who follow this movement
tend to adopt socialism for the sole purpose of social deviance and protest
of society's values. In other words, they hear that communism conflicts
with freedom, morality, and other mainstream societal values so they claim
to be communists to protest exactly such. Poser commie followers rarely
demonstrate any actual knowledge themselves of the communist and socialist
philosophy, though openly claiming to endorse the philosophy. The
poser commie movement is not one of true socialism as it adopts only a
title of "socialism" with limited and extremely shallow substance behind
it. This movement's motives tend to be limited to a mentality that communism
and socialism are against what America stands for and what society teaches
one to stand for and therefore must "cool." Based almost entirely
on a desire to find a method to "defy" and "protest" freedom and democracy
with a seemingly obvious opposition to it, poser communism is little more
than a following of fraudulent foolishness.
Socialist and Communist Ideologue Movement:
Typically comprised of those who have extensively studied Marx, Lenin,
and Trotsky's writings (and often little more), this movement rarely acknowledges
the dismal failures of the communist and socialist philosophies when instituted
in practice. Often claiming "True communism has never really been
instituted" and insisting that if it were, it would work, the ideologue
movement often follows utopian dreams rather than recognizing the flaws
of reality. Numerous ideologue web sites promising a better society
while claiming to sympathize with the workers in an effort to make everything
fair and just have sprung up recently with links to this movement. This
ideologue movement is often too deluded to realize flaws exist in the socialist
and communist theory and therefore it speaks of a utopia physically unattainable
due to inherent flaws and simple impossibility. This highly dogmatic ideologue
movement often propagandizes communism and socialism with the writings
of Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, and Leon Trotsky while trying to force
this type of thought on others.
Demagogue Movement:
This small movement is mostly limited to those who seek to use communism
and socialism as a facade for achieving power. Many of histories great
communist dictators such as Stalin and Castro are perfect examples of demagogues.
Quoting communist theories while working their way to power behind the
scenes, demagogues often prove extremely tyrannical when finally on top.
The demagogue movement is in its own right an uninvited and unwanted branch
of communism/socialism that draws to the theory inevitably for communism
and socialism often entail wide, unchecked power consolidated in a very
defined few plus a resulting need to encroach upon freedom and liberty,
as is inherently necessary for implementation of communist and socialist
systems.
Old Guard Communist Movement:
The Old Guard Communist Movement is typically a reactionary one comprised
of Soviet Union leftovers. Endorsing a return to old Soviet way, though
in reality that way was a disastrous failure, as a solution to transition
problems in the economies of former Soviet states has become a rallying
cry for the Old Guard Movement.
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." - Winston Churchill
"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." - Joseph Stalin
"What was wrong with communism wasn't aberrant leadership, it was communism" - William F. Buckley, Jr.
"Renounce your consciousness and you become a brute" - Ayn Rand
1. Input-Output Equationing
Theory by Wassily Leontief, Nobel Prize in Economics. Applied to command
economies by Baumol and Blinder.
2. Marx and Engels: The
Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital, and other selected essays.
3. Lord Acton, selected
writings. F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom.
4. Solzhenitsyn, The
Gulag Archipelago. Also various records of other similar atrocities
in Communist and Socialist states