The fatal flaw in communism

THE AMERICAN THINKER ^ | 3/16/2005 | Jim Arlandson

[PGalt]

Thanks for taking the time to post. Good article.

[kitkat]

If you want to live under a dictator, vote for a Democrat.

[Odyssey-x]

Communism is the free-energy machine of social organization. You work less and get more. It's been tried a million times, people just say the evil corporations are keeping it from being realized. Every time it's tried it fails.

[Odyssey-x]

BTW, Here's the best criticism of communism. Not why it's immoral or doesn't work with human nature but why it is utterly broken from a social organization point of view and will always produce far less wealth for the same amount of effort put in than capitalism. Heck, communism in Russia was so broken that many factories in Russia would produce trucks that were worth less money than the steel that was consumed in their manufacture.

Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth By Ludwig Von Mises.

[ran15]

Its sad and scary how many people even some on the right are arguing for communist programs. My only hope is that the next generation who grew up watching the Soviet Union come down, will be able to see what is as clear as day to any objective thinker.

[bad company]

Once in a while I hear a student or another sincere thinker assert that communism in its purest form is good, but that no society has yet practiced it purely

Cambodia.

[SMARTY]

Don't forget:

N. Korea - Starving, weak, broke, oppressive, belligerent
Cuba - Starving, weak, broke, oppressive, belligerent
R. China - Backward, Oppressive, belligerent

[Defiant]

Actually the only way Communism could work is if it was headed by an absolute dictator, and that the dictator was a deity!

Communism would still not work, unless the deity also changed human nature. People will not produce unless it is for themselves. Communism produces a slave society of people who only do the minimum. Eventually, it develops into an aristocracy, in which those at the top have everything, and the rest of the people have nothing. The aristocracy call themselves party members, but they are no different than the feudal thugs who conquered lands and then forced the peasants into serfdom.

[SMARTY]

Communism can never be an economic success, anywhere. But, as a totalitarian system, will always be a serious challenge and threat to Democracy. The primary purpose for any sovereign government is defense. Proper defense MUST be speedy, secret and effective. Here, a Democracy answering as it does to the public constituencies, is at an immediate, eternal and crippling disadvantage. Totalitarian regimes always have an edge in their permanent and sometimes total commitment to preparedness for defense. Preparedness for war is an 'ugly' fact of live in the world as we know it, but THE politically maligned issue in this Democracy. For liberals to even admit this fact much less to act on it is asking too much and costs us all, all the time. Examples: WWI, WWII, Korea...

[Archon of the East]

Oh, come on, is it really necessary to write a whole article to prove communism wrong? It's so obvious!

You would think not, but apparently if you look closely around the globe it sure seems in that the route towards communism IE socialism is gaining support. Just look at the UN, "The people want more taxes". Look at Canada, Europe, Venezuela and South America in general. But your correct it should be obvious, but apparently it's not.

[elbucko]

Well said, Bill. I knew I could find a few nuggets in your analysis that clarify in a sentence, what takes others, like Marx, volumes to obfuscate. To wit:

But as a predictive model it [Marxism] fails.

Fails miserably.

As a normative model Marxism is truly disastrous, which is to be expected given its failure as a predictive model

Marxist class analysis failed to predict the rise of the proletariat into petit bourgeoisie status,...for example, [the working man] is the number one owner of capital in the form of union retirement funds. One can't even call him a proletarian anymore and never really could. Marxist historiography failed to explain the evolution.

On the last point, I don't think Marx considered labor unions nothing more than a means to an end. But Marx was a European, with a European view of the world. To Marx, labor was only a commodity to eventually enslave to the state. Communism was simply a feudal economic model with industry as its core rather than agriculture. In the US, labor was the individuals right to withhold, either individually or collectively. The Unions in the US were the eventual foil of the communists, both here and abroad as in the case of Poland.

What irony! It was the communist influence in the Screen Actors Guild that prompted Ronald Reagan to become politically active, in the end, it was another union, Solidarity, that Reagan and the Pope used to bring down the Soviet Union.

[Yardstick]

Actually the only way Communism could work is if it was headed by an absolute dictator, and that the dictator was a deity!

I agree. It's been my thought for a while now that communism is really nothing more than a mischanneled yearning for a perfectly wise, perfectly benevolent king.

[Archon of the East]

Thanks for link! And you are right communism is an economic system that will fail, that is no doubt the primary argument against communism. I do think however that we need to keep an eye on "socialism/progressivism", it is not that far fetched to see that it may eventually lead to a more communistic state. They the socialist's don't speak just economic terms, they speak of and rights and and a perverted definition of liberty that are not provided for in our Constitution and actually were warned against by our framers. Therefore we also need to get people thinking about what it is about our nature that makes our Constitution and founding philosophy the best choice available as a form of Govt.But again great article, I printed it out and put in a binder so I can have others read it also.

[The Raven]

Beauty!! I just cut and pasted a quote from here on my Free Republic home page.

[jan in Colorado]

ping

[AmericanChef]

Just as communism can't be practiced in its purest form, neither can complete freedom or democracy. Why? Because we are human. DUH.

There always has to be controls of some kind. Reasonable controls. Reason is much more likely in tempered democracy than it is in socialism, plain and simple.

[Sofa King]

"Once in a while I hear a student or another sincere thinker assert that communism in its purest form is good, but that no society has yet practiced it purely."

What these twits don't seem to understand is that Stalinist communism is the end result of any attempt to practice "pure" communism. No matter what your original intentions, communism requires putting absolute power in the hands of a centralized government, and that's never going to turn out very well.