I'm going to take another approach to this situation and do something that I have been thinking up for a while.
The Possibilites of Communism Actually Working and the Reasons Why It Failed
This however is going to touch all over Capitalism, Anarchy, and Communism as a whole and the political agenda of the world at the time. I would like to point out even though that I am currently intrested in Karl Marx (I own both his Das Kapital and Communist Manifesto books), I'm not a Communist. In fact I'm not really anything more than an observer, an "observationist". And I think that is one the best stances you can take towards politics, observing.
Major Points:
- The time, the place, and the people involved in making Communism happen.
- The fact that every other country instead of helping Communist leaders did everything they could to stop it.
- Communist ideas vs. Capitalist connotation
- Corruption in the State and the mutation of the ideas to benefit the State.
- Western Idealism vs. Eastern Philosophy.
Why didn't Communism work? Why did it collapse in on itself only after 80 years of being carried out as a governemnt?
I have had a couple theories on why it is possible that Communism could have actually worked or have been an elaborate experiment created by Karl Marx to show that true equality can not be enacted alongside freedom. Freedom and equality is an oxymoron because think of it like this: If a person is truly free than he is free to not hold the ideals of equality, to discriminate, to eliminate what's different, to prejudge, he is "free" to do that, but he is not equal. Maybe Marx was trying to show through Communism that when everything is eliminated, social structure, race, income, special priveleges, intelligence, jobs, all of the things that define a person then that person is truely equal with his fellow man, but not free to seek a higher job, intelligence, income, to hold his racial beliefs above others, to be on a greater social platform.
Communism was a rushed political belief centered in a time of great change in Europe. Everyone was having a revolution, an industrial revolution, a self-determination revolution, empires were crumbling and breeding new states, new ideas, new situations. But why did Communism decide to surface in Russia? Why did V.I. Lenin take his Marxian beliefs to one of the most ass backwards countries in Eurasia, what was the benefit of a nation that had only begun to take on Industrialism (which is one of the main reasons Communism surfaced)? Did he not see that he would fail miserably? Hindsight I guess is 20/20 in some respects but he should have kept it in Germany or spread it some other way. It was also the wrong time, exactly the right time for Communism to rise, but the wrong time for Communism to work.
But all of that aside. What was really that horrific about Communism? When people think of Communism they think of shackles, death, corruption, Josef Stalin, the Cold War. The horrible connotation of what is only half truth.
Think about this, everybody is equal and all that you work for goes towards to benefit of the community. When you work, make your shoes, you don't get capital, instead your child goes to school and he learns for free, instead you get a free hospital visit, free surgery, free medicine, free housing, free food, all the basic necesseties for human life are paid for (which the necessities were learned in 7th grade science, water, food, shelter, etc.). Look at things now in the US. There isn't such things like that, everything has a price. Is that always good? To put a price on the possibility of life thriving through medicine, to put a price on the future of a community who depends on education to survive but if it is not paid for it slowly crumbles? Is it right to make people pay to live, to survive?
Communism is always looked at from a psuedo-capitalistic view, the opposite of Capitialism is Communism so it seems only right that something like that would happen. Communism, you aren't free, you can't be an entrepenuer, but you aren't poor. Capitalism you have this immense freedom, but you are poor or you are rich or you are middle class, there is such a line of disparity in Capitalism, if you don't suceed you ultimately fail and there is nothing you can do, there will be a failure. Hope is in Capitalism, hoping to not fail. So is it so bad to have so much security in Communism, the promise you will always have a job no matter what it is, or do people feel that being chosen for you job is wrong.
Why so?
It happens all the time in Capitalism but people fail to see it. You could go to college for years upon years and study advanced medicine, but if your labor skill isn't needed then there is no job for you so the jobs that are avaliable are filled. The more of a job there is the more likely thats the job you are going to take that job. For example:
You go to college, because thats the predesitination of every adult in a Capitalistic society, and you work towards getting your degree in like what I mentioned before medicine. But so is everyone else. So you have competition to try and be better than your rivals in the same field. Does it make you become better through competition? Sometimes. But most often times than not it leads to corruption. And when you do get out of college and your jobs are taken you have nothing but a skill you competitively worked hard for and nothing to do with it. So you take the jobs that aren't taken, hamburger flipper, trash man, etc. The supply and demand of jobs determines which job you get, you don't choose, capitalism chooses for you. There is no job security, there are no garuntees.
So shouldn't Capitalism be associated with loss, freedom, insecurity, oppression?
How is Capitalism oppressive? Because in a Capitalistic society there are the poor and the rich, the weak and the strong, the boss and his workers. The boss collects his profit and the workers work for him. He opresses them, he tells them what to do, they no longer make their own decisions. Is that truly free? Why does he not get down and work with his workers, instead he uses them.
The weak depend on the strong, the poor depend on the rich. And as long as the rich are around there will be poor. So what is so wrong with the dissolvement of social structure? To make everyone equal, is that so wrong? To abolish the rich who do the opressing and the poor who are being opressed?
When people think of Communism they get the wrong idea completely. They think of a big war machine, nuclear weaponary, and mass deaths. But that is a mere mutation of Communism brought on by bother Josef Stalin and V.I. Lenin. The real Communism was never practiced anywhere on the face of the planet. Does that mean that it is impossible? No. But did everyone try to make it as hard as humanly possible for it to work? Yes. That's why it mutated, so it could survive. Communism was no longer Communism, it was Stalinism, corruption of the State as a whole, the creation of secret police, the fierce action that needed to be taken so Russia wouldn't lose its battle...but why did it recieve so much flak? Why couldn't ideas such as Communism been accepted and helped along? Is Democracy and Capitalism the only way?
Stalin was corrupt, he gave Communism a bad name.
All be it Communism destroyed the idea of evolution, something that I myself strongly believe in. It didn't allow for any progressing because most progression happens when you have to adapt to be better. It is human nature to be better than those around you, to be the top, and if you are not then you are weak, and not fit, so therefore you fail at "Survival of the Fittest". Communism is against human nature, while Capitalism embraces it, that seems to be my only problem with it myself.
Why has Communism worked better in the Far East than it did in the west, take Communist China for example. it leads to world in population yet it is one of the most controlled and "successful" Communist states still around. Why is that? Is it Eastern philosophy, the ability to accept life for what it is and take into consideration of who it would help? Eastern humbleness?
Why wouldn't the Chinese just overthrow their government if their was something so wrong with it, we are talking 2 billion people, each person would just have to grab up a knife and you could practically stab their way through the government. Why haven't they held democratic elections? Why haven't they turned into a primarily Capitalistic country (although they have changed a bit to work into the framework of the rest of the world)? Could Communism really work?
Theoritcally, Communism could be the best idea out there. Most people would not agree I'm sure, I wouldn't either if it were for the simple fact that it is the only government that promotes TRUE equality. We keep going on and on about it in our country, but it is never going to happen, if you want TRUE equality than you are a Communist. If you are a Capitalist you believe in Freedom.
I'm neither. By nature I have to be a Capitalist. But if I had a choice I would be nothing except a Survivalist.
I hope you enjoyed it, it took my quite a while to write this up. I didn't really try to "sell" you on anything but just give you a broad look at things from multiple perspectives, its what I do in my life. Just observe and allow multiple perspectives to be shown.
I'm going to sleep.
