Socialism: True or False?

Socialism… this is a word I’ve heard fly around lately and I wanted to look into it, its connotations, and what role it actually plays in today’s political reality.

Socialism is a dirty word. It is used to describe politicians that want to give too much power to the government and people who believe that everything should be handed to them without the working for it. But, I couldn’t help but feel like the word has more myth behind it than actual fact in today’s society. It is now enshrined in so much smoke, mystery, and fear that I have a sneaking suspicion that it has lost some of it’s original meaning… that it has suffered from historical inaccuracy and the “Boogie man” effect.

So, to judge this, we first have to find out what a text book definition of the word is. Is it a form of government? Is it an economic system? Both?

What does the word, in its bare bones form, actually mean?

Well, there are several definitions of the word… Dictionary.com has provided the following meanings:

Socialism

Noun

-A theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

-Procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.

- (In Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

Based on these definitions, we can draw the following conclusions about what socialism really is.

1. It is a government system where the distribution of capital is placed in the hands of the people or the government.

2. It is considered by Karl Marx to be a transitional system between capitalism (our system) and communism.

This is probably where the fear comes from. As Karl Marx wrote in the “Communist Manifesto”, a capitalist society is imperfect because of its abundant failures in equity… meaning that goods, capital, and money were not fairly distributed throughout the society. This leads to an improper distribution of power (because capitalism naturally favors a small group of wealthy over a much larger group of working class and poor) and the development of an oppressor versus the oppressed dynamic. As he wrote;

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”

He postulated that, naturally, all capitalist societies would eventually fail because one of two scenarios would inevitably emerge: we would either have a revolution that remolded society as a whole, or the entire system would crumble and we would have the mutual destruction of the opposing parties.

America itself was a perfect example of the former during the Revolutionary War.

America, however, attempted to established a truly classless society… a society where everyone has the same opportunity to succeed. And, for the most part, we have been brilliantly successful.

But, Karl Marx pointed to the uneven distribution of goods in our society as a crippling flaw in our system and proposed that a new system be introduced to remedy what he saw to be the eventual downfall of all capitalist nations… this new system was the development of a Communist society where all people are given things based on their needs, paid according to their needs, and fed according to their needs… nothing more, nothing less.

All over the world, as young intellectuals began to grab a hold of this theory, there where Communist Revolutions. Within the pages of the Communist Manifesto itself where the instructions on how to establish a communist state by revolution. It placed the seed of a basic fact within the populace… that, quite simply, there are more poor than rich in a capitalist society. All one needed to do was follow these steps:

-Read the Manifesto, accept its theories.

-Begin educating the lower classes on the teachings of the Manifesto.

-Inspire them to become angry at the capitalists.

-Allow the proletariat to rise up and “break the chains of oppression”.

-Establish a new government system where everything is fairly distributed to the people.

The western world watched, in horror, as the USSR, Red China, Communist Korea, Red Vietnam, and Communist Cuba were born. We perceived the birth of a system that threatened to cause a violent revolution on our shores… and we wouldn’t allow it. We began using foreign policy to restrict the spread of communism and we launched a very powerful, very persuasive fear campaign against the red threat.

Thus, the Red Scare was born.

McCarthyism flourished as suspected communists were viciously hunted and persecuted, we staged constant nuclear drills as the USSR, our chief opponent, sparred with us in the dangerous game of brinkmanship, and we planted a deep, deep hate for communism in the American people.

And, though our means were questionable, we were ultimately correct about communism… it was a broken system.

As the communist societies evolved we saw a final step to Karl Marx’s theory that he never dreamed of… every single one of them developed into a dictatorship.

And Here’s why:

-A communist society ultimately places all of its power into a centralized government who is, then, supposed to fairly ration out and distribute goods that the society produces.

-The leaders of these centralized governments began to realize that they had complete control over the government.

And,

-They extended their power and gave themselves a huge amount of the nation’s wealth.

There were other flaws to the system too. There were no incentives for working harder and innovating, this lead to stagnation in the economic sector. Communist societies were quickly outpaced by the constant innovation, streamlining, and growth of capitalistic societies. New machines, new medicines, and new products were developed that greatly increased the standard of living for the people in the world of capitalism… and Communist societies were left in the dust.

Ultimately, because of these fatal flaws, communism never even saw full implementation…

That’s right… we, in the history of the world, have actually never seen an actual communist society. Much like a Utopian society, it fails because it forgets to factor in the flaws of mankind itself…

Only machines could exist in such a society.

So, how does this factor into today’s politics? Why have we seen it, suddenly, flare up all around President Obama’s current health care proposals? Are we headed towards socialism? Should we be afraid?

The Fear Against Obama

I believe the sudden fear flaring up around Obama has two halves to it. Firstly, I believe that opponents of the bill are playing on the fears of everyday Americans by evoking the specter of communism. Here I paraphrase what I imagine to be the defense of uninformed American opponent (politically manipulated by fear-mongers) to socialized medicine:

“We fear it because we know it’s bad… why? Well… we just know it is and we know it’s going to take away our freedoms.”

… Ultimately, casting Obama as a closet communist plays well for opponents of his plans because the machinery is already in place.

Secondly, I believe that people who know their history well are afraid that we are on our way to a socialist country bit by bit. Why do they believe this?

Well…

American Socialism

America is not a completely capitalistic society. We are a mixed economy and, therefore, we already have socialist-type programs in place. We have many, many, many well-fare programs, we have subsidized housing and health care, we have a minimum wage, and we have (the granddaddy of all of our socialist programs) social security. While these programs are, obviously, necessary to some extent, many people are terribly afraid that if we add too many more, we are going to inevitably see ourselves down the road to communism. Also, the many of the programs we do have in place are poorly run or going bankrupt.

On the flip side, we have these programs because people need them. Without welfare, we would have starving people in our country… which is ridiculous in the richest, most powerful nation on earth; without subsidized health care and housing we would have many more homeless and people dying from preventable and operable conditions; and without Social Security, many of our elderly, especially if they worked in a job that didn’t provide a good retirement, wouldn’t be able to survive.

The truth is we are caught between a need for socialist policy and a fear that it is going to lead to the downfall of our nation.

Once again, the American Dichotomy defines our struggles in this country.

Where Do We Go?

I guess the main reason for this post is to point out a few things. Firstly, many people don’t properly know the history of communism and why it didn’t work; secondly, communism and socialism, while closely related, are not the same; thirdly, concerns about our socialist policies eventually leading to communism, even according to Karl Marx’s own estimations, hold water because socialism is a natural waypoint between capitalism and communism; and fourthly, as much as we want to hate it and avoid it, socialist policy is necessary to make up for some of the short comings of our capitalistic society.

Both sides of the debate have merit… and to truly find a compromise we have to understand that. We need a truly free market, but allowing it to run unabated leaves too many people behind, creates a “have” and “have-not” society, and could ultimately lead to a revolution of some sort. So, we also need the tempering hand of welfare and safety-nets, but many of them are poorly run, overseen, and cost too much money.

Either way, an extreme leads to something bad… so we have to understand that we need a little bit of both and need to remain vigilant against leaning too far to one side.

So, before you attack those against health care reform, understand that, historically, their fears have been justified by the fall of the USSR and the near extinction of mankind during the Cold War… and before you attack those for reform, understand that millions of people are suffering without proper health care and allowing it to continue while insurance companies abuse their customers is contributing to, ultimately, a broken health care system.

As always, neither side is completely right. There is an American Dichotomy that we all have to remain aware of… that is, I believe, the one thing truly missing from our politics today.

Thank you,

C.J. Swanson