SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM

Economics is the science of the production, distribution and consumption of goods in conditions of scarcity. Communism is an economic system classically described in the writings of Karl Marx and his co-author Frederick Engles. Marx's starting point was German idealism. The 19th century philosopher Hegel conceived history as a clash of opposing ideas, a dialectic, through which a thesis and antithesis would create a new synthesis, which was a new idea combining elements of the previous two. He saw history and a series of inevitable evolutionary step of a mystical "absolute spirit." Scholars speculate about what Hegel meant by this because he never defined it. Continental philosophers who followed him continued with undefined or ill-defined terms and theories divorced from reality.

Marx took Hegel's dialectical idealism and turned it on its head, calling his theory dialectical materialism. Instead of a clash of ideas, he conceived history as driven by a clash of class antagonisms. Class struggle was the driving force of history. Rather than seeing trade as a peaceful means through which specialized skills could be freely exchanged, he saw it as naturally exploitative. In the earliest civilizations, a hereditary aristocracy avoided work through institutional systems of control over the proletariat, the "working class." The scientific and industrial revolutions largely replaced the aristocracy with the a new class of exploiters, the bourgeoisie or business-owning class, those who "owned the means of production" (e.g. factories, farms), which mass produced goods. Instead of tiles, these oppressors passed on monetary wealth. A Marx predicted a world-wide worker's revolution where workers of the world would unite and seize the means of production and establish a more just society of worker cooperatives, which ran on the principle, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." After the revolution a period of State-sponsored socialism would be necessary to keep the capitalist class from once again seizing power, but after that it would no longer be necessary and "wither away." Socialism is also used today to describe any economic system in which the government controls production and distribution of goods in a significant way.

Although Marx was right in predicting communist revolutions in Russia, China, Cuba, many African nations and South America, what he failed to predict was the rise of the middle class and the higher standard of living capitalism brought to the West. He also failed to see that a high technological society required educated workers, and the spread of education would mean more people interested in and participating in democratic institutions which would govern the State. Another development he failed to predict was that the masters of the transitionary phase would simply become new oppressors. While in the West, the classical liberalism of John Locke and Adam Smith brought individual freedom and prosperity, communist revolutions brought about the loss of individual freedom, oppression of dissent, purges, gulags, concentration camps, starvation and poverty. Those connected to the one "party," often supported through sham or rigged elections, were the only ones who prospered and people had to be kept from leaving.

Between Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler, 100 million were executed or died of starvation. In the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia, communist Pol Pot killed 3 million of his citizens. Millions more lived lives of poverty and oppression. Nations like Cuba and Argentina, once prosperous Western nations, were turned into third world countries in less than a decade. The Soviet Union began to fall apart due to its backwards economic system, softened by the war in Afghanistan and the influence of Western media, which showed average people how much better life was in the West. China has embraced capitalist reforms in its economic system, which has created a new middle class, and this has led, of necessity to some loosening of political control. "Mixed" economies of Europe, which mix socialistic elements with capitalism, (often referred to as "European socialism") are finally having to pay the piper for the huge debts created by their welfare state governments, mainly created by the cost of large numbers of government workers and government-run medical and retirement systems. The U.S. has followed their lead, becoming increasingly socialistic since FDR and racking up 5 trillion debt during 8 years under George W. Bush and the same amount in just 4 years of Obama.

The idea of communism has mass appeal. Oh that we could put aside self-interest and all work together for the common good! Let's abolish greed, eliminate the class distinctions, erase the gap between rich and poor and simply share everything. This may work on a small scale. Many married couples do this. They pool resources and don't keep track of who earns what and who gets to spend how much. They make decisions by consensus and voluntary agreement. Their children, although they may not always have a say in decision making, are provided for and if they are required to work (doing "chores" etc.), it is no where near the value of the goods and services they are provided with. Children go to school and often eventually help support their parents in their old age.  From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.

Communes of perhaps 100 can function in this way, but beyond this, you get problems with group decision making, the "free rider" problem and incentives to work. The original European settlers at Jamestown found this out the hard way. They farmed the land and put the results in a common storehouse. People began to do as little work as possible,with some refusing to work altogether. The result was starvation. Keep in mind that these were especially ambitious and adventurous people who were willing to risk it all to sail to a New World. The same thing occurred with the Plymouth Rock with highly religious pilgrims led by William Bradford. If altruism were going to be sufficient motivation to action, it would certainly be with these people, but there was the same result. The same thing happened on a mass scale in China under Mao and people still starve to death in North Korea, which is able to make nuclear weapons, but unable to feed its own people or keep the lights on at night. Fortunately for the Plymouth Colony, Bradford saw the error of his ways and switched to a system of private ownership, where each family were able to keep the fruit of their labor. Motivated to become self-sufficient and provide for themselves and their family as opposed to "giving back to society" the colony prospered.

On a massive scale you have the inefficiencies created by central planning as well as the corruption and abuse of those required to administer and enforce rules in a way that ensures "equality." This is why all large-scale applications of communist theory has resulted in police states like the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba and North Korea. When the "temporary" government controls what you earn and where your next meal is coming from, it becomes easy for those in charge to take over the rest of your life. But even with the most extreme coercive force and massive state propaganda about "the cause" and "the revolution" or an iconic leader, you can't argue with human nature, and production remains low.  There is also the problem that central planners never know as much as individual producers, so the results of even the most competent forecasters are always poor. More often than not, because it's ignorant politicians and not economists who make the final decisions, the outcomes are even worse, resulting in those connected to the party living lives of relative affluence and the rest living in squalor with no prospect for improvement.

Marx's ideas still have appeal today among both elite intellectuals who theorize in ivory towers, divorced from the realities of actually running a business, and uneducated masses, who have no understanding of how business works. Despite its dismal track record, advocates claim that "true" communism has never been tried. Marxism is still highly influential in the union movement, with union leaders being socialists or having socialistic attitudes. Marxism has also been highly influential in the Democratic Party, beginning in the 60s. In 2010 American Socialist Voter released a list which showed that Senator Bernie Sanders and 69 Democrat members of the House of Representatives were members of Democratic Socialists of America.

President Obama's Father and Mother were both Marxists. They met at a Russian language class while the Soviet Union was in its prime and the only people learning Russian, apart from a handful of historians and scholars, were people going to work for the foreign service or U.S. intelligence and communist sympathizers. Obama's mentor and surrogate father, Frank Marhsall Davis, was a communist with a thick file at the FBI. Obama writes about hanging out with Marxists in college. Classmate John C. Drew says that Obama was a "doctrinaire Marxist" when he was at Occidental College. In Chicago, Obama got his first political job working as a community organizer for a group founded by radical socialist Saul Alinsky (interestingly, his chief rival in his election, former First Lady, Democrat Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wrote her senior thesis on Alinksy). Obama was friends with communist and former weather underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn, and started his political career at a fundraiser organized by Ayers at his exclusive Hyde Park neighborhood house.  When a State Senator in the late 90s, he was a member of the fringe Marxist "New Party." Obama's former "Green Jobs Czar," Van Jones is a communist. His former White House director, Anita Dunn, had to quit after, in a speech to graduates, said Mao was one of the two people she turned to most for inspiration and went on to tell an inspirational story of how Mao, through dogged persistence, was able to triumph over his enemies and conquer China. No mention of how Mao was a communist oppressor, responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people once he took power. These are just some of the most clear examples of Marxist influence in the U.S. Government. There are many other examples of not only rhetoric but policy based on socailistic ideas.

So when President Obama talks about "redistributive change" or "spreading the wealth," that's communist ideology speaking. Unfortunately, Obama can reappropriate socialist slogans like "Yes we can!" and "Forward!" and a historically ignorant American electorate for the most part has no idea where they came from or what they mean to him, his advisors or hard core members of his base.