New versions of communism - Writing Wednesday
Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,
I'm sure most people are aware of the horrors people experienced not so long ago, of the dictatorships and authoritarian regimes that were birthed out of the 20th century. There was Hitler and the Nazis in Germany who attempted to build a superior race and in the process wiped out 6 million Jewish people who were considered to be racially impure. There was also Stalin in the Soviet Union who scared the Russian people into submission with the Stasi and the threat of the Gulags. There was also Mao who launched his notorious Great Leap Forward, forced people to produce cheap pig iron which destroyed the economy and in the process initiated a famine where some 40 million people died. These events on the grand scale of time, happened not too long ago from the time period we are living in now and I'm sure a lot of people are aware of how quickly our now free society is capable of reverting back to this state of destruction.
However, some of the things that I hear people say nowadays, make me question whether we've learnt anything from this not so distant past at all. Yes, there have been issues to do with the far right in the past and the far right still exists today. For instance, during the time of the Nazis you had factories in Germany such as Siemens and IG Farben, profiteering from the influx of slave labour that came from the concentration camps, which arguably caused more suffering to these communities of people who were condemned to a life in prison. This is an example of where capitalism has been used as a tool by the far right to allow them to abuse their privileges at the expense of others. Nowadays, we also have outspoken Holocaust deniers, a group of people who have outwardly admitted that they don't believe that the Holocaust even happened, despite the fact that the ruins of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland are still standing and thousands go to visit the site each year. The issue to do with the still present far right is an issue, I can get on board with that too. However, I think what's most talked about in the media are the topics surrounding the far left and not only are these topics discussed, they are discussed in a positive light by people who've never experienced their horrors before. On top of this, the ideas of the far left seem to be disseminated so easily, it's as though people are putting very little thought into what they are saying anymore. That to me is most worrying because it shows that these people are ignorant and naive enough to see the world, which has been blighted with horrors of dictatorships, through rose tinted glasses.
What particularly annoys me nowadays is that people have become sympathetic towards communism again and people are proudly claiming that hang on a minute, communism does work it just hasn't been implemented properly in the past, and some are saying that if things were done their way, communism would be the system that works in reality. To me communism cannot work in the free society we are trying to create because like fascism it's a very nihilistic way of viewing the world. This means those who believe that communism works wish for it to be the only system present in society, which means that democracy breaks down so that all the people who oppose this way of living can be controlled and the society doesn't change. Nihilism means you want to implement a system in society from the spectrum of ideologies, that will never change and this only breeds authoritarianism not democracy in my opinion. The reason I am such an advocate for a democratic society isn't just because ordinary people can vote for who they wish to lead the country, it's also because no matter where you stand politically, you can always question the authority and leave room for change in a democratic society. It's as though democracy recognises that society can never be perfect and caters for this truth by allowing people the freedom to ask questions, leaving behind a margin of error. The reason why I disagree with the statement I mentioned initially is because no matter how much you refine communism, it requires a complete and permanent restructuring of the current system, and for that system to remain that way, people must be controlled so that no one can live freely.
"Communism is the belief in the power of people to organise their lives as individuals - their social, political, and economic lives - without being managed by a state." Ash Sarkar, the famous British communist journalist, made this claim and also said that "private property serves as a barrier to the distribution of those resources that we need to not only survive but thrive." I suppose by saying this Ash is trying to spread her version of communism with the rest of the world. Traditionally, one would characterise a communist society as one where the economy is controlled by the state and is largely very centralised. So by making this claim, Ash is basically telling us that communism has the capacity to exist without being so centralised. She is also saying that capitalism because of its emphasis on producing commodities to earn a profit, allows people to gain more money but doesn't necessarily give and distribute to people what they really need. I guess this is the postmodernist way of reshaping communism and I've heard many other people say similar things. However, I find Ash's claim to be completely contradictory. If you want people to have autonomy over their social, political, and economic lives, you do that by allowing them to start up businesses for themselves or choose which career sector they wish to work in. I.E. You allow them to discover their own purpose in life and you don't dictate what they should do with the money they earn. As in, you allow some level of privatisation which leads to the eventual acquisition of private property. Private property may not be literally giving people what they need but it is a good indicator that people are earning a decent amount of money, which will eventually be fed back into the economy, which in turn provides aid to those lower down the economic hierarchy. So how can private property serve as a barrier to people getting what they need?
I've heard other people say well, why do we have to rely on money to give people the incentive to provide others with what they need? I.E. Why do we have to feed anything back into the economy in the first place? Why don't we just cut out the middle man and give people what they need directly? To me, money is the fairest form of motivation. Without money people have no motivation to provide people with what they need and distribution of the necessary resources is slow as a result and with a system like this, the working class are most likely to suffer. On a small scale, we've seen people's good nature serve as the necessary catalyst to provide people with what they need. But in my humble opinion, as soon as you add more people into the mix, you have so many different needs, you cannot possibly cater for everyone at the same level so you have to prioritise which needs are most important. You cannot make a fair judgement on that without money because money provides a mathematical value, indicating which sectors of society need more attention.
I guess from Ash's perspective my explanation would be annoying because it means that there's a wealth divide that exists in our society. Well, of course there is a wealth divide. If you are prioritising people's needs with money, some are going to get more attention than others and from an economic perspective, they are going to receive less of the benefits. Most of the government's policies are a balancing act. The government has so many people to think about they can only think about the bigger issues in society and they can only focus on making the changes that prevents society from falling into a state of complete disrepair. So is it possible to help everyone? I don't know but if you think a communist society, in whatever way you perceive it to be, is going to somehow bring about a utopia, I will say that you are delusional in your thinking. To me, it's either you help the most vulnerable and distribute the rest of the money out as fairly as possible so that you try and help as many people as possible, or the alternative is that no one gets helped at all. Which, under a system as inefficient as communism, is pretty much the inevitable. I'm not saying our society is perfect but to think realistically, most of the time. the government has to play a would you rather game to help as many people as possible.
Ash and Owen in the video believe that communism is coming back. I think it is too but I don't think that's such a good thing. If anything, it's very worrying. Even Ash and Owen's versions of communism would require some level of economic control because ultimately in order to provide all the working class with what they need, some level of coordination and cooperation is required because not everyone will be willing or will know how to effectively direct their money in that way. That method of coordination might be fear and terror. So how can you be so certain that even your new version of communism won't induce the return of the Gulags, the Laogai, or the Stasi? I think people need to start taking more responsibility for what they are saying because clearly some people have not learnt from the past and are not thinking about where their ideas will lead society.
But hey, that's The Guardian for you...
What are your thoughts on the re-introduction of communism in society? Let me know in the comments below and I'll be sure to reply to them. I ♡ hearing from you!
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