Hi,
there have been some articles around in leofinance.io shilling communism and the benefits of it, some interesting read is the one of @edicted that can be read in here. No one ever talked about the bad things it had done and it is continue on doing and that with every try to implement it, it only brings misery and pain with it.
As, like a few others in here, I was born in a communist country, at the economical downfall of it. It was a harsh time, especially that I was coming from a former bourgeois family of intellectuals, where my grandfather was a teacher at the medicine university in Bucharest and one of his brothers teaching engineering at another one. Brother was killed by the red liberation army and my grandfather was forced to work as a veterinary for the rest of his life in some forgotten stables and this are only from my fathers side. From my mothers side it has been worse as my grandfather was forced to flee Cernăuți, now in the Ukraine, after the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact that was the actual start of WW-II was signed. His brothers new better and remained only to get a bullet behind their head and end up in a mass grave. Yes, no discrimination for all, that is right.
Why this little story? Because this add up to the official 100 million deaths caused by communism. Here are not taken into account the hunger deaths in the Ukraine and the casualties in the WW II as the soviets won the war and all could be put on Germany, where the war was started by both of them in an equal matter.
You will see the invasion of the Soviets in the picture bellow, where they have liberated a part of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania. Also they've liberated a fair amount of power by killing a lot of people, like the massacre of Katyn or Fântâna Albă. During this communist reshaping over 1 million people died in 2 years only in this area of Europe.
And this is not all, all over it was like this, everywhere with it's own version, from the red Khmer in Cambodia, to the FARC in Columbia, from North Korea, to Cuba, everywhere the same outcome with different approach, death, misery and economical failure.
To put the official number of deaths in perspective, as said, they are talked down:
- 3 Chernobyl disasters every hour for 100 years
- a Nagasaki atombombing each month for 100 years
- 850+ Iraq wars
- or the most blowing number, WW I for 9 times
There is also the economical aspect of it, none of the countries in communism have ever managed to run efficient on an economical side, none. All countries in communism now, have the wast majority of the population in misery, see North Korea, Cuba or Venezuela. People will come with China, and yes, beside the millionaires friendly to the party, there are over 1 billion people living in poverty. Also China is more capitalistic compared to a lot of states, by acquiring a lot of companies in the Western World.
All countries coming out of communism have a strong deficit in terms of infrastructure and industrial efficiency.
Best example is Germany who was split in half for 50 years. After 30 years of reunification there is a big gap between the territories and a lot of people are poorer in the East compared to the West.
Everything was run down in this 50 years.
Another good example are the Baltic States,which have been considered the flagship of the Soviet Union, next to Donbas, Moscow and St. Petersburg. It was a lot of industry in the area, but still it was not competitive after the iron curtain fell. The industry was built up only to produce, no matter the output, the quality and efficiency. It was build only to keep people busy.
Same as in Romania, where the country had no debt, but the debt was cleared by not investing into production facilities. Imagine running with a 30-40 year old tech nowadays. In the age where you need one guy to run a factory and this is the maintenance guy, running with an output of over 30% scrap is a killer.
Now I did summarize in short the pain and the results of it, but I need to go into the whys.
Why is communism not working?
Well, because it is fundamentally against nature, we are not equal and will never be equal, no matter what we do, and this is a good thing, as there is evolution. There is a drive for individual achievement and I don't speak about humans only, I speak about the whole life and the universe itself as it is build. Look at the planets and stars, everything is revolving around power and the bigger a star is, the more impact it has in the universe. Now going back to the more mundane life, like wolfs, the Alpha is the leader and he decides, it is his duty to guide the pack, as a Beta will probably lead it to perish. I don't say that a Beta is not necessary, on the contrary, the Beta has important duties as well, but not that of an Alpha. He can strive to become an Alpha, of course, and this is called evolution. Where when all are equal, evolution is slowed to the point of non-existence.
If we are all paid equal, no matter what we do, why shall we strive,why do the hard work when we can let someone else do it. It is nature and the self-preservation is our instinct. But if we now that compensation will be higher if we work harder and smarter, we will do it. We are living in a somehow socialist (not communism) world, where we work for some other persons that are lazy and prefer to be sustained by the state. Here I don't mention the sick ones, that need our help, but working for a guy that prefers to stay at home rather then wiping elders asses that need help, I can't understand.
With the idea of having all the means of production shared in the same amount to the workers, it can work, as people will see this shares different and act different. Most will go for quick profits rather than long term investments. Recently we've seen this at the LBI voting for keeping taking profit out for now against instant profit, where the smaller stakes have voted for immediate profits, where the higher accounts have been for building up. This is human nature, which is driven by greed and impulses. We can overcome this by thinking on the long run, but we need to have a stake into the matter that we paid for it.
No one stops people from a factory to quit in masses and buy another factory and operate it by themselves, no one! As most people will simply not do it as it involves risk and potential loss of the investment, so why shall someone else pay for you if you are not willing to take the risk?
In my point of view, communism, besides the misery is the hand brake of evolution and free thinking as nothing is needed if the others can come with it. It is the accelerator to poorness, laziness and society fail as the majority are risk and work adverse and they pull the ones with visions back. Could we have seen Elon Musk succeed in a Communist environment? Most probably not...
How do you see it? I would like to have a constructive discussion in the comments with arguments for both views.