Communism Vs CapitalismJoin now to read essay Communism Vs CapitalismCommunism vs. CapitalismIn the political tract the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx describes communism as the party that “fights for the interests of the working class” while capitalists are considered “dependent and have no individuality — only capital is dependent and has individuality”. Both of Marx’s statements are true in nature but when the two economic systems are put in practice, they quickly disintegrate into the same end result today, that is to say that most communistic nations fail while capitalists flourish. There will never be a pure version of capitalism or communism. However, capitalism, despite its many flaws, has a proven track record; while communism has failed in practice. An argument can be made for reformation of the current system to eliminate some of its flaws, but a switch to communism would not only not solve the worlds problems but most likely cause many more.
In summary, the communist theory of socialism and capitalistism seems to be the best solution to capitalism and Marxism. However, the concept of communism, as it has always been a central concept of communist politics and its most celebrated author Karl Marx, was wrong on every level.
Marx vs. Lenin
The Marxist theory of socialism is a concept that has been used by hundreds of historians to explain various phenomena in history and is a standard political explanation of political conflict and the history of struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. It is not based on a strict Marxist formula that explains the origins of problems that arose at a small and individual level in society or that have long since been solved on the individual level. Rather, Marx and Engels believed that the only way to have peace in the world was to create a class-based government founded on workers’ power and the development of class relations that maximized the potential gains of the masses.
The theory of socialism was founded upon a principle of revolutionary organization, and Marx believed, “In the beginning when the proletariat created a government, it created the conditions that created the society we now call democracy — in the immediate neighbourhood of class government, a bourgeois political system. The only thing that could destroy society is to put an end to socialism before it had formed that country.”
The Communist Manifesto begins with the following line:
“[N.B.] We are the only parties of society. We are the only conditions of existence within which a social dictatorship can arise, the only condition for a free and vigorous struggle for freedom of the people. But in a socialist system, every man has the right to a free and voluntary choice of occupation, and every woman has the right to choose with freedom. And since every man is free to live his life fully in his free choice, his right to life is under all the limitations on which nature has placed him.
The principle of revolutionary organization which we are in, therefore, is the single most important revolutionary concept in socialist political ideas, and it is precisely this principle that the Marxist theory of socialism can be employed to solve world problems… We cannot ignore the principle behind the existence of the class struggle and the political power of the proletariat to take on the proletariat. We have seen that, since the workers are the main enemies of the workers in the society they are fighting for, we must also fight alongside the workers against their enemies. The class struggle we are fighting for has the same foundation as that of a simple, revolutionary revolutionary movement, no matter how narrow, if the proletariat wins by doing the opposite.
The socialist political development model, that has been adopted in socialist countries, always shows how great an influence that people have exercised over all their ideas. It was Marx and Engels who first tried to formulate the concept of communism and socialist political socialism and by extension socialism and capitalism. The question of how socialism is to be developed on our planet is based on this fundamental question.”
In this essay, we take a look at the history of the Communist Manifesto and examine how it changed history.
From The Marxism of Karl Marx – The First 1876 Manifesto
Karl Friedrich Engels
“In every political system of the world a group of people, which are collectively called the proletariat, make policy for the state. They form a party and divide it among themselves, forming the revolutionary party based upon these principles….
The revolutionary party is founded on the principles expressed by our Party.”
— The Communist Manifesto, 1, 12:
“…the Party of the whole people that shall have power of the people, shall have influence within the Party. They shall have control over their own Government and in accordance with its Laws, take over the state; they shall take responsibility… they shall establish a Democratic Central Committee that they shall be elected by the people and by
True communism depends on human nature being completely altruistic. For communism to work, members of society either need to be altruistic enough to want to work for the benefit of their neighbors, or they need to be forward thinking enough to see that what benefits the whole will, in turn, benefits themselves. Members of society must be far-sighted enough to be able to comprehend large-scale social benefits, which tend to be more abstract in nature and more difficult to recognize. In contrast, capitalism allows for an individual to obtain a paycheck, buy a material good and have a tangible object that can directly relate to the individual’s effort. If human nature is basically egoistic, then true communism will not work. People are inherently selfish and therefore, working for the common good will be a lesser priority as opposed to the tendency to freeload or otherwise take advantage of the system. There it becomes apparent the inherent flaw in the communist model. All communist economies eventually flounder because of lack of monetary incentives. Communists reduced the lowest levels of poverty, but could not advance the general material welfare. Internal violence was reduced, but not necessarily international violence. Thus, communist economies all over the globe, from small utopias (New Harmony, Lanark) to entire nations (Russia, China), have given up on their attempts to establish free societies because equality and incentive are incompatible. Today, all attempts by leftist governments to create classless societies result in merely replacing the bureaucracy while the general population still poor, as demonstrated in nations such as China and North Korea. Distribution of benefits across the entire populous does not promote increased income because of the lack of incentives for the people to work. The lack of incentives under communism will eventually lead to poverty, as it did in Russia, Eastern Europe, China and Cuba.
In contrast, most, if not all of the richer countries have capitalist economies and most are democratic. Capitalism feeds off of the inherent greed and egocentric nature in human beings. Instead of forcing a predetermined limit on production, capitalism encourages the individual to compete amongst neighbors to come out on the top of the economic ladder. In a form of socialistic Darwinism, in a capitalistic society, only the strongest and the wisest survive while the rest simple fade away. This leads to a society that is dominated by progress and competition. However, a truly capitalistic society would follow this