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Why Did Communism Fail?
This answer to “why did Communism fail?” was given by Radu Nachita, who had an inside view. He writes about his childhood in communist Romania in an article on FEE.org [emphasis mine]:
Centrally planned and state-owned economies did not collapse in 1989 when the Berlin Wall was finally “torn down.” Actually, the failure of this economic system started in 1961 when the wall was built by the communist regimes to trap their own populations inside the “workers’ paradise.” The failure was already obvious in the eyes of people who endured it—far earlier than was acknowledged by Western academics or public opinion.
Communist regimes didn’t collapse solely because of general shortages of basic goods: Mankind has been confronted by that for millennia. People did not rise up against them just because of their oppressive policies: violence and abuse from political power have been the historical norm, and the rule of law is a very recent and rare exception.
Communism failed because comparisons with realistic alternatives were possible. Shortwave radios, satellite dishes, and videotapes were more successful than nuclear weapons. Communist regimes failed because their failure became obvious even to the privileged class.
Read the whole thing.
Published in General
A: True Communism has never been achieved. </sarc>
AOC will make it the right way,not to worry.
I return once again to Victor Serge (1890-1947). This time a few potentially relevant passages from his “fiction” ala The Case of Comrade Tulayev:
and
It failed because that is all that it could do.
(See also this philo favorite.)
I cannot resist one more from the forward (by Adam Hochschild) of Serge’s Memoirs of a Revolutionary:
The ignorant get what they deserve.
Well maybe it hasn’t. Look at our kids and the Democratic Party. Socialism and centralized systems of all sorts fail at delivering rich lives, abundance, and creativity but centralized systems of one kind or another sound cool to dumb kids, many others who don’t do as well with freedom and those who manipulate them to bend flows of power and wealth into their own pockets. These have dominated history and even today the world. Freedom is apparently unnatural, not because people don’t appreciate it, they do, but because some very successful folks gather more power and advance their interests, fashion coalitions that erode freedom, eventually killing it because that eventually becomes the only way to keep what they have. Freedom requires understanding and effort and must spread broadly even to other nations and most importantly be important to the elite. We had it right for quite some time, the first big country to do so because we believed in it across the board even when most acted differently if the opportunity arrived. In short it must be well designed and defended by the population and most important by the elite or it accumulates at the center then dies.
Victor Davis Hanson said: Communism didn’t work because it is contrary to Human Nature.
I have said for years that the Soviet Union and other communist regimes were brought down by Information. They could keep the consumer goods from their people, but they couldn’t keep the knowledge of how the “other half of the world” lives from them. Borders being porous, knowledge gets in.
As if the people got to decide. (Heck, they’d been listening to jazz for decades.)
What I believe actually happened was that, in both China and Russia, a significant part of the nomenklatura, especially the military, came to understand that, to be a first-rate military/world power, a country needed a first-rate military-industrial complex, and that meant a capitalist military-industrial complex. You will note that in both countries the movement toward democracy and civil liberties came to approximately nothing.
Yes the rigid total control systems can’t survive but the Chinese/ Nazi kind can do quite well. Imagine if Hitler hadn’t gone to war with us. They all, including China may eventually re centralize like Venezuela, and gradually die. But centrally controlled markets, I’d include Feudalism have always been dominant. Athens was unique but tiny and Rome benefited from it’s relative market basis, but it centralized rotted then died. We were a unique thing and have been drifting away from a free decentralized system for almost a century so we don’t know where that ends or whether it can fix itself. But if we look at history we should know that we must return to a decentralized market economy or we will go the way the rest of history has gone. How we do that in this age is not obvious.
Even an entertaining farce has to end sometime.
You are contradicting the claim of Nachita, an eye witness, but you give no argument against it. If you’ve forgotten what he said, would you re-read it, and then write again?
Your Comments and linked article are moving, thanks. I had never read your 2016 piece before. It seems few did. I don’t know why.
I understand that logic but it may not be true. Some social scientists believe that most humans have a desire for security that exceeds their desire for freedom. Throughout most of human history, freedom has been very elusive. The reason for this is because most serfs were more happy being serfs than being land owners. Most slaves stayed on the plantations after slavery was abolished. Those of us who place greater value in liberty are in the minority. That minority went to great lengths to build the American ideal. However, generations of native born “Americans” have been brought into this world with the same genetics as every other culture and that American ideal has been eroded by their human nature.
Sure, those who are driven by liberty will always create and build in ways that inspire even those who are serfs and slaves. But they are serfs and slaves. Even as they enjoy the fruits of the liberty of others, they will resent them for those fruits and resent them for demanding labor in payment. Every human is a communist as a child. Not all mature out of it.
I’m not sure you read the quote carefully. It says “…were brought down“. It is referring to a historical fact about a regime that was brought down, not a speculation about what might happen.
I wasn’t referring to the quote from Hanson but to your statement that human nature favors us. I’m starting to wonder if human nature might be against us?
Thanks for clarifying it, Ryan.
If you consider China a communist regime then it is hard to say communism has failed everywhere.
Quite right…they’ve achieved amazing success over the past 30-odd years. And so-called “conservatives” (e.g. Rush Limbaugh) are often the first to throw around lazy and dismissive terms such as “Communist China” and “ChiComs” as if China were simply some re-incarnation of the old Soviet Union. The “right wing” view of economics is so narrow, ignorant and unimaginative, I’m embarrassed to admit that I once subscribed to such an idiotic philosophy.
Communism failed because it rejects mankind’s natural desire to achieve and to conquer–to succeed. It is in our nature to be free. Communism, in its essence, is oppressive.
Communism (Soviet-style) might have lasted longer if the Russian people had been allowed to continue to worship. The history of the Middle Ages shows that people living under the yoke of feudalism (which was not so far removed from latter-day Communism) could achieve extraordinary feats of religious architecture because their faith was the only inspiration left to them.
Mark,
First, let’s assume that Hayek is correct with his basic idea that since there is no free market pricing in a communist state it can’t work. We would see an almost immediate collapse of the economy when the Marxists took over. This would be followed by near starvation and full-scale repression of the population by a government that doesn’t believe in rights. This has happened every time a Marxist state has come into existence so there is good reason to believe that Hayek is right.
However, there is an out that could still keep a Marxist regime alive. Since only one country is Marxist they could obtain market price information from other capitalist countries. They could also obtain information on new innovational products from other capitalist countries. By relentlessly claiming that the external capitalist countries were horrible places to live and keeping all real information from their own people they could maintain the terrified population in a state of constant fear. Eventually, information leaked into the Marxist state that showed that their economy was a hopeless fraud and in comparison, the people in the capitalist states were living richer freer lives. Then the discontent would finally force the Marxist state to collapse.
Yet, there is still another possibility that could keep a Marxist state alive. What if capitalists actually conspired with the communists to transfer technology and market pricing to the Marxist state. They used this to create a synthetic economy all according to State plan. Such a giant Frankensteinian economy would look very promising until the inherent contradictions started to slow it down.
..hmmmm..a real estate bubble that makes the USA bubble of 2007-2009 look microscopic..contradictions galore.
Regards,
Jim
Just fixed an inexplicable typo in my post. It referred to Radu as “she”. He’s not. Sorry, Radu.
Radu didn’t say it explicitly, but he was speaking only of the failure of the communist experiment that he personally experienced.
Thanks for the clarification.
Either you’re welcome or touché.
Ah ha! Finally some out-of-the box thinking! The question in my mind is who will fail first? China or America? “He who fails last wins!” (Although, I should say that I don’t think China is a fundamentally Marxist or communist state…totalitarian, certainly.)
But Ole Summers did…and that really made my day. And now I really appreciate that you took the time to do so also. Thanks.
Prince,
Don’t be fooled by all that pseudo-capitalism. They are still a one-party state. Everyone in the government undergoes Marxist indoctrination. Your other question about who fails first is a good one. I suggest you take a good look at the video again. They have 6-700 million people that could use the housing but the 6-700 million each have 1/100th of the income that they would need to pay the mortgage.
We were clogged up like crazy with overbuilding here in South Florida in 2009. It took until 2011 to clear the inventory out. Fed policy, schmed policy, somebody has to pay the mortgage or pay the rent that pays the mortgage. In 2009 there wasn’t anybody left to do it. They might have noticed this occurring in 2005 and pulled back on the reins a little. Nobody could give up their get rich quick real estate fantasy and the Fed was asleep at the wheel. You’re right that we’ve got problems too. However, our problems were nothing compared to what the Chinese are facing right now. People from all over the country had the desire & the money to move to South Florida. People from all over the world had the desire & the money to move to South Florida. It still took a while but it worked out. Who is going to move to a city in the middle of China run by a Marxist totalitarian regime? The Chinese have run out of people who have anything close to the income and I don’t think people around the world are thinking about the middle of China as a “destination”. They just put 2 million Uyghurs into concentration camps. Doesn’t look good on the brochure.
Regards,
Jim