Why not to be a communist?

David Lipka, Ph.D.Anglo-American University

Contents

• Theory and history of socialism / communism?• Practice of socialism• Reasons for failure

• Gabriel Bonnot de Mably (1709 – 1785)• Étienne-Gabriel Morelly• Francois Noel Babeuf (1760 – 1797)• Francois Charles Marie Fourier 1772 – 1837

1) Theory and history of socialismSecular socialism

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• Considered all his predecessors „utopian thinkers“

• Science means silence about the specification of communism

• Elimination of private property

„…the positive transcendence of private property, or human self-estrangement, and therefore the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man... the complete return of man to himself as a social being..."

Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts

Scientific socialism

• People freed from division of labor and exchange

• People freed from necessity of labor

• Superabundance of good

• Elimination of all institutions

Key features

• It is up to mankind to establish communism according to the laws of history.

• Man is generally good but fettered by wrong institutions - revolution will unleash the true potential…

Social dynamics

• Dictatorship of the proletariat:– coercion– enforced egalitarianism– confiscating and destroying wealth– gradual improvement of material conditions

Crude communism

Communism - summary

• Consensus; organic understanding of society• Forgetfulness• Dialectic of restoration and radical innovation• Post-Millenarism• Individuality and property as the cause of suffering

(alienation)

2) Practice of socialismShortage economy

• Forced substitution• Forced savings

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3) Reasons for failure•Problems of central planning:

– Incentives (mobilization of effort)„They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.“

– Knowledge problem of economic calculation• Allocation• Selection

• Without private property in the means of production, there will be no market for the means of production.

• Without a market for a means of production, there will be no monetary prices established for the means of production.

• Without monetary prices, reflecting the relative scarcity of capital goods, economic decision-makers will be unable to rationally calculate the alternative use of capital goods.

Economic calculation

Thank you for your attention

MONDOR'S DAY IN THE SUMMER Time Sleep from 10:30 at night to 3:00 in the morning 3:30 Rising, preparations 4:00 Morning court, review of the night's adventures 4:30 Breakfast, followed by the industrial parade 5:30 Session with the group of hunters 7:00 Session with the group of fishermen 8:00 Lunch, newspapers 9:00 Session with a group of horticulturalists, under a tent10:00 Mass10:30 Session with the group of pheasant breeders11:30 Session at the library 1:00 DINNER 2:30 Session with the greenhouse group 4:00 Session with the group of exotic plant growers 5:00 Session with the fish-tank group 6:00 Snack, in the fields 6:30 Session with the sheep-raising group 8:00 Session at the Exchange [where tasks for the next day are planned and allocated] 9:00 Supper, fifth meal 9:30 Art exhibition, concert, dance, theater, receptions10:30 Bed

„[As soon as the division] of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him… He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.“

Karl Marx, The German Ideology, part I

“man will realize his natural tendency to arrange things according to the laws of beauty”

Economic and Philosophical manuscript (1844)

“The new rate of industrial growth will produce enough goods needed to satisfy all the demands of society... Society will achieve an output sufficient for the needs of all members.”

Engels, Principles of Communism

“Communist man will be enclosed, will develop all the vital elements of contemporary art to the highest point. Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser and subtler; his body will become more harmonised, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above the ridge new peaks will rise.“

Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution

„[c]apitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of negation.“

Karl Marx, Capital

“...a new type of man will arise... a superman... an exalted man.”

Karl Kautsky