Communism and Capitalism Compared
Capitalism Was a True Model While Communism Remains a Theory
Dec 27, 2008
A comparison of Communism and Capitalism in a general sense may be contrary to the examples of history. No Communist state that has existed or still exists can claim to be the product of Karl Marx’s model of revolution and theoretical sequence of events. None can claim a dictatorship of the proletariat and all are hybrids of their own cultural, social, and historical experiences. Lenin fashioned a Soviet style “Communism” very different from Mao in China or Castro in Cuba. Capitalism, however, did emerge as a true model of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and provided prosperity as a result. Regardless of the birth pangs of a Capitalist system, the desired result occurred.
Karl Marx and Socialism
The Communist Manifesto calls upon “workers of the world to unite.” The goal, of course, was a people’s paradise, something J.J. Rousseau might have agreed with. Rousseau was a chief inspiration for the French Revolution which led to many variations of Utopian socialism, a “society of equals,” per Gracchus Babeuf. Maximilien Robespierre once said, “We are raising the temple of freedom with hands still shackled by the chains of servitude.” Rousseau and Voltaire, among others, provided the first inkling of attack against a society in which “all men are born free” but live in chains.
Marx, writing the Communist Manifesto in 1848, was the intellectual heir of decades of philosophic tinkering with Utopian socialism models, some benign and others violent like Mikhail Bakunin’s Anarchism. Yet it was Marx and his writings, such as Das Kapital, that galvanized future radicals and revolutionaries. It took the deteriorating social and political climate of World War One Europe to topple old orders and replace them with various forms of socialist experiments.
Capitalism and Laissez Faire
Although the idea of Capitalism is associated with English political economists, it has been traced to earlier periods by scholars. [1] Adam Smith is generally viewed as the greatest disseminator of the system with his 1776 Wealth of Nations. The attack on mercantilism and the advocacy of an economic system that promotes individual self-interest without government interference produced great wealth that, according to Smith, ultimately led to the collective good. (the so-called "invisible hand" theory)
During the Gilded Age in America, Andrew Carnegie, viewed as a robber baron by some and a successful captain of industry by others, referred to the collective good as a type of trickle-down effect. As David Landes demonstrated [2], the Industrial Revolution, despite all of the evils associated with the exploitation of workers, led to widespread prosperity in Western Europe and the United States.
Unlike the experiments of Communism, none of which ever fully exhibited Marx’s formula, Capitalism was not hybrid and did follow Smith’s model to the letter. The fact that free market legislatures would ultimately curb or “tame” Capitalism (as Teddy Roosevelt referred to it) did not detract from the fact that the system itself worked. Marx himself eventually admitted that Parliaments and Congresses might obviate the need for a violent possession of industry by the workers, a factor in later Fabian Socialist thinking.
Endurance of the Systems
Perhaps because Marx’s system was Utopian, no Communist system has endured. Those nations still adhering to a notion of Communism have had to adapt their systems to accommodate the globalism of Capitalist trends in worldwide economic patterns. And while some states like North Korea still cling to archaic systems, they must eventually face the prospect of joining a world community that utilizes Capitalist principles, or implode politically.
Sources
[1] Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (New York: Random House, 2005)
[2] David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) See also The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are so Rich and Some so Poor (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998)
David MacKenzie, Violent Solutions: Revolutions, Nationalism, and Secret Societies in Europe to 1918 (New York: University Press of America, Inc., 1996)
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