After seeing a poll showing that 14% of Americans, and an astonishing 34% of 18-29 year olds, hold favorable views of communism, I felt it necessary to dispel the fantasy that communism could ever work.
Given that the most cited argument for communism is that it has never been “done right,” I will focus on the historical attempts to impose communism in countries around the world and highlight why it simply does not work.
Communist governments are authoritarian. In its ideal state, communism seeks the creation of an egalitarian society where everyone has equal housing, financial status, power, and so on. But there’s one issue with this: it requires the seizure of people’s property. In Stalin’s Soviet Union, forced collectivization and unrealistic grain quotas led to the Holodomor, which, with an estimated 4 million deaths, was the worst famine in Ukrainian history. People who did not comply with quotas or were caught hiding grain were arrested, deported, or even executed.
Next: communist governments cannot run an economy. One of the “highlights” of communism is that the state can supposedly know what to produce in what quantities, and at what prices. But between 1989 and 1993, Cuban GDP fell by 35% due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Why? Because the USSR subsidized Cuba $4.3 billion annually, amounting to around 21% of Cuba’s GDP, which does not include the 80% of Cuban trade all with the Soviet Union. What followed was a significant decrease in food rations, thousands of buses and taxis idle due to the lack of parts, and the disappearance of over 300 medicines, just to name a few. This was exacerbated by the Cuban government’s total control on the market through techniques such as a poor allocation of resources and drastic decreases in supply due to price controls. This is the reason why the only communist countries that even remotely function are heavily subsidized.
This leads me on to my next point: that historical attempts at communism resulted in mass death. Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward led to one of the worst famines in human history, causing an estimated 45 million deaths. Mao imposed policies of forced collectivization, unrealistic grain quotas, and the diversion of labor into unproductive projects such as backyard furnaces. People lost incentives to farm seeing as their crops went straight to the government, and they did not have enough food to survive after the quotas had been paid.
And finally, humans aren’t angels. This point alone explains why communism has not and will not ever work. For communism to function properly, it requires the entire population to accept drastic reforms such as land and wealth redistribution. If even one person does not go along with these measures, the government will become authoritarian when that person seizes power, there will be economic mismanagement, and consequently there will be many deaths. If I had a 4.0 GPA while one of my classmates had a 2.0, would I give him one point to make things even? Of course not. Humans are hardwired to value the things that they worked for, and very few people will willingly give the things that they worked for to someone else.
It’s surprising to see that the support for communism is coming from the same group who reaps the benefits of capitalism. If, however, you as a capitalist consumer are still on board with the idea of communism, that’s wonderful. There are just a few things you need to do.
Do you have a MacBook? Bose headphones? Other high-end electronics? Too bad. You should opt for a simple $300 computer and maybe pass on the headphones instead of indulging in the decadent excesses of capitalism. Do you enjoy dining at fancy sushi restaurants? Well, that’s very inconsiderate of those who cannot afford such expensive food; you should go for a meal of boiled potatoes, cabbage, and some legumes. The single rooms in Genesee Hall are quite nice, right? Wrong. Housing is a necessity, not a luxury. You should forego the bourgeois single rooms and opt for a small proletariat room with four or five other students to maximize space.
Oh, and no decorations. They’re not essential.
