If communism and capitalism were in a blind taste test, which one would win?
Today we will discuss how capitalism did not beat communism.
I know some of you are probably thinking, "Aha! Finally, Dr. Wes is going to admit what a raging commie red leftist we always knew he was!"
Actually, I have never been much of a commie red, I've always been more of a Norman Thomas (Google it) kind of socialist pinko, but never mind that. The thing I want to talk about is that capitalism didn't kill communism, communism -- the way it was being practiced -- killed itself.
This is not something new. It's not something I just figured out or that I alone figured out. It's just plain common sense.
First, you have an "ism" that's supposed to be all for democracy. They even called communism a "democracy of the proletariat." But the democratic process was supposed to come later, after they were done eradicating the reactionaries.
I think I had my epiphany about that when talking to one of my many Maoist friends in college in 1973. All my friends were Maoists, physicists, Hindus or just plain crazy. This one was both a Maoist and a physicist, but he wasn't Hindu, he was Buddhist. Go figure. He was from one of those tiny little countries most Americans can't find on a map but that actually have more people living there, because they wedge them in so tight. He would never spell his name out for me, so I'll call him BS.
BS, understandably, wanted his country to be communist. When your people's average annual income is a controlling share in a flood, and the highest paying job is taking bribes for exit visas, communism looks pretty good. BS came from a family so poor they couldn't afford a last name for him or even a proper spelling for his first name.
So BS read Mao's Little Red Book and studied up all the theory, so he could go back home and help overthrow the dictatorship of the oligarchy and replace it with the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat. He learned how to shout, "Smash the state" convincingly.
I asked exactly when would the democracy part kick in. BS said first the revolutionaries would have to eradicate the reactionaries.
"What? So the reactionaries never get a vote? What kind of democracy is that?"
I saw the exclusion of reactionaries to be a central flaw in the system, similar to not letting ethnic minorities vote in a red state, just because you think they might vote the wrong way.
The other thing that's wrong with communism is the micromanaging. Here's where communism really fell down. You can only control so much before you're spending more resources controlling than you're gaining.
An example of communism in action just cropped up in Florida. The communist government of Florida passed a law that, starting last July, required welfare recipients to be tested for drugs. Welfare recipients actually had to pay up front for the tests themselves. They were reimbursed only if they passed. The idea was, Florida would find out all the drug users and save thousands of dollars by purging them from the welfare system.
A federal judge put the program on hold in October. We now know that the entire cost of the administration of the program was a loss. That's in part because just the drug test fees returned to people who passed the tests was more than the money that was saved not giving welfare to the small percentage who failed.
Here's the difference between Florida communism and Soviet communism: In Florida communism you have to submit to a drug test to buy bread. In Soviet communism, you have to submit to a drug test to buy bread, and there's only one kind of bread. That's the only difference that capitalism adds, and it isn't going to be enough to avert a Soviet-like collapse, if every state in the country becomes as red as Florida.
America doesn't need a capitalist flavor of communism. We've already got pumpernickel.