Communism and socialism were both born in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century. I’m aware that the concepts of communal ownership and related practices do predate the Industrial Revolution but as political and economic movements, both are born in the later Industrial Revolution. The distinguishing of property into classes which could or could not be privately owned is a modern invention. You get to own your bed but not the land that the house sits on – modernity is so weird sometimes.
Industrialization gave us the modern world but at a price. It’s easy now to look back and say well, they should have known – but how could they? Industrial manufacturing at such scale had no precedent. Most of human history had industry – even at scale – but even Rome needed more people farming than working in pottery plants (yep, they really did have pottery kilns of industrial scale). This business of having more people working in cities than farming the countryside was something straight out of sci fi, or would have been if Verne had thought about it.
We have similar issues with corporations that our Nineteenth Century brethren did with industrialists – a whole heck of a lot of power in very few hands. Gee, how could that go wrong – oh, sorry about the dripping sarcasm.
Scary times and people trying to figure it all out. Sound familiar?
Clinging to whatever seems secure while trying to make a safe place – yep, the Twenty-First Century has no patent on getting scared and doing stupid stuff. America followed her dream of freedom and liberty, even while still stumbling on her own mistakes. Europe pulled itself to shreds trying to rectify its imperial status with its equality ideals while bickering like insane siblings with much too deadly toys. The rest of the world struggled with the aftermath of European imperialism and decline while struggling to find their own paths out of their own various quagmires.
The Twentieth Century exacerbated the heck out of all of it. Little wonder so many found utopian visions of communal ownership of the means of production and of a all beneficial government that protected its citizens from cradle to grave so very attractive.
Socialism has definitely been tried and tried and tried and in every case found wanting. Humans can’t govern at the micro level. That’s the point of failure. Computers are just really REALLY dumb savants. The average two year old screeching ‘no’ at the top of his lungs has more on the ball than a computer does. If humans can’t do it themselves, they can’t program computers to do it, either. You have to be able to do something to teach it to a computer – or at least to the poor programmer trying to translate wisdom into machine learning.
The market works because it works with human nature. People DO care about others, but they are RESPONSIBLE for themselves. Their own interests will get their attention first. Bob knows he needs to grab a loaf of bread on the way home. Bob would grab two if he knew that his next door neighbor needed one as well but Bob is human and doesn’t come in size omniscient.
Bob and millions like him go through life focused on their needs, desires, hopes, dreams and mortgage payments. The market acts at industrial scale while allowing humans to act at people scale. Communism requires that Bob figure out what EVERYONE in his country will need over the next five years. Will they need more lamps or beds? That has to be decided well in advance and the guess is usually wrong.
Socialism is no improvement. Taking from the rich to give to the poor sounds great – until you’re the rich and you have to give up forty or more percent of your hard earned money so that some kid who never bothered to graduate high school can get an extra check for having another kid. Taking from those who work hard, innovate, create wealth and build businesses to give to the lazy, shiftless and overly entitled really doesn’t have the same ring to it, huh? Why bother to create a new widget if you can’t profit from it? If you can’t get ahead, you stop trying and when enough people stop trying your economy turns to dust.
I’m not saying the problems that socialism and communism tried to address aren’t real – they are. It’s just that neither of those solutions actually work. One has failed every single time at bat and the other is so utopian that no nation-state has managed to create it at scale or even close.
What does all this stuff have to do with the war in Ukraine? Nothing and everything. Directly, the conflict has nothing to do with the clash of economic worldviews but indirectly and ultimately, Ukraine is one of the last gasps of a dying ideology.
The conflict is local but its implications are global. The consequences go far beyond Ukraine’s embattled borders.
Without authoritarianism there can be no socialism. Ask any European nation that you think is socialist and they will tell you in no uncertain terms that they aren’t. Socialistic isn’t socialist. Whether or not it’s wise we’ll leave to another day but the point stands. Authoritarianism and socialism are joined at the hip. You can’t have one without the other.
Russia isn’t the last bastion of socialism but it is the poster child for authoritarianism. Russia is very much fighting for its way of governance. Russia – the nation-state, not necessarily the Russians – wants a world safe for the authoritarian way. Ukraine was supposed to be a stepping stone on the way to creating that new world. Fortunately for us, Russia tripped.
But down is not out. If Russia wins, the repercussions will last generations. Nor will this conflict be the end. Russia will rest and recoup and be right back at it. They are either stopped now or a very nasty version of the Cold War 2.0 will begin and it won’t be cold for very long.
This stupid war in a backwater of Europe is the first splash of the last flailing of a dying set of systems that some very powerful nation-states do not want to let die. What happens in Ukraine will definitely not stay in Ukraine.
The future is at stake.
