To start off I want to say that, I am not a necessarily a communist but it just annoys me how ignorant people can be towards the political philosophy of communism. First off the massive negative media in the cold war has made people think all over North America that communism is the reincarnation of the devil. This truly annoys me and I want to write about the true political philosophy of communism.
First off, what triggered me is that in one of my university classes someone said the cold war was a battle between democratic society and communism. This is wrong because communism is considered a democratic society as well. It was in fact a battle between 2 different political ideologies which one was communism and the other one was capitalism. The thing that even more angered me is the teacher did not correct him when he said this.
Why people might not think communism is democratic?
Well is quite simple, the communistic societies which have existed in the past century did not provide a very democratic atmosphere. This does not mean that the political ideology which is communism is non-democratic. Furthermore, the USSR considered themselves communistic but in reality they were a totalitarian government which the powerful had all the benefits. This of course is not what true communism is, and although I know that true capitalism or communism can’t really exist, I believe the USSR wasn’t even close to a communistic society.
What did Karl Marx really want?
Well when Russia first became communistic, the president at the time (Lenin) misunderstood when a society can really become communistic. Karl Marx himself said that communism can only be achieved when the population of the country has enough human capital. The Russian president at the time thought Russia was at that point, since they entered an industrial era. He overestimated the knowledge of his people, which corrupted the whole country. Therefore, Karl Marx basically advocated for capitalism before a country can become communistic, since capitalism will bring enough human capital to the society. This is what I want people to understand, since in North America when you talk about communism you get shutdown right away which is truly sad.
The basic ideology of communism :
One thing I find interesting in business we learn that money is not a motivator for better productivity and performance. Money is just something we expect and although it has short term benefits, it is not a long term motivator. This is to say that communism is the increase productivity by doing what each person truly desires and not for monetary incentives but rather a different form of incentives. In later posts I will talk more about this since it is of great interest to talk about a communistic society for me, with regards to movie away from monetary incentives.
Can communism ever exist?
I guess only time will tell, but I believe it will one day, or even a different form of communism which has the same basic principles. The capitalistic society was good for this time era and I have nothing against it, it has many positive effects such as the expansion of human capital. The downfall is all the greed associated with capitalism it is bringing the whole world down.
I think we have also seen communistic principles in the creation of open software. Like these people aren’t doing it for money, they are truly doing it because they want to. Also all the information shared on the web is again not for monetary incentives (although I know it can have marketing benefits) , most people don’t do blogs or YouTube videos only for the money. They do it cause they want to. (Note: This can also be seen as socialistic but I think socialism is closer to communism then capitalism)
This all to say that I just think people should better educate themselves in what communism truly is, and don’t even take my word for it. Go research yourself without having a biased opinion to better understand the other side. Especially since this is basically just thoughts in my mind which I didn’t source!
~ Signed the anonymous Herb Smoker
