Why Socialism isn’t Such a Good Idea

Rohit Ullal
Sep 9, 2018 · 16 min read

What is socialism? To put it in a few words, socialism is a political, social, and economic theory that posits, ‘all means of production should be owned collectively’. It advocates the end of all distinctions between citizens on the basis of money or social classes. So what is the difference between socialism and communism?

If we get down to brass tacks, socialism is basically an economic system. Communism is both an economic and political system. In fact, communism is a ‘stripped and more pragmatic’ form of socialism, which puts its faith in the Machiavellian dictum of ‘the end justifying the means’.

According to communism, the ideal society can’t be ushered in until the existing system is uprooted, lock, stock, and barrel, even by violent means if necessary. Indeed, democracy or a ‘democratic’ form of government is alien to communism. You will be surprised to learn, the first democratically elected communist government in the world came to power in Kerala, India on 5th April 1957, under E.M.S Namboodiripad, the doyen of Indian communism.

Socialism’s moorings in Karl Marx’s ideas

If socialism and communism are fashionable today, we must thank Karl Marx, though he wasn’t the first to speak of it. He was influenced by Hegel’s idea of ‘idealistic materialism’ (the idea precedes the act). He also borrowed from the idea of the ‘dialectic’, which says, in the beginning, there is an idea (called thesis). Then there is a negation of that idea (anti-thesis), leading to the birth of a new idea (synthesis).

Marx combined these two ideas and created ‘dialectic materialism’. Here, ‘matter’ is no more dependent on ‘ideas’. Rather, material circumstances lead to ideas.

Socialism became a force in the 21st century, after the birth of the Soviet Union in 1922. Now the socialists had a laboratory to test their ideas, which hitherto were just dry theories. Ironically, the Soviets called themselves ‘socialists’ but they were really ‘communists’ because they used violence freely to achieve their ends.

Since the Soviet Union was committed to spreading socialist ideas and communism around the world, they began to support like-minded regimes in countries, ranging from Cuba to Afghanistan. Consequently, ‘socialism’ was no longer a bad word. It also began to receive ideological and political support from political parties everywhere, like the Indian National Congress and the Communist Party of India.

Many of India’s founding fathers were socialists, like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who was a self proclaimed socialist. In fact, when Nehru became the Congress president in 1929, he said, “I must frankly confess I’m a socialist and a republican…I don’t believe in kings and princes, or the order which produces the modern kings of industry, who possess great power over the lives and fortunes of men than even the kings of old, and whose methods are as predatory as those of the old feudal aristocracy..’

Is socialism really life-changing?

Socialism makes a lot of claims but the ground realities tell a different story. As Thomas Sowell says, “The idea of socialism sounds good but in reality, it doesn’t work”. And you don’t have to be an intellectual to understand this. You just need your eyes. If you look around you, you will notice that the world is littered with the corpses of former ‘socialist’ countries, like the old Soviet Union, Romania, Bulgaria, Cuba, Maoist China, Cambodia, Vietnam, or more recently, Venezuela.

In all these countries, the governments were/are noted for their ruthlessness in dealing with their citizens, lack of freedom, and sub-par standards of living. As Winston Churchill said in the House of Commons on 22nd October 1945, “The inherent vice of capitalism is, the blessings are unequally shared. The inherent vice of socialism is, the miseries are equally shared”.

Some political commentators have even socialism to a ‘death cult’. For instance, even the staunchest socialist can’t dispute the fact that many murderous regimes have used the words ‘socialist’ and ‘democratic’ in their name. It is not a coincidence, the full name of the Nazi party was ‘National Socialist German Workers’ Party’.

Socialism is often followed by death and destruction

Here are some facts. Official Soviet records say the Soviet ‘socialists’ executed close to 800,000 people. An additional 1.7 million people died in Gulags or forced labor camps. Nearly 390,000 were killed through forced resettlement.[1] Incidentally, the first concentration camp came up under the ‘helmsmanship’ of Vladimir Lenin. Do you know, the Nazis got the idea of putting people into concentration camps from the Soviets?

On March 13th, 1921, Hitler wrote, “If necessary, the Jews should be prevented from undermining the German people, by putting them into concentration camps”. Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the Nazi concentration camps, was aware that the Soviets dealt with their dissenters and ‘trouble-makers’ by throwing them into concentration camps and he copied them when the Nazis seized power.[2]

And this is only the killings. Who can account for the millions killed by famines in the ‘socialist’ countries? The Soviet Union saw great famines during 1921–22, 1932–33, and 1946–47, which starved millions of Soviet citizens to death.

China also faced crippling famines between 1958 and 1962. A Chinese journalist, Yash Jishing records that famines killed an estimated 36 million people in China during this period.[3] Most of these famines were caused by human errors. It is as Anatoly Rybakov says in his novel, Children of the Arbat — “Death solves all problems; no people, no problem.”

So, it wouldn’t be wrong to say, ‘true blood’ socialists and communists have little or no concern for human life. When Nehru met a famous Chinese communist in 1954 and they began to discuss the atom bomb, the latter told Nehru, he was not afraid of the atom bomb. He even compared the bomb to a ‘paper tiger’. He said, ‘the death of 10 or 20 million Chinese people (from an atom bomb) is nothing to be afraid of!’

How does democracy measure up against socialism?

During the same time, famines were more or less absent in democratic countries. There has never been a famine in the U.S (the ‘Dust Bowl’ of the 1930s wasn’t a famine, though people did die of hunger). Even Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate from India and a vociferous advocate of welfare (socialist) economics admits, “No substantial famines have ever occurred in a democratic country — no matter how poor it is.’ He also says, “It is hard to imagine anything like that (famine) happening in a country that has regular elections and possesses an independent press” [4].

Socialism at its worst, turns into communism, the final nail in the coffin. How does this happen? A new socialist (or communist) is like a new convert. Confident and eager in his beliefs, he tries to put his ideas into action but receives no support from his peers. But he does manage to collect a few ‘followers’.

Eventually, the group realizes the only way to push for this change is by capturing state power, even if it necessitates the use of violence. If you have any doubt, ask the Maoists fighting India’s armed forces in the jungles of Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, and Telangana.

As an economic phenomenon, socialism is a clear failure. Thanks to its all-consuming nature, the socialist state can’t produce anything in surplus. The socialist also notices that the pie isn’t growing quickly enough. But he still wants to distribute the pie equally to everyone (remember the old socialist dictum ‘from each according to his ability and from each according to his need’).

So, the portions end up being very small and no one gets enough. He doesn’t realize (or doesn’t want to, rather), if the pie was larger in the first place, there will be no need to fight over it.

A socialist economy is basically an economy of scarcity

Socialism suffers from xenophobia, with the additional disability of possessing a quixotic (grand but unsustainable) opinion about itself. It tries to overcome this disability by becoming self-sufficient in all respects, while at the same time putting on a show of grandiosity. Did you know, the Soviet Union eventually went bankrupt trying to catch up with the U.S in the arms and space race.

Finally, someone like Mikhail Gorbachev had to come in, to show them the mirror. Looking at the morass the Soviets had dug themselves into, he was forced to launch ‘perestroika’ (restructuring) and ‘glasnost’ (openness) (more out of necessity, than anything else), which actually had the opposite effect of opening the socialists’ eyes to the myriad problems festering in the Soviet economy. After that initial shock, the fate of the Soviet Union was sealed and it didn’t take long for the USSR to break up.

Socialism leads to slow and creeping disaffection

Disaffection is very common in socialist economies, though it is not openly expressed. It’s natural that when people begin to feel deprivation, they ask questions of their government. Sometimes, the questioning mutates into open rebellion and the state has no choice but to seize more power to silence its critics and dissenters.

If the socialists or communists happen to be in power during such a time, they react in a simple way. They clamp down with an iron hand. It is best illustrated by Joseph Stalin, who told Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, the second Indian ambassador to USSR, “The peasant is a simple man but quite wise. When a wolf attacks his sheep, he doesn’t try to teach it morals but attempts to kill it. The wolf also knows this and behaves accordingly.”

But who can blame them? It is in the nature of the socialist state to grab money and assets from people who have it and redistribute it to those who don’t possess it. Soon, there is nothing more to take because those who could give, have been pauperized. But the state must continue to give. Soon the state’s coffers run dry and those who had become dependent on the mammaries of the state begin to worry about their fate.

The socialists don’t acknowledge their weaknesses

Meanwhile, the socialists don’t want to acknowledge there are ‘rich’ socialists too (the term, ‘rich socialist’ is an oxymoron because ideally, a socialist shouldn’t be making money!) This hypocrisy is expertly brought out by George Orwell in his book, Animal Farm, where he says, ‘All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others’.

It is necessary to point out the tragic fate of any country that adopts that hellish version of socialism - communism. Until recently, visitors to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Cambodia were greeted by a mountain of skulls, harvested from the unlucky victims of the Pol Pot regime. The regime was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people between 1975 and 1979, almost a quarter of that country’s population during that time. No wonder, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar said, “Communism is like a forest fire that burns and consumes everything it comes across.”

This fine distinction (between what socialism preaches and what it actually does), it also explained by Saki in his short story, The Byzantine Omlet — “Sophie Chattel-Monkheim was a socialist by conviction and a Chattel-Monkheim by marriage….Sophie had very advanced and decided views as to the distribution of money; it was a pleasing and fortunate circumstance that she also had the money”.

Socialism and its tendency to self-destruct

The communists’ distaste for their past and the insatiable appetite to create a new history, also leads them to reject the great histories of their countries. For example, during the Cultural Revolution in China between 1966 and 1976, the Chinese communists trampled over their country’s ancient cultural heritage and destroyed millions of cultural artifacts, including architecture, classical literature, paintings and other types of art.

It was a deliberate attempt to the assassinate the character of their society, in the mistaken belief that doing so was necessary to birth a new society from the ashes of the old. In one incident from 1966, 200 University students from the Beijing Normal University traveled by train to the 2000-year old Shandong Confucius temple. When they reached the temple, they ransacked it and destroyed more than 6,000 cultural artifacts. Today, the same temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The erosion of culture and history can also be seen in the old Soviet Republics. A traveler going through the old Soviet Republics won’t fail to notice, the sameness of the culture that pervades the 15 odd ‘republics’, which were once part of the USSR. This ‘sameness’ covers social behaviors, architectural traits and cultural codes — the devastating result of imposing communism on hitherto vibrant societies. It has changed the very character of these countries, perhaps forever.

The root cause of all the problems of the socialists

The fundamental problem of the socialists is they won’t accept there can’t be equality in ability. There can only be equality in opportunity. Since socialism carries this baggage, socialism also possesses the unique ability to reduce any country to poverty and debt.

Rest assured, the socialists and communists have their fair share of detractors. Today, neo-communists in India quote Dr. Ambedkar at every turn. But they should remember what Babasaheb said, “I’m an avowed enemy of the communists. A government for the people but not chosen by the people will surely educate some into masters and others into servants”. He had a particular dislike for socialists who quoted Marx and Engels everywhere, even as he forcefully argued for the adoption of new ideas and new approaches.

To quote him, ‘An ideology shouldn’t be laid down on the stroke of a pen…Society must experiment’. On Marx and Marxism, he said, “Marx’s ideology would appeal to the lower order…Socialism is a direction and not a dogma…Marxism espouses economic determinism. It has no grasp of liberal democracy and no understanding of the plane of ideologies. Moral values need not be historically conditioned.’ In short, state policy i.e how the state should be organized in economic and social matters must be decided by the people over time, and according to circumstance.

Giving socialism credit where it is due

No one can deny, socialism has ushered in some positive changes in the world too. Many former socialist countries used to be seeped in sectarian differences and witnessed widespread social equality before socialism came in. When these states embraced socialism, like India, that degeneration was stemmed. Socialism has also done away with class distinctions in these countries, to a large extent.

Socialists take credit for bringing in the 8-hour work day and food security. They are also quick to point out that during great recessions, it is the state which bails out ailing companies, with handouts and subsidies. So, socialism is more popular than you think. Today, most countries have adopted some aspects of socialism, whether in the form of social security, free or subsidized rations, education, or healthcare.

Some countries, like India, have gone a step further and have enshrined socialist ideas in their constitution (directive principles of state policy). But it doesn’t change that fact that socialism is Keynesian politics at its worst.

What effect do socialist theories have on a country’s economy?

Will such activity leave any repercussions on the economy in the long term? To explain this, we can quote Keynes again- ‘In the long term, it won’t matter, because we’ll all be dead!’ So socialism is a temporary fix to a long-term problem. Wasn’t it emperor Louis the Fifteen of France who said, ‘Après moi, le déluge’ (‘after me, the deluge!).

It wouldn’t be too much to say, the socialists have no understanding of what is a sound economic theory. It is a fact that, many of the countries that still cling on to socialism are suffering from hyperinflation. Take the case of Venezuela. It has the largest oil reserves in the world. But as of July 2018, Venezuela was suffering from a galloping inflation of a staggering 40,000 %![5]

Social trust in Venezuela has reached a nadir and only those with the right contacts can obtain anything from the state. As the saying goes, ‘For my friends, anything. For my enemies, the law’. People have been seen wheeling the local currency, the Bolivar, in carts to buy a single loaf of bread. Serpentine queues are common, even for essential commodities. The situation is so bad, some people are being forced to rummage through garbage to collect leftover food and clothes.

Recently, some of these disenchanted people even tried to assassinate Nicolás Maduro, the incumbent Venezuelan President, with an explosive-laden drone, when he was in Caracas, delivering a speech at a military event!

Socialism has also irreversibly damaged the work ethic of many countries

The economic stagnation in many socialist countries is reinforced by Marx’s idea of ‘alienation’ (in a capitalist economy, the worker tends to become alienated from his work. He claims that over time, the worker no longer finds it fulfilling and is eventually reduced to another cog in the machine. The socialists actually believe that the capitalist ‘skims the cream’ from the business, giving the real producer only a fraction of the benefits.

This paradox (biting the hand that feeds you) occurs because Marx saw the world’s resources as finite. He said the struggle over it would eventually lead to clashes between workers and capitalists, leading to workers finally uniting and overthrowing the state. But that didn’t happen. Technology leads to some job loss but it also creates more resources, making people better off.

But the idea has sustained

In fact, the idea that ‘capitalists are thieves’ who loot from the people, has become almost impossible to vanquish. So the Marxist thinks, ‘why should I work more if I am to get only a small percentage of the fruit? He works only as much as he is paid for, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy, that reinforces his inadequacy. One has only to look at the work ethic of a typical government official in India to know this is true. The government official is secure in the knowledge that he has a permanent job. So he puts in only a fraction of what he is capable of producing.

It is true that many western societies have declared themselves to be ‘socialist’ in orientation, like the Scandinavian countries. But don’t forget these countries have a small population. So they can ‘afford’ socialism. Moreover, some of them (Norway, for instance), have a sovereign-wealth fund, put together from vast petroleum reserves. Incidentally, in 2018, the Norway sovereign wealth fund brought in a staggering return of $131 billion dollars.[6]

Some people will accuse me of fear-mongering about socialism and communism. They might even accuse me of pulling a Joe McCarthy (U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy infamously ran a vicious campaign against socialists and communists between 1950–1954, leading to the arrest and conviction of many people, leading to the origin of the term, McCarthyism, which refers to a campaign that relies on unfair allegations.) But it is not true. I’m only against socialism in as much as it seeks to control people’s lives by telling them what is good for them.

Do you really have to work? Why doesn’t the government take care of you?

One of the ideas doing the rounds in socialist circles is that in a welfare economy, people shouldn’t be expected to work. Working for money is a form of ‘exploitation’. But can work ever be a source of indignity? Alexander the Great, noticing that his generals were sinking into sloth and luxury after the conquest of Persia said, ‘it is most slavish to luxuriate and most royal to labor’.

Other forms of anti-work rhetoric include a demand for a ‘universal basic income’. The argument is, it is unfair that some people earn less than others, even when the ‘other’ happens to be more qualified and competent. To overcome this, the government should pay everyone a basic income so these ‘poor’ people can keep up with their upper-class brethren. But how can you pay equally for unequal work?

It is true that the welfare state has lifted millions out of poverty but it also created a permanent underclass of citizens, who have been dependent on the state for generations, with no hope in sight for their emancipation. This dependence on ‘welfare’ is a new type of poverty.

Moreover, no one seems to realize, socialism also leads to stagnation in government and corruption because there is no one to raise the important questions. They fear, if they do so, their privileges will be snatched away. So they keep quiet.

There are no free lunches anywhere. The moral is, when you take things from the government, you become indebted to it, notwithstanding the furious claims of the government to say otherwise. You lose your freedom to question or rather you give it up yourself. Then the government can do anything with you. Take a look at some places in the Middle East, where they are still cutting off people’s heads with a sword. This is happening in the 21st century. Take it too far and it takes the form of the socialism seen in North Korea (Juche), whose leader is considered to be God incarnate by his people.

So what do we do now?

Vladimir Lenin once asked, “what is to be done?” So, we have to ask ourselves, what is to be done. The problem is, policy-makers don’t have a clear answer to how to move people from poverty to work. In fact, most of them have resigned to the notion, ‘this is how it is and nothing can change’. But we have to start somewhere. Let’s begin with the ideology.

With all due respect, socialism comes across as anti-republic and anti-brain. As some people have suggested, we must replace this dank ideology with western ideas of enlightenment. People must be educated into reducing their dependence on the government. Instead of resorting to seizing and redistributing, there should be a stress on freedom of enterprise. If the pie is larger, there will be no need to fight over it. In the long run, a free market will beat a planned economy on almost all counts.

But it must be done carefully. Thomas More attempted to define the ideal world in this book, Utopia. But as he went deeper into the idea, he found utopia is not only unreachable, pursuing it can be dangerous. Eventually, he concluded that this sort of ‘utopia’ can lead to totalitarianism. When his mentor, King Henry the Eighth found out about his views, he had Thomas More executed.

Sometimes, the government of the day will support socialism, like in India during the Nehruvian and Indira Gandhi era. But remember. The government exists for the sake of the people and not the other way around. So governments, whether socialist or capitalist in orientation, are nothing without their people. People are not sheep in that they need a shepherd to lead them. In the long run, capitalism will trump anything that socialism or communism can offer.

But then, how does it matter. ‘In the long run, we are all dead,’ aren’t we?

  1. Wheatcroft, Stephan G. Victims of Stalinism and the Soviet Secret Police. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/redir/general-malware-page?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsovietinfo%2etripod%2ecom%2FWCR-Secret_Police%2epdf
  2. Pipes, Richard. Lenin’s Gulags. Retrieved from http://www.academicresearchjournals.org/IJPSD/PDF/2014/June/Pipes.pdf
  3. Jisheng, Yang. Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/books/review/tombstone-the-great-chinese-famine-1958-1962-by-yang-jisheng.html
  4. Amartya Kumar Sen (1999). Development as Freedom. Oxford University Press
  5. Gina Hebb (2018, July 1st) Venezuela’s inflation rate tops 40,000 for the first time ever. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-inflation-rate-nicolas-maduro-latest-a8425296.html
  6. Anneken Tappe (2018, February 28th) Norway’s sovereign-wealth fund raked in a $131 billion return last year — here’s why. Retrieved from https://www.marketwatch.com/story/norways-sovereign-wealth-fund-rakes-in-131-billion-return-thanks-to-2017-stock-rally-2018-02-27
Rohit Ullal

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