AdminCommunism! Capitalism! Socialism! Liberalism! You must have heard these words quite often. But do you know the real meaning of these ideologies in its true sense?
What has been their impact on our world? What are their advantages and disadvantages? Where I will try to explain such concepts, topics, and things in a simple language, about which we talk frequently, but hardly anyone amongst us has tried to go in-depth to understand their meaning.
What are Communism and Communist ideology?
In one line, communism means,
“From each according to his ability”,
To each according to his needs.” This means a society, where every person works according to his ability If one person is more fit, is muscular, and can lift heavy weights, then he works according to his ability. If another person is a little weak, is disabled, and cannot work extensively, then he too works according to his ability and contributes to society. And such a society where every person gets things according to his needs.
You will say here; that this is a strange kind of society. I being a fit and healthy individual will work hard and in return, I will only get some money that fulfils my need!” Exactly, how will this work?
I will explain this in the video moving forward. But Communism is a society or you can say that it is a way of structuring people where there is no money. It is a moneyless society. It is a stateless society
There are no countries. No borders have been drawn between countries is a classless society with no discrimination between the rich and the poor. Such a society where the means of production, such as land, farms, industries, factories, all of them are operated and owned by the laborers, by the common public. Whenever we hear the word communism, Karl Marx, the Soviet Union, and countries like China come to our minds.
Ideology of Karl Marx
Who published the Communist Manifesto in 1848? What was written in this Communist Manifesto? Before we understand this, we need to understand the era Karl Marx was living in. What were the conditions around him?
Karl Marx grew up in an era when the industrial revolution had just begun. The Industrial Revolution brought about big machines and factories. The laborers working in these factories quite often worked in a very bad condition.
The owners of these factories were often rich people who exploited their workers. The owners of these factories made their workers work for the maximum hours while giving them the least amount of payment. The profit coming out of these factories, most of it was basically taken away by these factory owners
So basically according to Karl Marx, there were two classes here; one: was the class of rich factory owners who took away most of the profits The second class was of the workers/laborers who worked in the factories for hours but got nothing in return.
As a solution to the problems, Karl Marx imagined a society where there are no differences between the rich and the poor, In a way, he imagined a utopia.
Utopia is a perfect society that doesn’t exist in reality. And he named this utopia Communism. In his communist manifesto, he revealed the details as to how communism can be achieved. He said that workers together can overthrow the monarchy that exists, whoever is the king or whichever government exists.
Such a society will be built where the means of production
i.e. the factories or the farms will not be owned by a single owner but rather the entire public.
According to this communist manifesto,
in a communist society, there won’t be any class or discrimination between rich and poor or based on race, or religion. Free education and healthcare would be provided.
There would be no inherited wealth. If someone is rich then that doesn’t mean that all his future generations too, would be rich.
No concept of Inherited Wealth There will be no concept of private ownership. No person can say that this farm is mine or this land is mine. Everyone will own all the land and all the factories. There will be an even distribution of wealth There won’t be rich or poor. There will be equality and everyone will be the owner of everything.
Everyone owns everything! So, these things are quite idealistic but at the end of the day, everything is quite theoretical. You will ask how these things can be practically implemented. It is nice to say but how can it be done in reality? At the end of the day, Karl Marx was a philosopher.
Rise of Lenin
He did not see the practical implementation of communism. Practical implementation in reality in the true sense was majorly seen after the Russian Revolution of 1917.
In Russia, communist workers together overthrew the Russian monarch who used to be called the Czar at that time. and their leader Lenin for the first time implemented communist ideas on a big scale. Lenin took some revolutionary steps for his time.
The human rights of the laborers were recognized. The working week was limited to 8 hours per day and 5 days a week. Before this, workers worked for 12 to 14 hours in the factories. But Lenin first introduced the 8 hours and 5 days
which is quite common in the world today? Everyone works Monday to Friday for 8 hours per day. Women were introduced to education. For farming, the land was taken away from rich landowners and redistributed amongst the farmers.
The factories were nationalized they were taken under the control of the government. But if you remember, the original ideas, written in the communist manifesto, it wasn’t written that the government would control everything rather it said that the public would control everything.
So, you can say that the communism implemented by Lenin was a little different from the ideas thought out by Marx.
Successful Ideas:
The world has borrowed from communism. You can say such ideas that turned out to be successful in communism and the rest of the world have implemented it today.
The first idea is of a classless society, one where there is no class difference. There is no discrimination between upper caste and lower caste or the rich and poor. Today everyone generally accepts that racism, casteism, and sexism are bad. It is a bad thing to discriminate between people. It is a good thing to give equal opportunity to every person.
Although, I would say that some communist countries have taken this idea to the very extreme. They took “no discrimination between people” to mean that there should be no difference between people. Every person will be given the same house, same car, and same standard of living.
There should be no difference in beliefs among people. No one should believe in a certain religion or ideology. This is the reason why communist dictatorships came into being. If you focus on the architecture in communist countries, then you would see buildings that are styled quite like a boring dystopia.
There is no creativity and people are not given a chance to express their beliefs
The second idea is of no inheritance. Each one of us raises our voice against nepotism and dynasty politics. It is quite something similar to Karl Marx’s thoughts. Karl Marx had said that there should be no inheritance. And if we look at the implementation in reality, then in many democratic countries in Europe, there exists an inheritance tax. If you are wealthy, and you are gifting that wealth to your children and letting them inherit it then that wealth would be taxed.
The third idea is worker rights. The exploitation Karl Marx talked about; we get to see that in many places. For this reason, in most democratic countries we get to see worker’s unions and labor unions.
Failures of Communism:
Now, let’s come to the failures of communism. What was the reason that whenever it was tried to implement communism, Failures of Communism?
it always kept failing. What are the fundamental problems of this communist ideology? The biggest problem of communism in my opinion lies in its basic definition. Every person will work according to their ability but will get things according to his need.
Now think about it yourself. If I am a fit and healthy person and I am working hard according to my ability what do, I get in return? I get the same thing that everyone else is getting.
What is then my incentive to do more hard work? If I work less I would get the same payment. Work even lesser, I’d still get the same. No reason exists to improve my work.
What will I get If I am more efficient and innovative? I will get nothing. I will get what I have been getting since always. Now think about it, if every person living in society starts thinking like this, no competition in society. There would be no development in technology or any other field.