Communism is a global political movement that emerged after the French Revolution. Its goal is to build a society based on equality and social justice, free from exploitation. Communism, in all its forms, was a powerful political force in many parts of the world. In Romania, the establishment of communism was imposed by the USSR and achieved through a single party, trade unions, education, culture, etc. Currently, nostalgic reference to this regime has re-emerged in public discourse in Romania, and therefore this topic needs some reflection.

An important difference between communism and capitalism is that the latter is not so much an intellectual or moral system as an economic and social reality born of the industrial revolution. Communism was originally an intellectual movement created by thinkers such as Saint-Simon, Fourier, Lassalle, Marx, etc., who made moral arguments for it and envisioned what such a society should look like. These theorists condemned inequality, disparaged the intellectual level of the bourgeoisie, and worked to create a political movement to carry out their agenda. This movement was led by politicians such as Karl Kautsky in Germany and Vladimir Lenin in Russia.

Communists argued that private property distorted society in two ways. First, it diverts resources from meeting the general needs of society to support the luxuries of the bourgeoisie. Second, driven by the profit motive, capitalism neglects the production of consumer goods, which is less profitable than the production of means of production. As a result, capitalism reduces the possibilities of human self-assertion.

In general, the communists advocated a radical restructuring of society through confiscation of the means of production and state control over economic activity. They gave three arguments for uprooting thousands and thousands of people without compensation. First, they argued that under communism people would be politically equal, which is impossible under capitalism because of the inequality of wealth. Secondly, the communists argued that the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat will be aimed at improving the material well-being of all members of society, since its representatives will make decisions not for their own benefit, but to meet the needs of the masses. people Finally, they proclaimed that the communist state would be controlled by the people through the vanguard of the working class: the Communist Party.

Capitalism did not try to justify itself ideologically. In fact, it was not a theoretically imagined and planned reality, but one that objectively arose as a result of the industrial revolution. This complex process, in which manual labor was replaced by machines, could not have happened without investment and without entrepreneurs who would receive the profits to invest. Thus the wealth of the capitalists exceeded that of the old European aristocracy. Capitalists did not ponder the virtues and vices of wealth or the effects of industrialization on the human condition, but acted to make a profit. Capitalism was not an ideology, and intellectuals did not defend it until the 20th century, when Hayek and Friedman, among others, revealed its moral dimension. In the United States, for example, capitalists raised in the spirit of the Protestant ethic were more inclined than elsewhere to connect their activities with the Christian concept of charity, but they also had no systematic idea of ​​their role in society.

The first scientific explanation of capitalism was given by Adam Smith, who wrote The Wealth of Nations, An Inquiry into Its Nature and Causes (1776). In this book, he shows how individual self-interested decisions lead to the growth of the wealth of nations. In his other, less frequently mentioned work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Smith argues that moral principles do not derive from external theories (by which he implicitly means ideology and religion), but rather from pragmatic solutions to real problems. In other words, for Smith, capitalism’s ultimate justification is that it works. By this he meant that the capitalist system increases the wealth of nations, not that it limits inequality.

Capitalists determine how to invest their capitalized profits based on their expectations of the profitability of various types of economic activity. In this way they determine the direction in which society moves, although they do not care about that direction as long as their fortunes increase. Hence the striking features of Western civilization, where the wealth of nations mostly belongs to individuals who serve the system as entrepreneurs or workers, while many others are marginalized or excluded from the system. In other words, human actions are not usually concerned with the welfare or good of others.

The Communists’ argument was that because capitalists seek only profit, society’s wealth is concentrated in their hands, while social inequality deepens and the misery of the working class increases. The essence of this argument was that it is precisely the indifference of the bourgeoisie to ideology that leads to its accumulation of huge fortunes, while the majority of members of society cannot satisfy even their basic needs. As a result, confiscation and redistribution of wealth is necessary. After “communism wins in the cities and villages”, a certain part of the national income will be directed to meet the needs of the population, but a significant part will remain in the property of the state, which will take responsibility for investments. . A communist state is a better investor than capitalists because the people who decide on its behalf the amount and purpose of investment are the people’s representatives. They are not interested in the size and structure of investments, and as a result will make the best possible decisions based on democratically determined goals.

There are many differences between capitalism and communism, but the most important is that in capitalism, investment is decentralized. Capital is the private property of many entrepreneurs who make investment decisions based on their expectations of profit opportunities. Decentralization and diversification of funding sources and investment directions limit the consequences of a single decision. It is true that this characteristic of capitalism makes it vulnerable to cycles and fleeting whims, but crisis does not necessarily mean collapse. After a crisis, there can be (and usually is) new momentum. It is important that in this economic and social system the investment process determines long-term economic growth. Although this may cause temporary crises that affect more or less of the population.

Communism sharpens the role of the state, which propaganda calls the workers’ state. They know their needs, but they don’t realize the price they have to pay to satisfy their needs. Therefore, the state should make investment decisions without taking into account the will of the people, but for their good (or what it considers this good). But since the state is an abstract concept, economic decisions (what, how, how much and for whom to produce) are actually made by political leaders and high-ranking officials of the state. However, given the number and scope of decisions of this kind, they are effectively made by an army of political and administrative officials, each of whom has little power, but who, taken together, stand in for the capitalist class, but importantly, without pursuing self-interest. In fact, they constitute the “new class” (Milovan Đilas), ruling a totalitarian regime based on arbitrariness and terror.

Although communism is a self-proclaimed “people’s democracy” (sic!), due to the size and complexity of modern economies, communism cannot be democratic. Be it “real communism” (Soviet type), “workers’ self-government” (Yugoslavia), “market socialism” (Swedish model), all economic activity is nationalized. In the Soviet model (applied almost unchanged in Romania until its final collapse in 1989), the state organizes, plans and directs the national economy, while lower-level civil servants are under strict control and face imprisonment or even death if they fail to complete their tasks. In the Yugoslav and Swedish models, respectively, which are characterized by a “middle way” between a planned and a market economy, the problem lies in the contradiction between the population’s demand for more social benefits, on the one hand, and the implementation of a sufficient amount of investment. achieve some economic growth on the other hand. – read the entire article and comment on contributors.ro