The triumph of capitalism over communism...

I recently read somewhere that capitalism had triumphed over communism. At first, I thought - heck yeah! We rule!! But then I started to think about the statement and what the deeper implications are. Not surprisingly, this is what I came up with. Keep in mind, this is my own interpretation and therefore open to revisionist historical references and interpretations that have no actual basis in reality. But it makes for some amusing reading, anyway, I hope...

First off, capitalism is a system of economics. It deals with trade and the regulation thereof. Capitalism promotes ideals of a free market with little or no government regulation. It is centered on the idea of private property ownership. Other than that, society can (and probably will) go to hell.

Communism, on the other hand, puts the means of production into the hands of those who do the production - it abolishes private property and makes ownership communal or common. Everyone owns a part of everything - no one owns all of everything.

Communism went further than that however, turning government over from large central authority or aristocracy to small collectives. In Russia, these collectives were called "soviets" - hence, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There are smaller manifestations of this in other areas of the world - most notably in the kibbutzim in Israel.

Capitalism does not care the kind of central government is in place, as long as it leaves the market alone to the extent possible.

There were several problems inherent in the communist's way of operating. First, they were never really communist. Those in power justified their excesses through a phrase borrowed from Lenin and Marx stating that they had "accumulated labor" - in capitalist terms that would probably be "seniority" or "rank has its privileges". But under communist ideals, these things should have been done away. They weren't.

Further, there were problems with greed and arrogance, with avarice and compulsion, and most importantly, the 20th century manifestations of communism wanted to force everyone to be the same. The inherent problem with trying to make everyone the same is that while no one fails, no one really excels either, forcing everyone into a mundane mediocrity that suffuses everything. With the greed and arrogance of the elite, and with the mediocrity that was stifling and starving the proletariat, there was no chance for the communist states of the 20th century to survive.

The next thing that surprises me about the "triumph of capitalism over communism" is that the method capitalism used to achieve this triumph was surprisingly socialistic. In an effort to exceed the "red stain," governments around the world followed the example of the United States in pouring trillions of dollars into a military complex that fought no wars and served no real military objective. Now, strategic defense, defense in depth, projection of power, etc, are all real and valid military objectives, and that's what was used to prop up the machine then (and currently still) in place. Thus, we out spent the communists, all the while giving our government and corporations more and more money and power, going into unfathomable amounts of public debt, and neglecting fearfully the society in which we live. Humanitarian aid, both domestic and foreign, was virtually eliminated or turned over to private contractors. Education, fine arts, scientific exploration - all took a back seat to the military machine that was set up to defeat the communists.

The same communists whom, as I noted above, were already imploding...

So we may have won the war, but now how are we going to win the peace? And what will the ultimate costs associated with such a triumph be? Difficult to say.

Finally, the really troubling thought about the triumph of capitalism over communism stems from the idea that it was a competition in the first place. Capitalism has many problems, including the rewarding of greed and luck over honest effort, the reduction of everything (including human beings and their labor) into a commodity, and the exploitation by the plutocracy of everything they can with little or no accountability or responsibility. Thus, in a larger sense, it is the triumph of the mundane or base over the sublime or elevated. Yes, communism is an ideal, a never-achieved ideal. It's excesses, both in greed, arrogance, and the compulsion exercised was abhorrent. I would never defend those excesses.

But perhaps there's a deeper and more transcendent lesson in communism. Perhaps there's something to the idea of people taking care of each other, of people valuing people because they're people and not because of what they can produce. Perhaps there's a freedom that comes from not scrabbling for every scrap of material or capital that is available - at not worrying constantly about where the next meal will come from or how will I pay for something...

Perhaps the triumph of capitalism over communism is a little like the wolf defeating the dove. A foregone conclusion, perhaps, but is it desirable? Is it not the destruction of something beautiful?