I have been thinking about political theory. I have decided why communism can’t be reached (I also am not sure if it would work even if it was reached, although I truly love the idea of communism and hope someday it can happen somehow). Basically, I’m arguing the implausability (is that a word?) of the consummation of Marx’s application of the Hegelian dialect.
So the historical thesis+antithesis–>synthesis process has to lead through hunting/gathering, feudalism, agriculture, monarchy/theocracy, and capitalism in its path to to the perfect communism, according to Marx. I’m going to talk about the vanguard (not Lenin’s) between capitalism and communism, since the rest of the process can be empirically proven with history.
Capitalism requires a pretty free economy, the extreme being Laissez-Faire. I think a free economy is hand in hand with a free media, because media networks really are just economic corporations. So capitalism contains free media.
Or, I would argue, it contains the illusion of free media. Here I reference Chomsky’s analysis. We think our media is free in the US because it’s not really as overtly propagandist or as politically obvious as the media in authoritarian states. So it is easy for us to believe the media is free here when in reality it is overcome with flak and controlled by many corporations and network monopolies.
So keeping that in mind, when communism has been attempted in the real world, like in Russia or China, it has been attempted in countries that have not achieved capitalism but rather remain in authoritarian states. My argument is that the only thing that made a communist revolution possible was a media controlled by an authoritarian government (I’m not arguing that communism as a steady-state isn’t possible, just the transition to it through Marx’s dialectial progression). The people subjected that revolted, according to Chomsky, never really bought the crap the media was feeding them. However, these communist revolutions didn’t follow Marx’s dialectical model, since they arose from authoritarian states.
If communism arises out of dialectical materialism, though, then it arises in a capitalist country in which, according to Chomsky, people are insidiously manipulated by what they believe is a free press. And what is that press controlled by? Capitalism. So people believe they are receiving legitimate information when in fact the information has been filtered through the workings of the capitalist economy.
I believe this means Marx’s idea of a communist revolution in a capitalist nation is never possible, because people in these capitalist countries are indoctrinated by the media. Revolutions can occur in authoritarian countries where people don’t buy the media, but those revolutions don’t follow the dialect laid out by Marx. I think that proletariat revolutions can only occur if the proletariat aren’t being manipulated by capitalism. People that are indoctrinated by a pro-capitalist media won’t revolt, because they are manipulated to agree with the press, which never attacks the economic system.
So I think that because of Chomsky’s theories about the media, Marx’s consummation of dialectical materialism is impossible.
2 comments:
Add another argument as to why Marx's conception of communism is not possible in application:
Marx argued that communism would arise from a proletariat revolt from an oppressive capitalist system. In capitalism, there are naturally winners and losers. In the most extreme form, there are a lot more losers than winners, and those are the people who make up the proletariat. So lets say that this group does rise up against the system, and (ironically) use the fruits of that system to establish a communist economic system.
This works well for a while if the capitalist system before it was effected and produced a huge surplus from which people in the newly formed communist state can survive off of.
Until it runs out. Then what? A communist system is supposedly self-sustaining, but this has never been demonstrated. In fact, the well-known "communist" nations of today have huge wealth disparities...way more than the more capitalist nations. The largest country to embrace communism (China) is actually moving towards capitalism in its economic dealings. This is actually backwards from what Marx argued (though Mao Tse-Tung didn't exactly follow the spirit of Marxism).
In theory, I would argue that a capitalist system can produce what is necessary for a "start up" communist system, but once that is exhausted, the system would implode because there would no longer be an emphasis on production. That emphasis is the very thing that communism reviles and at the same time, would rely on for its existence.
It's an interesting irony.
i agree with you. that's one of the reasons why i think that if communism were to somehow happen even briefly (although obviously from this theory i don't believe it can), it couldn't last. look at the US. we import so much. i guess you could argue that it's possible for it to be self-sustaining, but every area of our lives, not just economics, would have to completely change (no more food that can't be grown in the US!). i'm not sure if it could happen, but i'm probably inclined to agree with you that it couldn't.
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