By: Laura Cox
Motivation plummets when freedom is taken away
Recently, the Democratic Party has advocated aggressively for equality, at some points opposing capitalism. Following the line of this mentality, one ideology rises to the spot light: communism. While communism is appealing theoretically because it advocates that everyone should be equal, in practice, communism leads to oppression, poor productivity, and a clear wealth divide.
Fundamentally, communism will never work because it depends on a lack of freedom. In truly communist governments, an all-powerful state, made up of a few select members, manages everything, including money, property, and employment. The state distributes money and goods “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” as stated by Karl Marx, the father of communist theory. However, who can accurately determine who needs what? In theory, decisions are made by the community; however, in communities of substantial size, this is impossible. Therefore, the state determines everything, and people can no longer make individual choices, which eliminates freedom. The state decides what citizens do, how many hours they work, and how much money they receive in compensation. The communist leaders become much wealthier than everyone else, with the head of the government controlling immense wealth. The rest of the population struggles near the poverty line, as seen in the Soviet Union, where approximately eight million people were killed by the actions of the government and still more died of famine or in labor camps.
A study conducted by Science Direct found that freedom is important for humans’ health socially, mentally and economically. Herein lies the issue: there is no way to move up in a communist society. People have no incentive to work hard and are often forced to do boring, menial tasks. Productivity plummets, as the state only dictates time spent working, not what gets accomplished. People think, “if I am never going to move up, and I will always be stuck with the same amount as everyone else, why put in effort?” With an unmotivated and unproductive population, the state must intervene to ensure productivity, leading to an oppressive government that regulates too many industries. This drives the society further into depression, both mentally from a lack of freedom and economically from a lack of production.
Ill-informed proponents of communism point to “communist” China’s economic productivity. In reality, China follows very few communitst ideologies, and has partially privatized almost every economic sector. Before Deng Xiaoping’s revolutionary economic reforms, China suffered under a strictly communist regime, and “between 1958 and 1962, 45 million people starved to death in China as the result of the largest socialist experiment in history.” This “socialist experiment” was a massive attempt at communism. How did China become the economic superpower it is today? There exists one answer: through capitalism. Since 1978, China has reintroduced private ownership and opened up their markets while simultaneously limiting the Chinese government’s control over the economy. In reality, China is a perfect example of the failures of communism and successes of capitalism.
While capitalism has its flaws, countries should not resort to a system that has failed both in theory and in practice. When America works to resolve the issues facing it, it should remember how much capitalism has done for the nation. We must improve our country within a capitalist framework and let the mistakes of other countries serve as a warning for us.
A graph of China’s GDP after implementing capitalist policies around the 1980s
