WHAT’S IN A NAME?
By
Fay E.A. Reid
In the past 250 years we have had governments that claim to be communist, socialist, or democracies. But I aver there has never been a Communist State no matter what they call themselves. Communism, by its own definition is a state run by and for its own citizens, for the good of its own citizens, where everyone fulfills a role of their choice and no one in the community has more power or wealth than any other in the community. A very few, very small, hippie communes existed for relatively short periods of time, but quickly outgrew the concept as the community aged and grew. China, Cuba, North Korea, and Russia never met the definition of communism, from outset to finish they were and continue to be authoritarian regimes, with a few, very wealthy oligarchs (read very wealthy) supporting a sole dictator.
Fascism is authoritarian, with a wealthy industrial/military group support. Fascism, by its nature supports only the government, industry, and to a lesser extent, military. The bulk of the population is demoted to serfdom. Examples are Germany, Italy, and Spain of the 20’s 30’s and 40’s of the last century. (Also, Trumpism from 2016 to 2020)
There may be a very few socialist countries, but if they exist. they have a small, primarily homogeneous population and a small geographic territory. Hitler’s Germany called itself ‘National Socialist’, the rest of the world called it Nazi, and in practice they were an authoritarian, fascist regime, with a very small, very wealthy group of supporters. Socialism, which by its nature works only in smaller populations, consists of a duly elected governing body, which runs the government for the good of the entire population. There may be a few wealthier members of this society, but not unreasonably wealthy. The entire society enjoys good health through benefits, as much, and as good an education as any member wishes to achieve, employment to suit individual needs.
Democracy is also misunderstood. It worked relatively well, for short time periods in a few city states, primarily in Greece, such as Athens and Sparta. The theory was that every citizen in the community had the right to vote on every action the city state took. They also willingly supplied art, goods, labor, or manpower, to the needs of all. If any citizen refused to comply with the needs of the community they were exiled or killed. This worked satisfactorily when the city state numbered in the hundreds of citizens, but failed when the numbers were large.
Representative government, which is what we have had in the United States of America, worked well until 2016. Now it is questionable if we can succeed. Even a representative form of government requires informed, reasonably intelligent, citizens who are willing to put aside personal gain for the good of society, in other words the ‘Common Good’. Our founding fathers called it a civic contract. So, what’s in a name? NOTHING.
What supports authoritarian forms is an apathetic, uninformed, greedy population willing to listen to any demagogue who offers them pie in the sky at no cost to themselves. Such authoritarians give huge benefits to a very few, very wealthy persons (or corporations) in exchange for their political support.
What supports a democratic Representative Republic is an informed, well educated society interested in the ‘Common Good’ of all residents. More interested in the improvement for all than improvement for self. There is no room for greed and narcissism in a Representative Republic. Unfortunately, United States of America has and overflow of both.
Excellent summary! I had a friend that I went over the differences between "communism", "socialism" as well as the differences between "social democrat" and "democratic socialist" for at least a dozen years. It took most of those years to even dissuade him from even calling himself a "libertarian". I finally gave up on him. We are no longer "friends" but rather distant "acquaintances".
I might take exception with the idea Athens was "democratic". It did give democracy to citizens. But citizens were only a small percentage (and even as citizenship expanded, the percentage of citizens dropped. They did have slaves, but seldom for labor, and as Aristotle himself wrote, "A man who needs to use his hands for labor is not only unfit to be a citizen...but it is questionable that such a man even can be considered to be a man." That's not too democratic, but not necessarily undifferent from many of our own founders. What determines a man? Is it is his property, his entitlement to others' labor, or simply because he is alive? Is it a question America has continually struggled with.
On the issue of socialism, I do not consider myself socialist, although many think of me thusly.. but I really don't care how much "wealth" has, but if the wealth is used to obtain power. The biggest problem I find with unadulterated socialism (everyone is entitled to exactly the same) is that denotes individuals into automatons who contribute exactly the same to the community. I think each community, each factory, or larger system of a corporation, even each teacher in a school know or should be allowed to determine who they believe contribute the most to the functioning of whatever the org. and thus determine who, if any, are the most deserving of the percentage of wealth. I suppose it is a variation of socialism, but I think of it as a different, undefined "ism", that leaves all delegations of wealth and authority to those involved.