The other day, I said, briefly:
Another note on defending the USSR: Let me put in a note about another aspect of the fall of Communism. Many people on “my side” have suggested that the fall of Communism tells us something meaningful about the feasibility of American-style leftism or Western European-style social democracy — either that it should make liberals revise their predictions of the economic impact of their proposals, or that it should make liberals think twice about the ethics of their philosophy. I think that the fall of Communism tells us very little directly on either of these points.
That post was just a quickie, and I did get one e-mail that said, just as briefly: “And I think that it does.” Randy’s last post gives me a chance to develop the thought slightly:
One response of the socialist-leaning to the fall of Communism was, “Now we’ve learned that we need to have some capitalism to produce what we socialists want to redistribute.” (Compare with Randy’s characterization below of liberals who sympathize with the idea of Communism but “conclude that it is impractical to take the principle that far.”) Some conservatives and libertarians sneer at that response, but it’s not clear to me why it’s wrong as a logical matter.
Of course, I think it’s wrong as a moral matter (I don’t like the Communist ideal even in principle), but I mean it’s a sensible conclusion for a socialist faced with this new fact. Someone with Communist ideals may once have favored Communism, based on the simple-minded principle that “If I want X, let’s have a society that mandates X,” which of course ignores behavioral responses to the X regime which might make the society both unstable as a practical matter and carrying a huge extra human cost as a moral matter. (The former is relevant for all Communists, the latter is relevant for those Communists who also value certain personal freedoms, a la George Orwell.)
Now, the fall of Communism unveils both the instability of the system and (for those who didn’t see it before) the huge human cost. Why not say, “Now I realize that the optimal implementation of Communist principles, under real-life conditions!, is really only an extremely watered-down version of Communism, i.e., Sweden.” In other words, keep your principles, but realistically revise their implementation (being appropriately embarrassed about ever defending the Soviet Union in the first place).
There may be circumstances where it’s appropriate to change your core moral principles, e.g., change from being a communist to being a libertarian. I don’t think we have a good idea what motivates those changes. Some people could look at slavery, introspect deeply on the nature of slavery, and conclude that slavery is bad because it violates self-ownership, and based on self-ownership, also come to oppose modern Western regulatory and redistributive states. Others could look at slavery, also introspect deeply, and conclude that slavery is bad because it prevents people from flourishing to their fullest potential, and come to favor a redistributionist system that makes sure everyone is wealthy enough to take advantage of opportunities for flourishing. I tend toward the first, but have never been able to justify my choice by anything deeper than deep moral intuitions.
So, to repeat, there may be circumstances where it’s appropriate to change your core moral principles, e.g., change from being a communist to being a libertarian. I’m not sure that the fall of the Soviet Union is one of them.
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