Over at Southern Appeal, guest blogger Owen Courrèges finds my note below (the part about the “Marxism had little to do with actual socialism” argument) misguided and writes:
Sure, there are people who assume the label of ‘communist’ who claim to be anarchistic, and these people are different from the Stalins and Castros of the world. However, it is a mistake to take such people seriously on matters of political organization, since their view of a perfect society happens to be an impossible utopia, based upon premises far outside of actual experience.
The truth is that communism cannot exist without force because it depends so heavily upon squelching individual human ambition and making it subservient to the community. The momement an individual in a communist society attempts to take property for himself, or trade with others for his own profit, there must be a collective force available to stop his activities. That neccessity leads to a strong government, which eliminates any potential for an anarchistic communism. Even softer forms of communism must eventually evolve into their totalitarian bretheren. Accordingly, I’d prefer to see the whole lot discredited, regardless of what luminaries might be contained within their numbers.
I agree with all of the preceding, except with any part of Owen’s post that suggests that he and I disagree. My view is adequately expressed in Update 3 of my post below, where I said:
But if you’re trying to justify a different hypothetical implementation, it’s not enough to just produce the history of 20th-century totalitarianism. Of course, we do start out with that as step 1. Step 2 is where the proponent says, “Yes, I agree you that Soviet-style socialism was awful, I’m against it, that’s not true Marxism (or something similar), and my philosophy avoids that.” Step 3 is where you say, “But wait a minute, here’s my political-science theory where I argue that any socialism degenerates into something as bad as Soviet-style socialism, because it requires so much control over people’s behavior that you need a powerful police state, the worst get to the top, etc., etc.” Step 4 is where the proponent has to show how his proposed implementation avoids that problem.
My only problem is with the argument that stops at step 1. Step 1, “How can you believe that after all those millions killed under Stalin, etc.!”, is adequate against an actual apologist for the Soviet Union. Anti-totalitarian communists, however, deserve the dignity of at least getting to present their case in step 4.
I agree with Owen: I very strongly suspect that all such “alternative communisms” will fail at step 4, for all the reasons he gave. But how often have I (or other libertarians) run across the dismissive line, “Why, free-market capitalism was tried in the 19th century and failed!” Then we say, “Well, that wasn’t really free-market capitalism,” and it’s the neo-Marxists all over again. The logic of certain arguments requires that we entertain them up to a certain point. Neo-Marxists at least claim to have an argument that’s still valid after the fall of the Soviet Union, and we shouldn’t dismiss them unless (and, I would say, until) they fall down at step 4.
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