Communism is doomed to fail

The argument

This argument holds that communism is not viable in the United States for three connected reasons: a general problem with the system itself, a specific mismatch with the society in which it would have to operate, and the record of where it has been tried. The general problem is that the system depends on an assumption about human behaviour that does not hold. In theory, expecting people to take only what they need seems ideal and reasonable, but the argument holds that it is not realistic. Individuals may not be satisfied with what they have, and in a system where the government controls everything, the pursuit of more runs through the state rather than around it. That concentration of control is what makes the dissatisfaction dangerous: whoever administers the distribution of everything holds the only route to advantage, which invites corruption and abuse of power. The specific mismatch concerns American society as it actually is. The values present in the United States today contradict the selfless beliefs required by a communist utopia. The country is highly competitive and individualistic, and it has grown used to a hierarchy that would have no place in a communist state. A system that depends on people preferring collective sufficiency to personal advancement would be asking Americans to abandon the disposition their institutions, workplaces and expectations have been built around. The historical case is offered last. Communism in the Soviet Union failed for many reasons, among them its economic condition and the oppressive society it created. Citizens did not believe communism was functional, because a whole national identity of unity had never been established — and without that shared identity the sacrifices the system required had nothing to rest on. If the system failed there, the argument concludes, it would fare no better in a country whose values contradict it. Communism is therefore not viable in the USA.

Premises

Counter-arguments

China has survived in communism for more than 50 years since 1949. China's citizens share the sentiment in which they are all part of a collective and equal body. Rather than political change, China put a focus on the economy. Political change is inevitably brought about by creating a strong economy. This system is much more sustainable, at least within a communist government, since a nation needs to trade and be open to foreign action in order to have a good economy. Therefore, if US citizens cooperate in an equal and cooperative body, the country could flourish.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise attacks a description few advocates use. 'Taking what one needs' is a slogan rather than a proposed allocation mechanism, and the argument does not engage with any actual proposal for planning, ownership or distribution — which is what would have to be shown unworkable. [Rejecting P2] National character is being treated as fixed. The United States has produced large labour movements, mutual-aid institutions, cooperatives and broadly supported collective programmes, so 'highly competitive and individualistic' describes a strand of the culture rather than a settled property of it, and cultures change. [Rejecting P3] Failure in one case does not establish impossibility, and the Soviet collapse had identifiable causes — a command economy under an arms burden, agricultural failure, suppressed information, an unreformable one-party structure — that would need to be shown to be inherent rather than particular. The counter-argument on record makes the comparative point by citing China's continuity since 1949, though it concedes the substance in explaining that continuity by a turn toward economic openness and trade rather than by the model the argument attacks. [Rejecting C] The argument also slides between economic and political claims. Corruption and abuse by a government controlling everything is an objection to concentrated state power, which the rival positions can accept while disputing that it is entailed by common ownership.