Capitalism and Socialism

Paulos Mar Gregorios

Contents

Introduction

The world is passing through a momentous period. The sea is changing. Old opposites like Capitalism and socialism, East and West are no longer as sharp in their mutual oppositions as they used to be.

On the face of it the claim made by some advocates of militarism and market economy seems to have been vindicated. These militarists think that it is the west's superior Military strength and uncompromising corporationism that have finally brought the soviet Union to the negotiating table. This argument can be used for prolonging and augmenting military strength and thereby filling the coffers of the defense contractors and their dependents.

Look, they say, both China and Soviet Union have recognized the superiority of Capitalism and introduced Capitalism with its profit motive, market mechanism, and private ownership of the means of production inside their so-called socialist economies. These two big socialist powers have recognized that Capitalist technology is superior, and are now keen to acquire that technology at the cost of some compromise with Capitalism. Socialism has truly failed, according to them. So, they say, it is not Capitalism that is riddled with contradictions as the socialists used to claim; it is socialism that has proved to be unviable and admitted defeat, according to these capitalist militarists.

The Failure of Capitalist and Socialist Economies

The facts, however, are enormously more complex. Both systems have for a long time not been so faithful to their own principles. Free enterprise has never been really free. Monopoly or oligopoly capital could always restrain the small entrepreneur. The Banking and Finance oligopoly has been able to dominate and manipulate a1l the market economies. Tariff walls and protectionist measures have massively interfered with international free enterprise. Free enterprise capitalism is a myth. Long ago it incorporated many socialist measures like productivity bonuses, worker ownership of shares, greater role for trade unions, less in-equality in wages, and worker welfare programmes. Despite large scale tax evasion, the private sector has always in market economy countries, contributed through taxes, for social welfare for the people. There is no pure uncompromising capitalism anywhere. Capitalism admitted defeat before Socialism in many areas, and incorporated Socialist elements into it.

Socialism on the other hand, is little more than two generation old. It has only recently acquired sufficient stability and security to afford some self-criticism. Marxist Socialism did not begin to be established in industrially advanced societies as Marx-Engels had predicted. The idea that technological progress would automatically bring about changes in the direction of socialism has not been vindicated by experience.

Socialist economies came into being in the Soviet Union and in China, neither of which was particularly advanced in science-technology or modernised industry at the time of its revolution. So much has depended on personalities like Lenin, Mao, Stalin and Deng-Xiaoping than on developments in forces of production.

And socialism, besieged by a Capitalism bent on its destruction, slipped too easily into undemocratic efforts, which clearly is a violation of basic socialist principles.

The Future of Socialist Economies

The question is neither idle nor academic: Which is the worse compromise for socialism, failure of democracy leading to infernal inhumanity, or temporary acceptance of market economy principles inside a socialist economy? Both are bad, but the first is worse, many liberals would concur. If socialism is basically a humanism, then the total denial of democratic human rights cannot be justified. If socialism makes people into moronic robots who think what the party thinks and do what the party tells them to do, then it is no longer socialism.

The other side of the coin is that despite colossal failure in the area of the right to protest or to organize resistance, the socialist economies have a very creditable record in providing more or less full employment, in eliminating total poverty and in ensuring for a11 some basic human needs like food, shelter, clothing, transportation, education and health-care.

True, there is large scale unemployment in China, but compared to pre-revolutionary china with its graft and corruption, deceit and dehumanization, People's China has been a monumental improvement of the conditions of life for the masses.

Why then the present uprising in that great land? We give a tentative answer to that question elsewhere in these columns. The important thing to note is that democratisation of a socialist society is always problematic. The essence of socialism is that the people control their own economic and cultural activity in a socially organized manner. In all socialist economies this social organization of economic activity has been achieved only by the dictatorship of the party (not of the proletariat). And the party has always developed a special commentary on Marxist-Leninist scriptures which justify that dictatorship, and indicates the prevailing party line (See our article on the commentary Tradition in Judaism).

The three-tiered hierarchy of Party, state and people has become undemocratic in all existing socialist economies. How to democratize this hierarchy, without losing social cohesion and mobility is the key question facing all socialist countries. The process will certainly take some time and may most likely cost some blood. But the process is inevitable. A democratic socialism (not social democracy as it now exists) is the only hope for humanity. Wherever there are historic movements in that direction, all people of goodwill should support that.

Gorbachov's Soviet Union has initiated the process of democratisation in a big way. China will find it more difficult after the brutal suppression of the student revolt; but with new leadership, China will have to lead the difficult path of democratisation.

What about the Future? From a superficial perspective, Socialism seems to be in shambles and capitalism gloriously triumphant. But this is only a superficial perspective.

The internal contradictions of Capitalism are still mountainous. Its survival now depends on finding new non-military markets, without which it cannot afford to demilitarize. And the military posture, if it does not change, will bring about the economic and political destruction of both market economies and socialist economies.

Asia's Central Role

The present strategy of many market economy nations is to capture that market by strategic use of military and economic power. The market is where the people are. And more than 80 percent of the non-saturated markets are in Asia, America, Western Europe, and Japan - the Trilateral powers who bestride the world market economy -- have very little possibility of expansion in their own saturated domestic markets. They all have to look to Asia for their future.

History to shifting towards the Asian mainland and it's oceans - the Indian and the Pacific. A.P.R or the Asia-Pacific Region is the theatre of international action now.

The contest between Socialism and Capitalism will take new forms in Asia-Pacific theatre. America will be in that theatre as a pacific nation. Japan and China are fully Asia-Pacific. The Soviet Union is also Asia-pacific. India is no big power - as yet. Western Europe is the only total outsider to the Asia-Pacific Region, but economic interests are bound to draw them into the region.

"Asian development" looms large in the U.S. Administration's Policy; So does it in the development plans of Japan and the Soviet Union. And china, of course, is in the thick of it. The struggle between socialism and capitalism will largely be fought in the Asia - pacific theatre.