As diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States improve, we wanted to look at
the political philosophy behind the long embargoed nation.
Cuba is one of the last communist dictatorships left in the world, and since extreme anti-communist
sentiments in the mid 20th century, the philosophy has been a regular fixture in political discussions.
So we wanted to know, what exactly is communism?
Well, there are a number of overlapping philosophies and socioeconomic systems that can be described
as communist in nature.
But in the most basic sense, communism is when all manufacturing, or “means of production”
are equally owned by all the members of a state.
The intended result is to eliminate the capitalist-inspired class system where one class does all the
work and the other gets all the money.
Although similar ideas have existed both naturally and intentionally since the dawn of time,
the most common form of communism comes from the work of German philosophers Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels, in what is today known as “Marxism”.
In particular, Marxism is focused on the exploitation of the worker.
It’s based on the idea that any profit generated by the worker but instead goes to the business
owner, is a form of inequality and should be abolished.
In recent history, several countries including the USSR, China, Vietnam and Cuba have attempted
to institute their own versions of communism.
However all can be said to be predominantly socialist, and not communist.
The biggest difference between the two is that socialism says that all workers should
get an equal share in profit and property, while communism says that there shouldn’t
be money or ownership in general, and everyone should get as much as they need, and work
as much as they can.
Unfortunately, attempts to achieve this political philosophy have led to lower standards of
living, government corruption, and in the case of the USSR, total collapse and failure.
A number of reasons have been put forth as to why communism hasn’t worked out historically.
But the strongest criticism of the philosophy is that communism removes the incentive for
people to work harder than they absolutely have to.
It also leads to resentment of those who work less hard but receive the same.
In general, communism is described as being great in theory, while disastrous in practice.
The state of the world seems to agree with that assessment.
If you’d like to learn more about political theory, make sure you check out these videos
about Libertarianism, and Anarchy.
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