Before we delve into the main topic of discussion, I want you to ask yourself the following sets of questions; what is your opinion about idealism? Do you think it exists? And what about utopianism? Would people or nations realise it?
A utopia is a perfect imaginary world, it only exist in our imaginations. In fact the name literally means ‘no place’ or ‘nowhere’. Such a world is deemed to possess highly desirable or perfect qualities and conditions for its citizens. As for ideal, it is perfection, desirable settings that are unlikely to exist in real world. With that said, a utopia is a fantasy of an ideal world!
Growing up, I dreamed and worked towards achieving such ideals. My wish was to live in a world where everything was just perfect. I must admit that a ‘man’ must try, but it only remains at trying! Because when it comes to realizing and influencing other people on such unrealistic epitomes, it’s impossible. The hard truth is that we are flawed, and achieving such perfection is almost inhuman. However, I started embracing and appreciating my own imperfections; ‘perfect in my imperfection’. We come in all shades of colours, languages, cultures, shape and sizes, so are our flaws. Therefore we should came to appreciate people for who they are and their short coming.
Okay, probably you are wondering why I have dwelled much on utopia and ideal. But I am pretty sure most of you are aware of the connection with the topic at hand. If not, no worries you are about to find out!
We’ve all seen and heard about the alleged horrors of Capitalism from activists, politicians and movies; a story for another day. However, have we ever taken time to really understand what the other alternatives are, and capable of achieving? I am talking about Communism and Socialism. These two ideologies place great value on creating a more equal society and removal of class privilege, in theory I’d say. From the past and present evidence, they practicality is questionable!
The major difference between the two ideologies is the means thorough which they intend on achieving this equal society. For Socialism, it uses the route of democracy and liberty. This is through participating in democracy to seek an incremental reduction in inequality. Currently popularized by the west as Democratic Socialism, it infers a combination of public sector intervention and private enterprise. Whereas as for Communism, it rather takes unpopular route of totalitarianism in the bid to create an ‘equal society’. The state takes absolute control of the economy to accomplish greater equality – regularly at the expense of individual liberty.
Without attaching examples to it, can you see how ideal this sounds? An amazing and wonderful society, equal and just to all, so it seems! These ideologies sound and look wonderful on paper, and from a twisted moral point of view. But after giving it a little bit of deeper thought, are they? Should equality and justice means a doctor and a watchman get paid the same wages despite the huge difference in qualification requirements, skill-sets and complexity of work? Being forced to live the same lifestyle. This is one of the biggest fallacies of these ideologies that I keep grumbling with.
Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea and The People Republic of China are some of the nations that are practising some sort of Socialism/Communism with not so much good outcomes. Countries like India, United Kingdom and Israel equally tried too but had to drop socialism after realising that it was leading them to undesirable paths of self-destruction. The Soviet Union on the other hand, collapsed due to communism polices. Cumulatively over the years, the human race has lost over 100 million souls literally murdered by communist. Let’s analyse the situation in a few of the above counties.
Communist China
Let’s take a peek onto the reign of the chairman of Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, who took power between 1949 until his death in 1976. During this period, it is estimated that at least 10 million people died between 1958 and 1962 from starvation. This was due to the famine caused after stagnation of farming industry as a result of collectivization, as opposed to the heavy industrialization and population growth. Despite all these deaths, Mao chose to do nothing to help but to blame counter revolutionaries for allegedly ‘hiding and dividing grain’. The accused were in great trouble!
Horrific stories of human cannibalism were reported; farmers killing and eating their own children. According to the latest records, the total number of people who died during this period is about 45 million. Of which about 8% were tortured then killed by the government, 2% committed suicide whereas 5% died in Mao’s labour camps labelled “enemies of the people.” One of the commanding officers stated in an executive meeting, “When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat to their fill!” You can fill the blanks… It is estimated that millions of people fled China during this period resulting into a massive increase of refugee population in the world.
China as of late changed tactics. It has given more liberty to its citizens to trade and own enterprises. This has led to rapid economic growth over the last decades. However, the communist grip is not gone. The country actively monitors how you behave, dress, what you eat, who you marry, social media activities, what you write and say in public, literally everything. They have alternative to all the popular social media used by the rest of the world which they are barred from using; Facebook, twitter, Instagram, snapchat, WhatsApp name them and even their own invention Tiktok. All this adds up to individual social credits setup by the government.
If you behave contrary to the set standards, you earn a ‘low social credit’. If you are detected or rather seen to be jaywalk it leads social credit deduction and instant fines. If a pregnant woman is spotted buying or drinking alcohol, she faces the same consequence. This will have implication since you will not be allowed to get services like acquiring a loan, you will not be able to move out of China and even using their modern bullet trains. All thanks AI cameras and facial recognition technology, all you do is under surveillance! There has been protest from Hong Kong against these outrageous enforced practices. This has led to a number of residents from the region fleeing to other countries.
After suffering under Soviet Union, Mongolia is deeply suspicious of Communist China. With the country small population and rich in mineral resources, it is constantly under constant influence economically, culturally, and politically from China. Mongolians do not want to throw their 30 years of independence and democracy back to the control of a communist regime who are interested in exploiting their resource. They are in continues tension to resist all influence from communist China. Some of them have resorted to feeing to neighbouring India just to escape this building tension.
Soviet Union
Communist Soviet Union also faced similar fate during Stalin’s regime. It is estimated that over 10 million died directly or indirectly from famine which ravaged Soviets. However, this number might be much higher due to lack of records. The famine was mostly due to forced collectivization of agriculture, forced grain procurement, rapid industrialization, a decreasing agricultural workforce, and a several bad droughts.
Even worse, the hard working farmers, the Kulaks, become a target. Stalin order that the Kulaks to be liquidated as a class, which is illegal. Henceforth, everyone who owned land was branded a Kulak and an enemy of state. Most of these hardworking farmers were either arrested, deported, or executed. The lucky ones gave up farming to avoid arrest or just fled. The aftermath was drastic drop in productivity and food production.
The Soviets were also big in labor camps famously known as the Gulag. All the perceived enemies of state were sent to Gulag. Each Gulag- which were in hundreds- held anywhere from 2000 to 10,000 people. You were required to work for up to 14 hours a day whatever the weather. Many died of starvation, diseases or just exhaustion-while some were simply executed. During 1941 and 1949, nearly 3.3 million were departed by Stalin from Siberia, and the Central Asian republics. By 1991 the total recorded number of people who either fled or deported stood at 9 million people; one of the largest and complex migration ever faced by international agencies.
Cuba
Contrary to the shiny depiction of Cuba in current pop culture, the reality is much darker! Ever since the regime took over in 1959, things haven’t looked up for the citizens. At least 14,000 Cubans had been shot dead by death squads by 1970’s in the bid to prevent anti-communist resistance. Cumulatively, over 100,000 have died or killed as a result of the revolution. Cuba also established a Gulag-style concentration camps. With over 300,000 Cubans being detained in this camps by 1961.
This Cuba under Fidel Castro, was marked by executions, political prisoners, surveillance, and censorship. Books, newspapers, radios, televisions, music, and films are heavily censored by the government until now. The Cuban people are generally poor a part from few government officials and cunning individuals. Some of which have set-up a thriving underground parallel economy backed by American dollar and tourism. More than a million of Cubans have taken to leaky boats risking drowning to flee poverty, stagnation and claustrophobia.
In Cuba, a government doctor and a security guard would easily live the same lifestyle. Despite their huge disparity in nature of work. A good number of Cuban doctor in Kenya are so happy living and working here because they are away from such an ill practice. As much as a good chunk of their earnings are remittances back to their government, they find living abroad more peaceful. They are able to live in a good housing and live a life they desire.
Did you know that in Cuba they are even restricted on the kind of food they eat? It is illegal to eat meat burger. The stores stock is controlled. So with living out of their country, they have liberty to enjoy a yummy juicy meat burger and a cold glass of coke! These are some of the reasons why many people are risking their lives to flee the country and never to look back.
Venezuela.
Venezuela is a sad story! Once a promising Latin America Country with large oil deposit, now barely a shadow of its former self. The trouble began ever since the country started embracing socialism ideology to combat social and economic evils. The opposite has however resulted from this attempt. The widespread nationalization of private industries, currency and price controls, and fiscally irresponsible expansion of welfare programs were an embodiment of the new regime.
Chavez, the president, started nationalizing the agricultural sector, hypothetically to reduce poverty and inequality by taking from the rich landowners and giving to the poor workers. Until 2016, this regime had robbed over 6 million hectares of land from rightful owners. This action however led to a rapid drop of the food production by 75% in just two decades, whereas the population rose by 33%. You can fill the blanks…
This was quickly followed by nationalization of electricity, water, oil, banks, supermarkets, constructions, and all other crucial sectors. After which the government resorted to increasing payrolls and giving away products at low cost, resulting into days-long countrywide blackouts, frequent water shortages, falling oil production and bankrupt government enterprises. It was all unsustainable, but they still insisted. In addition, the socialist government went ahead to implement price ceilings of hundreds of basic products like meat, milk and toilet paper. As a result more people were willing to buy but the companies could not make any profit thus stopped producing leading to acute shortages.
The country is currently marred with corruption, violence, shortage of all basic products, infants are dying in the hospital due to power outages, and people are starving. The government is also allegedly doing targeted execution of protestors. The Geneva special forces- the death squads- killed over 9000 people for “resistance to authority.” About 6 million Venezuelans have so far fled the country creating a refugee crisis in the neighbouring countries.
Other Countries.
Its common knowledge to us what is happening in North Korea since it was taken over by Communist regime. And the thousands of people who have and are still fleeing the country or have died trying to escape. Other communist counties like Laos and Vietnam have had their share of troubles which has contributed to the huge numbers of refugees. Countries which have tasted socialism like Portugal, Sri Lanka, India, Guinea-Bissau, and Tanzania. Many if not all of which have abandoned the ideology and have so far liberalized their economy and politics. They add to the evidence that theses ideologies are unsustainable and unrealistic and only leads to pain suffering and forced migration.
Some people argue that the Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway) are doing well overall and yet they practise socialism. This is a paraded lie. These countries are fundamentally free-market capitalists. They just have augmented social schemes. These heavy social welfare schemes are funded through heavy taxation. These countries have been continuously stressed against other countries referring to them as socialists because they are not even close.
Conclusion
Human beings naturally are designed to be competitive in nature. They want to belong to a society where there is a free market. They are motivated by making profit and improving their lives. This is an ideology that cannot be achieved through socialism and communism. Even with the rebrand of socialism to democratic socialism to give it a flashy look, the reality is the two system will fail and there will be no progress to life of human. Migrants from Cuba, Venezuela and other socialist countries who are living in U.S have been on the forefront warning U.S not to adopt this form of legislation. Since they know the effect of it. The generation that is advocating for this system of government is an entitled generation who wants to reap where they did not sow, the young population in US are pro socialism.
There can never be equality of outcome without totalitarianism. A liberal and free people cannot achieve equal outcomes, human nature and the huge diversity makes it impossible without use of absolute force. And this is the greatest flaw of socialism/communism. If attempted, people will flee in such of a better life. That is why these ideologies have and are still fuelling mass migration away from them!
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