argumentative essay on communism

We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it.

• Essay Database >
• Essays Samples >
• Essay Types >
• Argumentative Essay Example

Communism Argumentative Essays Samples For Students

44 samples of this type

No matter how high you rate your writing skills, it's always a good idea to check out an expertly written Argumentative Essay example, especially when you're dealing with a sophisticated Communism topic. This is exactly the case when WowEssays.com directory of sample Argumentative Essays on Communism will prove handy. Whether you need to come up with a fresh and meaningful Communism Argumentative Essay topic or inspect the paper's structure or formatting peculiarities, our samples will provide you with the required material.

Another activity area of our write my paper company is providing practical writing assistance to students working on Communism Argumentative Essays. Research help, editing, proofreading, formatting, plagiarism check, or even crafting fully original model Communism papers upon your demand – we can do that all! Place an order and buy a research paper now.

Free Argumentative Essay About Choices Made In Real Life

Good what role does 2) the nature and behavior of political parties play in post-communist argumentative essay example, free argumentative essay about main challenges to consolidating a post-communist democracy crisis.

Don't waste your time searching for a sample.

Get your argumentative essay done by professional writers!

Just from $10/page

Guantanamera Film Argumentative Essays Examples

Introduction, was communism a real or perceived threat during the cold war argumentative essay, example of argumentative essay on us policy in east asia post-world war two, the vietam war argumentative essay, vietnamese war argumentative essay example, example of shouldn't russians finally bury lenin argumentative essay, final paper argumentative essay sample, red scare and mccarthyism argumentative essay example, research method and findings argumentative essay sample, issues of vietnam – single party system, good example of historical resonance of the movie to live argumentative essay, box number:, cold war argumentative essay sample, argumentative essay on the truman doctrine, free argumentative essay on research essay: a reading from a political perspective, alternatives to party government argumentative essay, media message analysis- che guevara (iconic photograph/image) argumentative essay examples, should we elect young politicians or old and experienced ones argumentative essay to use for practical writing help, good example of on liberty versus communist manifesto argumentative essay, example of cuban embargo argumentative essay, marxist analysis argumentative essay, the moral value of equality in plato, john locke and karl marx argumentative essay examples, argumentative essay on first-person narration in modern chinese fiction, good argumentative essay on is population growth or poverty the main problem.

There are numerous global challenges in the current world. The enormous increase in population growth faces different contradicting opinions. There are worrying levels of poverty and struggle for resources doomed to increase if population growth is not controlled. On the other hand, increase in population growth is speculated as a chance of increase in innovation.

The Shock Therapy Argumentative Essay

Did arthur miller believe in the american dream argumentative essay example.

Did Arthur Miller Believe in the American Dream?

Essay Outline

Utopia argumentative essays example, exemplar argumentative essay on healthcare system of cuba to write after, cold war liberalism argumentative essay examples, good argumentative essay on second world war and its causes, modern british history argumentative essay, good example of understanding the main characters of black boy and christ in concrete argumentative essay.

(Insert Institute) (Insert Course) (Insert Date)

Argumentative Essay On Hillary Rietcheck

The european union: an economic project or a political power argumentative essay sample, the european union: an economic project or a political power, the rise of china and the security implications to the region argumentative essay sample, argumentative essay on bertholt bechts condemnation of fascism and capitalist regime, proffesor argumentative essay example, american legacy of guilt over the genocide in rwanda and democratic republic of congo., free argumentative essay on division of labor in society, free argumentative essay on media and the military, the politics of hezbollah argumentative essay, what is history - history argumentative essay, what is history, argumentative essay about us government foreign policy.

The US government foreign policy is the policy for which the United States interacts with foreign nations and sets standards for interaction for its organizations, corporations and individual citizens. Government foreign policies are under the office of foreign secretary who also acts as the secretary of state. The secretary is charged with sate-state diplomacy and development of strategies to safeguard the US policies abroad.

Argumentative Essay On Political Science

In what ways can a classical realist be critical of waltz’s neorealism.

Password recovery email has been sent to [email protected]

Use your new password to log in

You are not register!

By clicking Register, you agree to our Terms of Service and that you have read our Privacy Policy .

Now you can download documents directly to your device!

Check your email! An email with your password has already been sent to you! Now you can download documents directly to your device.

or Use the QR code to Save this Paper to Your Phone

The sample is NOT original!

Short on a deadline?

Don't waste time. Get help with 11% off using code - GETWOWED

No, thanks! I'm fine with missing my deadline

Home — Essay Samples — Government & Politics — Political Systems & Ideologies — Communism

Essays on Communism

Communism essay topics.

Communism is a political and economic ideology that has shaped the course of history and continues to be a topic of debate and discussion in academic circles. Whether you are studying political science, history, economics, or sociology, writing an essay on communism can provide a unique opportunity to explore the complexities of this ideology and its impact on society. In this guide, we will explore some compelling communism essay topics that can help you delve deeper into this fascinating subject.

1. The Rise of Communism: A Historical Analysis

One of the most popular communism essay topics is the exploration of the rise of communism and its impact on the world. You can examine the historical events and factors that led to the emergence of communism in countries such as Russia, China, Cuba, and Vietnam. Discuss the role of key figures such as Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, and Fidel Castro in shaping the ideology and its implementation.

2. The Ideological Foundations of Communism

Another interesting topic for an essay on communism is to delve into the ideological foundations of the ideology. You can explore the core tenets of communism as outlined by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, and analyze how these ideas have been interpreted and put into practice by different communist regimes around the world. Consider the principles of class struggle, the abolition of private property, and the vision of a classless society.

3. The Soviet Union and the Legacy of Communism

The rise and fall of the Soviet Union is a rich subject for an essay on communism. You can examine the impact of the Bolshevik Revolution, the consolidation of power under Stalin, the Soviet economic model, and the eventual collapse of the USSR. Consider the lasting legacy of communism in Russia and the former Soviet bloc countries, and how it continues to shape political and social dynamics in the region.

4. The Cultural Revolution in China

Another compelling topic for an essay on communism is the Cultural Revolution in China. You can explore the origins of the movement, its impact on Chinese society and politics, and its legacy in contemporary China. Consider the role of Mao Zedong in initiating the Cultural Revolution, the mass mobilization of the Red Guards, and the long-term effects on Chinese culture, education, and economy.

5. Communism and the Cold War

The Cold War is a pivotal period in modern history, and writing an essay on communism can provide insight into this global conflict. You can explore the ideological and geopolitical rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, the spread of communism in Eastern Europe, and the proxy wars fought in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Consider the lasting impact of the Cold War on international relations and the global balance of power.

6. The Legacy of Communism in Contemporary Society

Finally, you can choose to write an essay on the legacy of communism in contemporary society. You can explore how former communist countries have transitioned to market economies and democratic political systems, and the challenges they continue to face in reconciling their past with the present. Consider the impact of communism on social inequality, political corruption, and cultural identity in post-communist societies.

When choosing a communism essay topic, it's important to consider the specific requirements of your assignment and your own areas of interest. You may also want to consider the availability of primary and secondary sources to support your research. Regardless of the topic you choose, writing an essay on communism provides a valuable opportunity to engage with complex ideas and historical events, and to develop a deeper understanding of this influential ideology.

Essay on Capitalism and Communism

Why is capitalism better than communism, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

The Rise of Communism During The Cold War

Power of communism to humanity, the impact of communism and nationalism on society, comparison of the economic systems in communism and capitalism, let us write you an essay from scratch.

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

The Causes of The Clash Between Capitalism and Communism Dring The Cold War.

Review of all forms of communism and democracy, the communism and its containment in truman's doctrine, the future of communism as discussed in the book the communist manifesto by karl marx and friedrich engels, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

Red Scare: Incitement to Hatred of Anarchy and Communism

Role of women in soviet russia, how the innovations of karl marx led to the civil war in russia, trouble in utopia: similarities between thomas more’s ideas and karl marx’s communist philosophy, why life as in 'manifesto of the communist party' is unlikely to become real, karl marx communist manifesto, heart of a dog: the possibility of 'the new soviet man', social justice as the elusive goal of the communist manifesto, cultural revolution in china, mao zedong and the great leap forward, the domino theory: the main reason for us involvement in the vietnam war, the history of china: guomindang and the chinese communist party, propaganda & economic policies during the regime of mussolini & stalin, america’s fear of communism: the events that paved the way in influencing america, joseph stalin – the father of the ussr, beware the red scare: another red threat to america, exploring the past: an insightful historical analysis, why communism doesn't work, communism and fascism similarities, relevant topics.

• Abraham Lincoln
• Andrew Jackson
• Electoral College
• Transportation
• George Washington
• John F. Kennedy

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

117 Communism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best communism topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on communism, 💡 most interesting communism topics to write about, ❓ questions about communism.

• Similarities and Differences Between Communism and Democratic Socialism This is because, according to the proponents of both ideologies, in Capitalist countries, the majority of ordinary citizens are denied the right to have a fair share in the national wealth.
• Rhetorical Analysis of the Communist Manifesto A famous philologist and linguist Bakhtin described the use of language in its relation to the particular circumstances and he emphasized the process of subject formation: “pre-empts the phenomenological theory of the subject by producing […] We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Communism and Nazism Additionally, the two doctrines Nazism and Communism assert that, it is the economy, which is responsible for all goods and services, and therefore, the public should plan, control and own these goods and services through […]
• Communism and Capitalism Through the History In this system, the means of product and service production is mainly carried out and owned by the individuals instead of the government while communism also known as fascism is contrary to this where production […]
• Christians in Communism and Capitalism After viewing the video “The Cold War in Context,” the role of Christians in analyzing the war and the concepts of capitalism and communism can be clarified.
• The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx Marx predicted the persistent demo of commoditization and additional escalating growth of the capitalist bazaar as one day pursuing the bourgeoisie above the facade of the world.
• Communism and Totalitarianism: Political Ideologies Comparison As much as this is a good policy for the good of the larger population, it hinders the development of the agriculture sector of the economy that is the backbone of most economies especially in […]
• Capitalism Versus Communism In the case of capitalism this comes in the form of the widening gap between the rich and the poor while in the case of communism this comes in the form of economic stagnation due […]
• The Communist Party in Russia Brief Historical Overview The collapse of the Soviet Union initiated the decline of the Communist party with the decline reaching an ultimate following the outlawing of the party by Boris Yeltsin.
• The Anti-Communist Movements’ Impact on the US The first was in 1917-1920 and was associated with the fear of revolution in the United States. In the second wave, despite some warming of relations between the USSR and the U.S.in the 1930s, back […]
• Nazism in Germany and Communism in the Soviet Union In particular, it is essential to note that they were characterized by totalitarian thinking as one of the distinguishing features of the first half of the twentieth century and the times of faith in science […]
• McCarthyism and Anti-Communist Campaigns Hence, 1917 was the starting point and impetus for the development of communism and movements against the “Reds,” when the number of strikes in the United States increased against the background of the Russian Revolution.
• Boyer’s The Historical Background of the Communist Manifesto The central argument of Boyer is that Marx wrote this Manifesto during the “hungry”1840s, years when there was a collapse in the economic sector, and communism was well thought of during the coming up of […]
• The U.S. Reforms Against the Spread of Communism Though the U.S.did not manage to protect South Vietnam from communist forces, its spread to the rest of Southeast Asia was blocked, and it is possible to consider this reform effective.
• Successful Anti-Communist Foreign Policies This allowed the U.S.to maintain a capitalist presence in Berlin and convinced Western Europe that the new enemy was the communist U.S.S.R.
• Impact of Communism on the Plot Development First of all, it is necessary to mention that the political theme in the novel is represented as the background of the main theme and the main occasions of the plot.
• Fully Automated Luxury Communism It is often presented as a more humane alternative to capitalism and the ultimate solution to most problems caused by the system.
• Education in Marxism: The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx is the founder of new doctrine and the author, together with Friedrich Engels, of the Communist Manifesto, one of the most influential documents in the history of humankind.
• World History in The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx Communism is the political and economic teaching which goal is to abolish private property and a profit-based economy and introduce public ownership and communal control of the resources instead.
• End of Communism in Eastern Europe This was followed by the Marxist facts in Europe that de-Stalinized the Soviet Union and led to the easing of the cold war in the 1950’s.
• Destiny of the Post-Communist Countries After the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, the direction of the country’s development changed greatly. The economy of the Soviet Union was not centralized.
• Asian Studies: The Long March and Communist Cause In conclusion, the Long March simplified the rise of Mao, strengthened communism military skill and helped streamline communism cause in China. The Long March contributed to the rise of Mao as the leader of communism.
• Reasons for the Collapse of Communism These economists believed that the problems encountered in society today are due to the unequal distribution of wealth and resources and hence to bring an end to this, the gap between the rich and type […]
• Economic Way Between Communism or Socialism and Capitalism in China A positive example of this mix is Israel, where socialism is dominant in the rural areas and capitalism, is dominant in the urban areas, this has led to an increase in the welfare of the […]
• Historiography of East, West Frameworks on Eastern European Women During Communist Era While discussing women’s roles in the communist era of the Eastern Europe, Peto shows that in the post-communist there developed a feminist side of history, but before which history was grossly dominated by patriarchal views.
• Communism and Its Collapse Another occurrence that led to the development of communism was the Russian civil war which led to the state control of factories and railroads.
• Capitalism and Industrialization in the “Communist Manifesto” by Marx In fact, the Communist Manifesto is clear in indicating that industrialization was a process that led to the overall improvement of society in doing away with the hardships of the majority of the population.
• Communism in the Soviet Union In order to understand the processes which occurred in the Soviet Union and led to its disintegration and collapse, it is necessary to consider the development of the state, form of government, the state regime, […]
• Post-Communist Russian Politics Then throw is the challenge of having to establish a new platform that would aid in the promotion of cordial relationships between on the one hand, the military personnel and on the other hand, the […]
• Communism of Karl Marx and the Soviet Union The seizure of Winter Palace by the Bolsheviks gave birth to the communist movement in 1917, when and died in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and in 1991, when the Soviet Union […]
• Overview and History of Communism: New Socialist System After 1917 It contributed to the decline of the empires of the European powers while giving a tremendous boost to the influence of the united state of America; it led to the overthrow of Russian tsarism and […]
• Chinese’s Perspective of the Communist Party The Cultural Revolution that took place in China in the 1960s and the event that took place in Tiananmen Square has completely changed the political landscape in China and at the same time, the Chinese […]
• Effects of Fall of Communism in Russia The elevation of Mikhail Gorbachev as the successor of Stalin brought about “perestroika” program whose aim was to restructure the political system of the Soviet Union.
• Different Aspects of Socialism and Communism After the collapse of the largest country in the world, the USSR, covering almost half of the continent, with the regime performing within this country, people tend to analyze the mistakes, which were made by […]
• Human Nature in Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto” and Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From Underground“ In such an arrangement, there is a tendency to have the opinion that the development of one individual is a benchmark for the development of another, which eventually leads to laxity among some individuals.
• Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto Analysis The class-consciousness in the capitalist society like United States, according to Marx was instilled in the minds of feudal and capitalist bourgeoisies and not in the working class proletariat.
• Karl Marx and the “Communist Manifesto” He outlined a framework of the future course of events on which he based prescriptions for a strategy on the part of those who wished to change the nature of society.= The Communist Manifesto was […]
• The Result of Western Capitalism Fueling Communism The paper starts with the history of China and elucidates the entry of western capitalism into China in different stages, including the historic opium wars.
• Cuba Remaining Communist: Discussion In order to determine the condition in which the country is in under the communist rule, the peculiarities of the communist ideology should be discussed in order to define its multiple faults and weaknesses and […]
• How the Soviet Union Caused War Using Communism The idea of communism lied on the basis of the organization of any sphere of life in the Soviet Union. Utilizing militarization of the national manufactory, propaganda, and terror, the Soviet Union leaders, managed to […]
• Communist Revolutions in China and North Korea Therefore, it is relevant to examine the events that were a catalyst for the communist revolution, which resulted in societal reconstruction and the remodeling of the ideological orientation.
• “The Manifesto of the Communist Party” by Marx & Engels They voiced their discontent with the capitalist mode of production instead of focusing on the possibilities of adapting a political theory that will favor collectivism in a classless society. In the third chapter of the […]
• World Communism in China and Its Failures Ideologies such as communism were known for excessive use of posters depicting the desired state of things and creating the image of the ideal world where everyone would work to benefit the state and leader.
• Communism Versus Organic Solidarity The article presents a brief overview of the meaning of the terms communism and organic solidarity and compares and contrasts them with respect to societal interactions.
• Economy of Capitalism, Communism, Fascism and Socialism Government structure: the structure of the government in the two countries, involves federal governments that are led by the political elites in the countries. The government has the duty of formulating policies that regulate the […]
• “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Since the political views of the leaders were shaped in a different social environment and by the time Marx and Engels were coining The Communist Manifesto, European economy and society had undergone considerable development, there […]
• Communist Manifesto as to Production and Ideology The main difference between feudalism and capitalism lies in the possibility of the non-aristocratic people to become the bourgeoisie through owning the means of production.
• Communism in Asia: Crisis and Opportunities During the twentieth century, Communism was prospering in many countries of the world, particularly in the USSR and in Eastern Asia.
• The Documentary “The Lost World of Communism” Romania was no exception, and the period from the 1960s to the 1980s is known as an epoch of the Ceausescu dictatorship. It reveals the dreadful truth about the power of the Ceausescu family and […]
• Communism and Its Worldwide Impact The idea was to redistribute the wealth of the upper class among the poorer cohort of the population in order to achieve this equality, but it was also vital to communism that all manufacturing be […]
• Marx’s The Communist Manifesto in Historical Context The manifesto starts with words ” The history of all hitherto societies has been the history of class struggle,” class struggle is the most important force of history.
• History in Marx’s Manifesto of the Communist Party The Manifesto of the Communist Party is a powerful source of information about the most crucial force in history that is the attention to social and personal interests, the peculiarities of the bourgeoisie with its […]
• The Communist Manifesto and Japan in 20th Century The industrialization process in this country was contributed by many individuals and groups due to the communist’s way of governance in the country.
• “The Manifesto of the Communist Party” The authors of this manuscript provided their own explanation of the nature of the society, the gap between classes as its ever-present historical characteristic, and the predicted development and failure of the capitalist way of […]
• US Anti-Communism in “Memories of the Red Decade” The intended audience of the article includes historians and scholars interested in this subject, ideological sympathizers of the author, and the students of History Departments willing to study the inside of Communist moods and movements […]
• Chinese Communist Party and Authoritarian Regime According to Pye, “the turmoil of Cultural Revolution in China and the subsequent crisis of legitimacy…have been central features of traditional Chinese political culture”.
• The Chinese Communist Party The country’s contentious politics contribute to the stabilization of the authoritarian regime, which has eased political transition to the extent that the country has failed to achieve democratization.
• Chinese National Identity and Communist Revolution In the aftermath of the Revolution of 1911, the Chinese realized themselves citizens, in the Western sense of this word. The validity of this statement can be illustrated, in regards to the passage of a […]
• Latin American and Post-Communist Democracies To compare the historical weaknesses of Latin American democracies and the modern vision of the post-communist democracies, it is necessary to determine the criteria according to which it is possible to assess the level of […]
• Communism in Eastern Europe Therefore, when the call of solidarity was made, there were a lot of people ready and willing to be part of the movement. To them, solidarity was a way of fighting against the evils in […]
• China Communist Party & Economics Introduction China is considered to have been one of the largest and most advanced economies in the world during the nineteenth century. The country’s economy stagnated since the 16th century (Liao 191). In totality, China’s economy deteriorated between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, there was a brief recovery during 1930s. Economic reforms that ushered […]
• Communism Collapse in the USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was one of the earliest communist societies to embrace the ideologies of communism. The collapse of communism in the USSR began in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin […]
• The Communism History: Red Scare and McCarthyism Facts The quote means that the world was afraid of a new World war to happen; this is why the most powerful states of the planet became very suspicious of each other.”The climate of fear and […]
• Communist Manifesto, Time and Social Issues The primary issue of the manifesto is the vagaries in which the bourgeoisie subject and subjugate the proletariat, all in the struggle for private property.
• Socialist Market Economy and Communism in China A socialist economy is defined as an economy whose main objective is to create equality and ensure that the means of production in the market is owned by the working class of the state. The […]
• The United States Confrontation to Communism By 1962, the Russian premier maintained the same uncertainty on the nuclear potential of the US, who were a prime threat to the Soviet Union.
• The Cultural Revolution in China and the Chinese Communist Party The need to address Mao’s interests in the rivalry with his opponents was disguised in the fight for the preservation of socialism in China through the Cultural Revolution.
• Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention The purpose of this paper is to get a better perspective and understanding of Afghan communism and the Soviet intervention by critically analyzing the communism ideology and how it aided the Soviet Union to join […]
• Transition from communism to socialism The change in the country’s governance would imply that the ideas and behaviors that people hold to must also change. The importance of religion and civil freedom in relation to our behaviors becomes manifest.
• Did the structure of international security fundamentally change with the collapse of communism? To do so what will be examined are the reasons why communism collapsed, the impact of communism on the international security infrastructure, the way in which national interests and ideologies affected the structure of international […]
• The Reasons behind the Success of the 1949 Communist Revolution in China The emergence of the state of Communist China in 1949 was one of the most significant events of the 20th century and the Communist Revolution which led to its emergence is hailed as one of […]
• How Realistic or Desirable Was Marx’s Idea of Communism? This was to be made possible through nationalization of the means of production and putting them under the control of the workers; the individuals who he viewed to be the major producers of wealth.
• Equality to All? Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto” In many western nations, the classical movement was driven by the quest to transform the economy and the political philosophy. The intention was to meet the needs and aspirations of the colonial powers.
• Communism in the 20th Century China Although the Japanese remained in control of the cities, the people of China started to view the communists as the probable force behind China’s liberation.
• Communism in China and Its Effects Consequently, the stretch of communism in the region resulted into the establishment of the People Republic of China in the fiscal nineteen forty-nine.
• The communist Party in the Soviet Union and China This paper explores some of the factors that may account for the failure of the communist party in Russia, as well as factors contributing to the success of the Communist party in China2.
• Triumph at Kapyong: Canada’s Response to Communist Attacks The book focuses on the Battle of Kapyong, a minor group of hills in the northeastern part of Seoul and Bjarnason as well uses most of his story to explain the incidents which resulted to […]
• Global Culture: Communism Ideologies Relative to Arjun Appadurai’s Argument Appadurai argues that the complexity of global culture is due to economic, political, and social disjunctures that exist in the modern world.
• Gorbachev’s Ideas: Communist Society and Economy Lack of support from the commoners and the leaders led to very slight changes in the economy. In conclusion, not all of Gorbachev’s efforts to improve the country’s economy bore much fruits.
• Socialism and Communism after Marx However; Karl Marx failed in his Marxism theory as a result of the establishment of the middle class. Following Karl Marx’s demise in 1844, Friedrich Engels who was became the narrator of the Marxism theory […]
• How Does Revolutionary Communism Compare With Democratic Socialism? Revolutionary communism holds it that the capitalism would never let go of their hold on community and political power and as such, only a violent revolution can result in the changes that communism calls for.
• Influence of Nationalism and Communism on the Non-Western World In countries like Japan, class mantra was the order of the day in the areas that were controlled by communists, the CCP which was the main political party was against agrarian radicalism and hence abandoned […]
• Marx’s and Engels’s Communist Manifesto The chain of events starting with the overthrow of the monarchy in the French revolution eroded the traditional power base of Europe, leading to the rise of a new class of oppressors among the serfs […]
• Love and Marriage during the Era of Mao in Communist China In the Mao era, the law did not allow polygamous marriage in the Chinese community and through such, the sale of young females within the society ended.
• How Capitalism Beat Communism/Socialism This is exactly the reason why USSR was doomed to collapse in just about every society, the functioning of which is being concerned with the observance of Socialist principles, the prolonged continuation of social, cultural […]
• Journey into the Whirlwind: A True Story of an Ordinary Communist Woman She is often at the death’s doors, but she manages to stay alive “to spite them” as she is “consumed by the desire to survive the tragedy”. In spite of her lasting imprisonment and all […]
• The Communist Manifesto: the Statement of Germany Revolutionary Group In the description on the manifesto, the argument shows the division of the society along the line of bourgeoisie or the capitalists who engage in the production fields such as milling, mining and other industrial […]
• Why Is the Transition From Communism So Difficult?
• Has Communism Been Good for Cuba?
• Why the Vietnam War Was an Unsuccessful Effort by the United States Against Communism?
• How Did Albania Change From a Communism to Democracy?
• Why Was the USA Unable to Defeat Communism in Asia Between 1965-1973?
• Was Mikhail Gorbachev Responsible for the Fall of Communism in Russia?
• How Did Australia Respond to the Threat of Communism in 1950?
• Was Americas Main Aim to Stop the Spread of Communism in Europe?
• How Did Communism Influence the US Foreign Policy After WWII?
• What Caused the Clash Between Communism and Capitalism During the Cold War?
• How Did Communism Succeeding in China Affect U.S. Foreign Policy?
• What Does Animal Farm Tell Us About George Orwell’s Attitude to Communism Under Stalin?
• How Did Modern Communism Fail?
• What’s Wrong With Communism?
• How Far Was Fear of Communism the Main Reason for the Rise to Power of the Nazi Party?
• What Was Life Like Under War Communism?
• How Did the Anti-communism Cold War Undermine Some U.S. Freedoms?
• When and Why Did Communism Emerge?
• How Did the United States Attempt to Stop the Spread of Communism Post-WWII?
• Who Was the Man Behind Communism?
• How Did the United States Contain Communism in the Cold War?
• Why Did Communism and the Soviet Union Collapse by 1991?
• How Was America Affected by the Fear of Communism Between 1945 and 1960?
• Why Did North Vietnam Embrace Communism?
• How Was Cuba and China Lost to Communism?
• Why Does Communism Work for China but Not for Russia?
• How Was Soviet Life During Communism?
• Why Did Karl Marx Think Communism Was the Ideal Political Party?
• What Is Socialism and How Is It Different From Communism?
• Why Is Communism Considered as Evil (Like Fascism and Nazism) In the United States?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, September 26). 117 Communism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/communism-essay-topics/

"117 Communism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." IvyPanda , 26 Sept. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/communism-essay-topics/.

IvyPanda . (2023) '117 Communism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples'. 26 September.

IvyPanda . 2023. "117 Communism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." September 26, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/communism-essay-topics/.

1. IvyPanda . "117 Communism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." September 26, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/communism-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "117 Communism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." September 26, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/communism-essay-topics/.

• Authoritarianism Ideas
• Liberalism Research Topics
• Nationalism Topics
• Capitalism Paper Topics
• Fascism Questions
• Imperialism Questions
• Colonialism Essay Ideas
• Totalitarianism Questions
• Anarchy Titles
• Conservatism Essay Titles
• Democracy Titles
• Nazism Topics
• Environmentalism Essay Topics
• Libertarianism Research Topics
• Socialism Ideas

About  Search

Richard Nixon

The meaning of communism to americans: study paper by richard m. nixon, vice president, united states of america.

The major problem confronting the people of the United States and free peoples everywhere in the last half of the 20th century is the threat to peace and freedom presented by the militant aggressiveness of international communism. A major weakness in this struggle is lack of adequate understanding of the character of the challenge which communism presents.

I am convinced that we are on the right side in this struggle and that we are well ahead now in its major aspects. But if we are to maintain our advantage and assure victory in the struggle, we must develop, not only among the leaders, but among the people of the free world a better understanding of the threat which confronts us.

The question is not one of being for or against communism. The time is long past when any significant number of Americans contend that communism is no particular concern of theirs. Few can still believe that communism is simply a curious and twisted philosophy which happens to appeal to a certain number of zealots but which constitutes no serious threat to the interests or ideals of free society.

The days of indifference are gone. The danger today in our attitude toward communism is of a very different kind. It lies in the fact that we have come to abhor communism so much that we no longer recognize the necessity of understanding it.

We see the obvious dangers. We recognize that we must retain our present military and economic advantage over the Communist bloc, an advantage which deters a hot war and which counters the Communist threat in the cold war. In the fields of rocket technology and space exploration, we have risen to the challenge and we will keep the lead that we have gained. There is no question that the American people generally will support whatever programs our leaders initiate in these fields.

What we must realize is that this struggle probably will not be decided in the military, economic, or scientific areas, important as these are. The battle in which we are engaged is primarily one of ideas. The test is one not so much of arms but of faith.

If we are to win a contest of ideas we must know their ideas as well as our own. Our knowledge must not be superficial. We cannot be content with simply an intuition that communism is wrong. It is not enough to rest our case alone on the assertions, true as they are, that communism denies God, enslaves men, and destroys justice.

We must recognize that the appeal of the Communist idea is not to the masses, as the Communists would have us believe, but more often to an intelligent minority in newly developing countries who are trying to decide which system offers the best and surest road to progress.

We must cut through the exterior to the very heart of the Communist idea. We must come to understand the weaknesses of communism as a system - why after more than 40 years on trial it continues to disappoint so many aspirations, why it has failed in its promise of equality in abundance, why it has produced a whole library of disillusionment and a steady stream of men, women, and children seeking to escape its blight.

But we must also come to understand its strength - why it has so securely entrenched itself in the U.S.S.R., why it has been able to accomplish what it has in the field of education and science, why in some of the problem areas of the world it continues to appeal to leaders aspiring to a better life for their people.

It is to find the answers to these questions that in this statement I want to discuss communism as an idea - its economic philosophy, its philosophy of law and politics, its philosophy of history.

This statement will admittedly not be simple because the subject is complex.

It will not be brief because nothing less than a knowledge in depth of the Communist idea is necessary if we are to deal with it effectively.

In discussing the idea I will not offer programs to meet it. I intend in a later statement to discuss the tactics and vulnerabilities of the Communist conspiracy and how we can best fashion a strategy for victory.

I anticipate that some might understandably ask the question - why such a lengthy discussion of communism when everybody is against it already?

If the free world is to win this struggle, we must have men and women who not only are against communism but who know why they are against it and who know what they are going to do about it. Communism is a false idea, and the answer to a false idea is truth, not ignorance.

One of the fundamentals of the Communist philosophy is a belief that societies pass inevitably through certain stages. Each of these stages is supposed to generate the necessity for its successor. Feudalism contained within its loins the seed of capitalism; capitalism was, in other words, to supplant feudalism. Capitalism, in turn, moves inevitably toward a climax in which it will be supplanted by its appointed successor, communism. All of these things are matters of necessity and there is nothing men can do to change the inflexible sequence which history imposes.

It is a part of this philosophy that, as society moves along its predestined way, each stage of development is dominated by a particular class. Feudalism was dominated by the aristocracy; capitalism by something called the bourgeoisie; communism by the proletariat. During any particular stage of society's development the whole of human life within that society is run and rigged for the benefit of the dominant class; no one else counts for anything and the most he can expect is the leftover scraps. In the end, of course, with the final triumph of communism, classes will disappear - what was formerly the proletariat will expand so that it is the only class, and, since there are no longer any outsiders that it can dominate, there will in effect be no classes at all.

Now this theory of successive stages of development makes it clear that, if we are to understand communism, we must understand the Communist view of capitalism, for, according to Communist theory, capitalism contains within itself the germs of communism. The Communist notion of capitalism is that it is a market economy, an economy of "free trade, free selling and buying," to quote the manifesto again. It follows from this that, since communism inevitably supplants and destroys capitalism, it cannot itself be anything like market economy.

The fundamental belief of the Communist economic philosophy therefore is a negative one; namely, a belief that, whatever the economic system of mature communism may turn out to be, it cannot be a market economy; it cannot - in the words of the Communist Manifesto - be an economy based on "free trade, free selling and buying."

It may be well at this point to digress for the purpose of recalling the curious fact that the literature of communism contains so many praises for the achievements of capitalism. The manifesto contains these words about the market economy of capitalism and its alleged overlords, the bourgeoisie:

It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former migrations of nations and crusades. * * * The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce 100 years (the manifesto speaks from the year 1848), has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground - what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor?

Marx and Engels could afford this praise for capitalism because they supposed it would everywhere be succeeded by communism, a stage of society whose glories would in turn dwarf all the achievements of capitalism. Communism would build on capitalism and bring a new economy that would make the capitalist world look like a poorhouse. Those who constituted the dominant class of capitalism, the bourgeoisie, would have performed their historic mission and would be dismissed from the scene - dismissed without thanks, of course, for after all they only accomplished what was foreordained by the forces of history, forces that were now to throw them into the discard like the husk of a sprouting seed.

One of the most startling gaps in the Communist theory is the lack of any clear notion of how a Communist economy would be organized. In the writings of the great founders of communism there is virtually nothing on this subject. This gap was not an oversight, but was in fact a necessary consequence of the general theory of communism. That theory taught, in effect, that as a society moves inevitably from one level of development to another, there is no way of knowing what the next stage will demand until in fact it has arrived. Communism will supplant and destroy the market economy of capitalism. What will its own economy be like? That we cannot know until we are there and have a chance to see what the world looks like without any institution resembling an economic market. The manifesto, in fact, expresses a deep contempt for "utopian socialists" who propose "an organization of society specially contrived" by them, instead of waiting out the verdict of history and depending on the "spontaneous class organization of the proletariat." The Communist economy would organize itself according to principles that would become apparent only when the arena had been cleared of the market principle.

Operating then, in this vacuum of guidance left behind by their prophets, how did the founders of the Soviet Union proceed to organize their new economy? The answer is that they applied as faithfully as they could the teachings of their masters. Since those teachings were essentially negative, their actions had to have the same quality. They started by attempting to root out from the Russian scene every vestige of the market principle, even discouraging the use of money, which they hoped soon to abolish altogether. The production and distribution of goods were put under central direction, the theory being that the flow of goods would be directed by social need without reference to principles of profit and loss. This experiment began in 1919 and came to an abrupt end in March of 1921. It was a catastrophic failure. It brought with it administrative chaos and an almost inconceivable disorder in economic affairs, culminating in appalling shortages of the most elementary necessities.

Competent scholars estimate its cost in Russian lives at 5 million. The official Russian version of this experiment does not deny that it was an enormous failure. It attributes that failure to inexperience and to a mythical continuation of military operations, which had in fact almost wholly ceased. Meanwhile the Russian economy has been moving steadily toward the market principle.

The flow of labor is controlled by wages, so that the price of labor is itself largely set by market forces. The spread from top to bottom of industrial wages is in many cases wider than it is in this country. Managerial efficiency is promoted by substantial economic incentives in the form of bonuses and even more substantial perquisites of various kinds. Enterprises are run on a profit and loss basis. Indeed, there are all the paraphernalia of an advanced commercial society, with lawyers, accountants, balance sheets, taxes of many kinds, direct and indirect, and finally even the pressures of a creeping inflation.

The allocation of resources in Russia probably now comes about as close to being controlled by the market principle as is possible where the government owns all the instruments of production. Russian economists speak learnedly of following the "Method of Balances."

This impressive phrase stands for a very simple idea. It means that in directing production and establishing prices an effort is made to come out even, so that goods for which there is an insufficient demand will not pile up, while shortages will not develop in other fields where demand exceeds supply. The "Method of Balances" turns out to be something a lot of us learned about in school as the law of supply and demand.

All of this is not to say that the Russian economy has fully realized the market principle. There are two obstacles that block such a development. The first lies in the fact that there is a painful tension between what has to be done to run the economy efficiently and what ought to be happening according to orthodox theory. The result is that the Russian economist has to be able to speak out of both sides of his mouth at the same time. He has to be prepared at all times for sudden shifts of the party line. If today he is condemned as an "unprincipled revisionist" who apes capitalist methods, tomorrow he may be jerked from the scene for having fallen into a "sterile orthodoxy", not realizing that Marxism is a developing and creative science.

The other obstacle to the realization of a free market lies in the simple fact that the government owns the whole of industry. This means, for one thing, that the industrial units are huge, so that all of steel, or all of cosmetics, for example, is under a single direction. This naturally creates the economic condition known as oligopoly and the imperfectly functioning market which attends that condition.

Furthermore, a realization of the market principle would require the managers of the various units of industry to act as if they were doing something they are not, that is, as if they were directing independent enterprises. Understandably there is a considerable reluctance to assume this fictitious role, since the manager's reward for an inconvenient independence may well be a trip to Siberia where he is likely nowadays, they say, to be made chief bookkeeper in a tiny power plant 300 miles from the nearest town. Meanwhile, a constant theme of complaint by Moscow against the managers is that they are too "cousinly" with one another and that they are too addicted to "back scratching." They ought to be acting like capitalist entrepreneurs, but they find this a little difficult when they are all working for the same boss.

One of the most familiar refrains of Communist propaganda is that "capitalism is dying of its internal contradictions." In fact, it would be hard to imagine a system more tortured by internal contradictions than present-day Russia. It constantly has to preach one way and act another. When Russian economists and managers discover that they have to do something that seems to contradict the prophets, they usually don't know which of three justifications - all hazardous - they ought to attempt: (1) to explain their action as a temporary departure from Marxist propriety to be corrected in a more propitious future; (2) to show that what they are doing can be justified by the inherited text if it is read carefully and between the lines; or (3) to invoke the cliché that Marxism is a progressive science that learns by experience - we can't after all, expect Marx, Engels, and Lenin to have foreseen everything.

These inner tensions and perplexities help to explain the startling "shifts in the party line" that characterize all of the Communist countries. It is true that these shifts sometimes reflect the outcome of a subterranean personal power struggle within the party. But we must remember that they also at times result from the struggles of conscientious men trying to fit an inconvenient text to the facts of reality.

The yawning gap in Communist theory, by which it says nothing about how the economy shall be run except that it shall not be by the market principle, will continue to create tensions, probably of mounting intensity, within and among the Communist nations. The most painful compromise that it has so far necessitated occurred when it was decided that trade among the satellite countries should be governed by the prices set on the world market.

This embarrassing concession to necessity recognized, on the one hand, that a price cannot be meaningful unless it is set by something like a market, and, on the other, the inability of the Communist system to develop a reliable pricing system within its own government-managed economy.

The Communist theory has now had a chance to prove itself by an experience extending over two generations in a great nation of huge human and material resources. What can we learn from this experience? We can learn, first of all, that it is impossible to run an advanced economy successfully without resort to some variant of the market principle. In time of war, when costs are largely immaterial and all human efforts converge on a single goal, the market principle can be subordinated. In a primitive society, where men live on the verge of extinction and all must be content with the same meager ration, the market principle largely loses its relevance. But when society's aim is to satisfy divers human wants and to deploy its productive facilities in such a way as to satisfy those wants in accordance with their intensity - their intensity as felt by those who have the wants - there is and can be no substitute for the market principle. This the Russian experience proves abundantly. That experience also raises serious doubt whether the market principle can be realized within an economy wholly owned by the government.

The second great lesson of the Russian experience is of deeper import. It is that communism is utterly wrong about its most basic premise, the premise that underlies everything it has to say about economics, law, philosophy, morality, and religion. Communism starts with the proposition that there are no universal truths or general truths of human nature. According to its teachings there is nothing one human age can say to another about the proper ordering of society or about such subjects as justice, freedom, and equality. Everything depends on the stage of society and the economic class that is in power at a particular time.

In the light of this fundamental belief - or rather, this unbending and all-pervasive disbelief - it is clear why communism had to insist that what was true for capitalism could not be true for communism. Among the truths scheduled to die with capitalism was the notion that economic life could be usefully ordered by a market. If this truth seems still to be alive, orthodox Communist doctrine has to label it as an illusion, a ghost left behind by an age now being surpassed. At the present time this particular capitalist ghost seems to have moved in on the Russian economy and threatens to become a permanent guest at the Communist banquet. Let us hope it will soon be joined by some other ghosts, such as freedom, political equality, religion, and constitutionalism.

This brings me to the Communist view of law and politics. Of the Communist legal and political philosophy, we can almost say that there is none. This lack is, again, not an accident, but is an integral part of the systematic negations which make up the Communist philosophy.

According to Marx and Engels, the whole life of any society is fundamentally determined by the organization of its economy. What men will believe; what gods, if any, they will worship; how they will choose their leaders or let their leaders choose themselves; how they will interpret the world about them - all of these are basically determined by economic interests and relations. In the jargon of communism: religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law constitute a superstructure which reflects the underlying economic organization of a particular society. It follows that subjects which fall within the superstructure permit of no general truths; for example, what is true for law and political science under capitalism cannot be true under communism.

I have said we can almost assert that there is no Communist philosophy of law and political science. The little there is can be briefly stated. It consists in the assumption that after the revolution there will be a dictatorship (called the dictatorship of the proletariat) and that this dictatorship will for a while find it necessary to utilize some of the familiar political and legal institutions, such as courts. (There is an incredibly tortured literature about just how these institutions are to be utilized and with what modifications.) When, however, mature communism is achieved, law and the state, in the consecrated phrase, "will wither away." There will be no voting, no parliaments, no judges, no policemen, no prisons - no problems. There will simply be factories and fields and a happy populace peacefully reveling in the abundance of their output.

As with economic theory, there was a time in the history of the Soviet regime when an attempt was made to take seriously the absurdities of this Communist theory of law and state. For about a decade during the thirties an influential doctrine was called the commodity exchange theory of law. According to this theory, the fundamental fact about capitalism is that it is built on the economic institution of exchange. In accordance with the doctrine of the superstructure, all political and legal institutions under capitalism must therefore be permeated and shaped by the concept of exchange. Indeed, the theory went further. Even the rules of morality are based on exchange, for is there not a kind of tacit deal implied even in the Golden Rule, "Do unto others, as you would be done by"? Now the realization of communism, which is the negation of capitalism, requires the utter rooting out of any notion of exchange in the Communist economy. But when exchange has disappeared, the political, legal, and moral superstructure that was built on it will also disappear. Therefore, under mature communism there will not only be no capitalistic legal and political institutions, there will be no law whatever, no state, no morality - for all of these in some measure reflect the underlying notion of an exchange or deal among men.

The high priest of this doctrine was Eugene Pashukanis. His reign came to an abrupt end in 1937 as the inconvenience of his teachings began to become apparent. With an irony befitting the career of one who predicted that communism would bring an end to law and legal processes, Pashukanis was quietly taken off and shot without even the semblance of a trial.

As in the case of economics, since Pashukanis' liquidation there has developed in Russian intellectual life a substantial gray market for capitalistic legal and political theories. But where Russian economists seem ashamed of their concessions to the market principle, Russian lawyers openly boast of their legal and political system, claiming for it that it does everything that equivalent bourgeois institutions do, only better. This boast has to be muted somewhat, because it still remains a matter of dogma that under mature communism, law and the state will disappear. This embarrassing aspect of their inherited doctrine the Soviet theorists try to keep as much as possible under the table. They cannot, however, openly renounce it without heresy, and heresy in the Soviet Union, be it remembered, still requires a very active taste for extinction.

One of the leading books on Soviet legal and political theory is edited by a lawyer who is well known in this country, the late Andrei Vyshinsky. In the table-pounding manner he made famous in the U.N., Vyshinsky praises Soviet legal and political institutions to the skies and contrasts their wholesome purity with the putrid vapors emanating from the capitalist countries. He points out, for example, that in Russia the voting age is 18, while in many capitalist countries it is 21.

The capitalists thus disenfranchise millions of young men and women because, says Vyshinsky, it is feared they may not yet have acquired a properly safe bourgeois mentality. As one reads arguments like this spelled out with the greatest solemnity, and learns all about the "safeguards" of the Soviet Constitution, it comes as a curious shock to find it openly declared that in the Soviet Union only one political party can legally exist and that the Soviet Constitution is "the only constitution in the world which frankly declares the directing role of the party in the state."

One wonders what all the fuss about voting qualifications is about if the voters are in the end permitted only to vote for the candidates chosen by the only political party permitted to exist. The plain fact is, of course, that everything in the Soviet Constitution relating to public participation in political decisions is a facade concealing the real instrument of power that lies in the Communist Party. It has been said that hypocrisy is vice's tribute to virtue. The holding of elections in which the electorate is given no choice may similarly be described as an attempt by communism to salve its uneasy conscience. Knowing that it cannot achieve representative democracy, it seems to feel better if it adopts its empty forms.

When one reflects on it, it is an astounding thing that a great and powerful nation in the second half of the 20th century should still leave its destinies to be determined by intraparty intrigue, that it should have developed no political institutions capable of giving to its people a really effective voice in their Government, that it should lack any openly declared and lawful procedure by which the succession of one ruler to another could be determined. Some are inclined to seek an explanation for this condition in Russian history with its bloody and irregular successions of czars. But this is to forget that even in England, the mother of parliaments, there were once in times long gone by some pretty raw doings behind palace walls and some unseemly and even bloody struggles for the throne.

But where other nations have worked gradually toward stable political institutions guaranteeing the integrity of their governments, Russia has remained in a state of arrested development. That state will continue until the Russian leaders have the courage to declare openly that the legal and political philosophy of Marx, Engles, and Lenin is fundamentally mistaken and must be abandoned.

How heavy the burden of the inherited Communist philosophy is becomes clear when the concept of law itself is under discussion. Throughout the ages, among men of all nations and creeds, law has generally been thought of as a curb on arbitrary power. It has been conceived as a way of substituting reason for force in the decision of disputes, thus liberating human energies for the pursuit of aims more worthy of man's destiny than brute survival or the domination of one's fellows. No one has supposed that these ideals have ever been fully realized in any society. Like every human institution, law is capable of being exploited for selfish purposes and of losing its course through a confusion of purposes. But during most of the world's history, men have thought that the questions worthy of discussion were how the institutions of law could be shaped so that they might not be perverted into instruments of power or lose the sense of their high mission through sloth or ignorance.

What is the Communist attitude toward this intellectual enterprise in which so many great thinkers of so many past ages have joined? Communism consigns all of it to the ashcan of history as a fraud and delusion, beneath the contempt of Communist science. How, then, is law defined today in Russia? We have an authoritative answer. It is declared to be "the totality of the rules of conduct expressing the will of the dominant class, designed to promote those relationships that are advantageous and agreeable to the dominant class."

Law in the Soviet Union is not conceived as a check on power, it is openly and proudly an expression of power. In this conception surely, if anywhere, the bankruptcy of communism as a moral philosophy openly declares itself.

It is vitally important to emphasize again that all of the truly imposing absurdities achieved by Communist thought - in whatever field: in economics, in politics, in law, in morality - that all of these trace back to a single common source. That origin lies in a belief that nothing of universal validity can be said of human nature, that there are no principles, values, or moral truths that stand above a particular age or a particular phase in the evolution of society. This profound negation lies at the very heart of the Communist philosophy and gives to it both its motive force and its awesome capacity for destruction.

It is this central negation that makes communism radically inconsistent with the ideal of human freedom. As with other bourgeois virtues, once dismissed contemptuously, Soviet writers have now taken up the line that only under communism can men realize "true freedom." This line may even have a certain persuasiveness for Russians in that individuals tend to prize those freedoms they are familiar with and not to miss those they have never enjoyed. A Russian transplanted suddenly to American soil might well feel for a time "unfree" in the sense that he would be confronted with the burden of making choices that he was unaccustomed to making and that he would regard as onerous. But the problem of freedom goes deeper than the psychological conditioning of any particular individual. It touches the very roots of man's fundamental conception of himself.

The Communist philosophy is basically inconsistent with the ideal of freedom because it denies that there can be any standard of moral truth by which the actions of any given social order may be judged. If the individual says to government, "Thus far may you go, but no farther," he necessarily appeals to some principle of rightness that stands above his particular form of government. It is precisely the possibility of any such standard that communism radically and uncomprisingly denies. Marx and Engels had nothing but sneers for the idea that there are "eternal truths, such as freedom, justice, etc., that are common to all states of society."

They contend that there are no eternal truths. All ideas of right and wrong come from the social system under which one lives. If that system requires tyranny and oppression, then tyranny and oppression must within that system be accepted; there can be no higher court of appeal.

Not only do the premises of Communist philosophy make any coherent theory of freedom impossible, but the actual structure of the Soviet regime is such that no true sense of freedom can ever develop under it. To see why this is so, it is useful to accept the Communist ideology provisionally and reason the matter out purely in terms of what may be called human engineering. Let us concede that a struggle for political power goes on in all countries and let us assume in keeping with Marxist views that this struggle has absolutely nothing to do with right and wrong. Even from this perversely brutal point of view, it is clear why a sense of freedom can never develop under the Soviet regime. In a constitutional democracy the struggle for political power is assigned to a definite arena; it is roped off, so to speak, from the rest of life. In the Soviet Union, on the other hand, there is no clear distinction between politics and economics, or between politics and other human activities. No barriers exist to define what is a political question and what is not. Instead of being ordered and canalized as it is in constitutional democracies, the struggle for political power in Russia pervades, or can at any time pervade, every department of life. For this reason there is no area of human interest - the intellectual, literary, scientific, artistic, or religious - that may not at any time become a battleground of this struggle.

Take, for example, the situation of a Soviet architect. Today without doubt he enjoys a certain security; he is not likely to lie awake fearing the dread knock at the door at midnight. Furthermore, he may now see opening before him in the practice of his profession a degree of artistic freedom that his predecessors did not enjoy. But he can never be sure that he will not wake up tomorrow morning and read in the papers that a new "line" has been laid down for architecture, since his profession, like every other, can at any moment be drawn into the struggle for power. He can never know the security enjoyed by those who live under a system where the struggle for political power is fenced off, as it were, from the other concerns of life. When Soviet "politics" invades a field like architecture, it cannot be said to spread beyond its proper boundaries, for it has none. It is precisely this defect in the Soviet regime that in the long run prevents the realization of the ideal of freedom under communism.

It is only in the constitutional democracies that the human spirit can be permanently free to unfold itself in as many directions as are opened up for it by its creative urge. Only such governments can achieve diversity without disintegration, for only they know the full meaning of "those wise restraints that make men free."

Since the Communist philosophy of history is the central core of its ideology, that philosophy has of necessity permeated every theme I have so far discussed. Briefly stated the Communist philosophy of history is that man does not make history, but is made by it.

Though communism denies to man the capacity to shape his own destiny, it does accord to him a remarkable capacity to foresee in great detail just what the future will impose on him. The literature of communism is full of prophecies, tacit and explicit. Probably no human faith ever claimed so confidently that it knew so much about the future. Certainly none ever ran up a greater number of bad guesses. On a rough estimate the Communist record for mistaken prophecies stands at about 100 percent.

Among the conclusions about the future that were implicit in the Communist philosophy, or were drawn from it by its prophets, we can name the following:

That communism will first establish itself in countries of the most advanced capitalism; That in such countries society will gradually split itself into two classes, with the rich becoming fewer and richer, the laboring masses sinking steadily to a bare level of existence; That under capitalism colonialism will increase as each capitalistic nation seeks more and more outlets for its surplus production; That in capitalist countries labor unions will inevitably take the lead in bringing about the Communist revolution; That as soon as communism is firmly established steps will be taken toward the elimination of the capitalist market and capitalist political and legal institutions; etc.

As with other aspects of communism, this record of bad guesses is no accident. It derives from the basic assumption of Marxism that man has no power to mold his institutions to meet problems as they arise, that he is caught up in a current of history which carries him inevitably toward his predestined goal. A philosophy which embraces this view of man's plight is constitutionally incapable of predicting the steps man will take to shape his own destiny, precisely because it has in advance declared any such steps to be impossible. Communism in this respect is like a man standing on the bank of a rising river and observing what appears to be a log lodged against the opposite shore. Assuming that what he observes is an inert object, he naturally predicts that the log will eventually be carried away by the rising floodwaters. When the log turns out to be a living creature and steps safely out of the water the observer is, of course, profoundly surprised. Communism, it must be confessed, has shown a remarkable capacity to absorb such shocks, for it has survived many of them. In the long run, however, it seems inevitable that the Communist brain will inflict serious damage upon itself by the tortured rationalizations with which it has to explain each successive bad guess.

This brings us to the final issue. Why is it that with all its brutalities and absurdities communism still retains an active appeal for the minds and hearts of many intelligent men and women? For we must never forget that this appeal does exist.

It is true that in the United States and many other countries the fringe of serious thought represented by active Communist belief has become abraded to the point of near extinction. It is also the fact that many people everywhere adhere to groups dominated by Communist leadership who have only the slightest inkling of communism as a system of ideas. Then again we must remember that in the Communist countries themselves there are many intelligent, loyal, and hard-working citizens, thoroughly acquainted with the Communist philosophy, who view that philosophy with a quiet disdain, not unmixed with a certain sardonic pleasure of the sort that goes with witnessing, from a choice seat, a comedy of errors that is unfortunately also a tragedy Finally we must not confuse every "gain of communism" with a gain of adherents to Communist beliefs. In particular, we should not mistake the acceptance of technical and economic aid from Moscow as a conversion to the Communist faith, though the contacts thus established may, of course, open the way for a propagation of that faith.

With all this said, and with surface appearance discounted in every proper way, the tragic fact remains that communism as a faith remains a potent force in the world of ideas today. It is an even more tragic fact that that faith can sometimes appeal not only to opportunists and adventurers, but also to men of dedicated idealism. How does this come about?

To answer this question we have to ask another: What are the ingredients that go to make up a successful fighting faith, a faith that will enlist the devotion and fanaticism of its adherents, that will let loose on the world that unaccommodating creature, "the true believer"?

I think that such a faith must be made up of at least three ingredients.

First, it must lift its adherents above the dread sense of being alone and make them feel themselves members of a brotherhood.

Second, it must make its adherents believe that in working for the objectives of their faith they are moving in step with nature, or with the forces of history, or with the divine will.

Third, it must be a faith that gives to its adherents a sense of being lifted above the concerns that consume the lives of the nonbelieving.

All of these ingredients are furnished in abundance by communism. In the Communist philosophy the first two ingredients are fused into one doubly effective amalgam. To become a Communist is no longer to be alone, but to join in the march of a great, oppressed mass of humanity called the proletariat. This silent, faceless army is being carried inevitably to its goal by the unseen forces of history. There is thus a double identification. History belongs to the proletariat, the proletariat belongs to history. By joining in this great march the Communist not only gains human companions but a sense of responding to the great pull of the universe itself.

Now the picture I have just painted is not one that even the most devout Communist can comfortably carry about with him at all times. Indeed, there are probably few Communists who do not, even in their moments of highest faith, sense some of the fictions and contradictions of the dream to which they are committed. The absurdities of the Communist ideology are, however, by no means immediately apparent to the new convert, who is likely to be intrigued rather by the difficulty of understanding them. The old believer sees no reason to point out these absurdities, partly because he does not wish to undermine the faith of the young, and partly because he has become inured to them, has learned to live with them at peace, and does not want to disturb his own adjustment to them.

One of the key fictions of the Communist edifice of thought is the belief that there is in modern industrial society an identifiable class of people called the proletariat. That such a class would develop was not a bad guess in 1848 and Marx had other economists with him in making this guess. As usual, history perversely took the wrong turn. And as usual, this has caused communism no particular embarrassment, for it continues - with diminished ardor, to be sure - to talk about the proletariat as if it were actually there. But professing to see things that are not there is often a sign of faith and furnishes, in any event, a bond of union among believers.

To many of its American critics, communism has appeared as a kind of nightmare. Like awakened sleepers still recoiling from the shock of their dream, these critics forget that the nightmare is after all shot through and through with absurdities. The result is to lend to the Communist ideology a substance that, in fact, it does not possess. If in moments of doubt the Communist is inclined to feel that his philosophy is made of air and tinsel, he is reassured and brought back into the fold when he recalls that its critics have declared this philosophy to be profoundly and powerfully vicious.

Part of the tarnish that an uncompliant history has visited on the Communist prophecies has in recent years been removed by the achievements of Russian technology. It is now possible to identify communism with the land that has the highest school buildings, the hugest outdoor rallies, the most colossal statues and the space satellites that weigh the most tons. It is not difficult to make all this appear as a kind of belated flowering of the promises communism began holding out more than a hundred years ago. It is easy to make men forget that none of the solid accomplishments of modern Russia came about by methods remotely resembling anything anticipated by Marx, Engels, or Lenin.

In suggesting the ingredients that go to make up a successful fighting faith, I stated that such a faith must be one "that gives to its adherents a sense of being lifted above the concerns that consume the lives of the nonbelieving." I have purposely left this aspect of the Communist faith to the last for it is here that the truly nightmarish quality of that faith manifests itself.

Not that it is any objection to a faith that it enables those sharing it to be indifferent to things that seem important to others. The crucial question is, What is it that men are told not to heed? As to the Communist faith there is no ambiguity on this score. It tells men to forget all the teachings of the ages about government, law, and morality. We are told to cast off the intellectual burden left behind by men like Confucius, Mencius, Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas, Kant and Bentham. There are no "eternal truths" about society. There is no science of social architecture. Only the simple minded can believe that there are principles guiding the creation of sound legal and political institutions. For the enlightened there is only one rule: Smash the existing "bourgeois" economic and legal order and leave the rest to the "spontaneous class organization of the proletariat."

In diplomatic dealings the Russians display great respect for American military and economic power, but consider us hopelessly naive in matters political. We are still concerned with trifles as they feel themselves long since to have left behind - trifles like: How do you help a people to realize self-government who have had no experience with its necessary forms and restraints? How, following the overthrow of a tyranny, do you suggest steps that will prevent an interim dictatorship from hardening into a second tyranny?

It is not that the Communists have ideas about sound government that differ from ours. According to strict Communist theory there can be no ideas on such a subject. If a gray market for such ideas has gradually developed in Russia it has not yet reached the point of being ready for the export trade. Russia has engineers able to help the underdeveloped countries build roads and dams and there is no reason to question the competence of these engineers. But whoever heard of Russia sending an expert in political institutions to help a new country design an appropriate form of representative self-government? Not only would such a mission stand in ludicrous incongruity with the present situation of the Communist countries in Europe; it would be a repudiation of the basic premises of the whole Communist philosophy.

Even in the economic field, Russia really has nothing to offer the rest of the world but negations. For a long time after the establishment of the Soviet regime it was actively disputed in Russia whether for communism there is any such thing as an economic law.

Communistic ideology has had gradually to bend before the plain fact that such laws exist. But Russia has as yet developed no economic institutions that are more than distorted shadows of their capitalist equivalents. Russia may help a new country to develop electric power. It has nothing to say about the social institutions that will determine how that power will be utilized for the good of the whole people.

This great vacuum that lies in the heart of communism explains not only why its philosophy is in the long run so destructive of everything human, but why in the short run it can be so successful. Consider, for example, what it can offer to the leader of a successful revolution. A cruel dictatorship has been overthrown. It had to be overthrown by force because it permitted no elections or never counted the vote honestly. Following the successful revolt, there must be an interval during which order is kept by something approaching a dictatorship. Sooner or later, if the revolution is not to belie its democratic professions, some movement must be made toward representative self-government. This is a period of great difficulty. There is no mystery about its problems. They fit into an almost classic pattern known from antiquity. The revolutionary leaders must find some accommodation with what is left of the old regime. Sooner or later the firing squad must be retired. Even when this is done vengeful hatreds continue to endanger the successful operation of parliamentary government. Among the revolutionary party, men who were once united in overthrowing plain injustice become divided on the question what constitutes a just new order. Militant zealots, useful in the barricades, are too rough for civil government and must be curbed. If curbed too severely, they may take up arms against the new government. Etc., etc. What can communism offer the revolutionary leader caught in this ancient and familiar quandary? It can, of course, offer him material aid. But it can offer him something more significant and infinitely more dangerous, a clear conscience in taking the easy course. It can tell him to forget about elections and his promises of democracy and freedom. It can support this advice with an imposing library of pseudoscience clothing despotism with the appearance of intellectual respectability.

The internal stability of the present Russian Government lends an additional persuasiveness to this appeal. If Russia can get along without elections, why can't we? Men forget that it is a common characteristic of dictatorships to enjoy internal truces that may extend over decades, only to have the struggle for power renew itself when the problem of a succession arises. This is a pattern written across centuries of man's struggle for forms of government consistent with human dignity. It is said that the struggle for power cannot under modern conditions with modern armies and modern weapons, take the form of a prolonged civil war. That is no doubt true in a developed economy like that of Russia. The shift in power when it comes may involve only a few quick maneuvers within the apparatus of the party, which have their only outward manifestation in purges or banishments that seal the results. But the fact remains that the fate of millions will be determined by processes which take no account of their interests or wishes, in which they are granted no participation, and which they are not even permitted to observe.

It must not be forgotten that modern Russia was for an indefinite period prior to 1953 governed by a tyranny. This is admitted in Russia today. To be sure, the term "tyranny" is not used, because according to the Communist philosophy a term like that betokens a naive and outdated view of the significance of governmental forms. The Soviet term is "the cult of personality." According to the official explanation Stalin and his followers in some mysterious way became infected with a mistaken view of Stalin's proper role. According to ancient wisdom this was because Stalin ruled without the check of constitutional forms and without effective popular participation in his government. In the words of Aristotle, written some 23 centuries ago, "This is why we do not permit a man to rule, but the principle of law, because a man rules in his own interest, and becomes a tyrant."

It is plain that Stalin at some point became a tyrant. According to Aristotle this was because Russia did not base its government on the principle of law. According to the Communist theory some inexplicable slippage of the gears, some accidental countercurrent of history, led Stalin to embrace incorrect notions about himself.

If mankind is to survive at a level of dignity worthy of its great past, we must help the world recapture some sense of the teachings of the great thinkers of former ages. It must come again to see that sound legal and political institutions not only express man's highest ideal of what he may become, but that they are indispensable instruments for enabling him to realize that ideal. It would be comforting to believe that the forces of history are working inevitably toward this realization and that we too are cooperating with the inevitable. We can only hope that this is so. But we can know that the forces of human life, struggling to realize itself on its highest plane, are working with us and that those forces need our help desperately.

Richard Nixon, The Meaning of Communism to Americans: Study Paper by Richard M. Nixon, Vice President, United States of America Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/274060

Filed Under

Simple search of our archives, report a typo.

1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

Arguments for Capitalism and Socialism

Author: Thomas Metcalf Category: Social and Political Philosophy Wordcount: 993

Editor’s Note: This essay is the second in a two-part series authored by Tom on the topic of capitalism and socialism. The first essay, on defining capitalism and socialism, is available here .

Listen here

Suppose I had a magic wand that allowed one to produce 500 donuts per hour. I say to you, “Let’s make a deal. You use this wand to produce donuts, and then sell those donuts for $500 and give me the proceeds. I’ll give you $10 for every hour you spend doing this. I’ll spend that time playing video games.”

My activity—playing video games—seems pretty easy. Your job requires much more effort. And I might end up with a lot more money than $10 for every hour you work. How is that fair?

In the story, the magic wand is analogous to capital goods : assets (typically machinery and buildings, such as robots, sewing machines, computers, and factories) that make labor, or providing goods and services, more productive. Standard definitions of ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ indicate that, in general, capitalist systems permit people to privately own and control capital goods, whereas socialist systems do not. And capitalist systems tend to contain widespread wage labor, absentee ownership, and property income; socialist systems generally don’t. [1]

Capital goods are morally interesting. As in the case of the magic wand, ownership of capital goods can allow one to make lots of money without working. In contrast, other people have to work for a living. This might be unfair or harmful. This essay surveys and explains the main arguments in this debate. [2]

1. Capitalism

Arguments for capitalism tend to hold that it’s beneficial to society for there to be incentives to produce, own, and use capital goods like the magic wand, or that it’s wrong to forcibly prevent people from doing so. Here are four arguments for capitalism, stated briefly:

(1) Competition: ‘When individuals compete with each other for profits, this benefits the consumer.’ [3]

Critique : Competition also may encourage selfish and predatory behavior. Competition can also occur in some socialist systems. [4]

(2) Freedom: ‘Preventing people from owning capital restricts their freedom. Seizing their income in the form of taxes may constitute theft.’ [5]

Critiques : Maybe owning property, itself, restricts freedom, by excluding others from using it. [6] If I announce that I own something, I may be thereby announcing that I will force you not to use it. And maybe “freedom” requires the ability to pursue one’s own goals, which in turn requires some amount of wealth. [7] Further, if people must choose between work and starvation, then their choice to work may not be really “free” anyway. [8] And the general distribution of wealth is arguably the result of a morally arbitrary “natural lottery,” [9] which may not actually confer strict property-rights over one’s holdings. [10] I didn’t choose where I was born, nor my parents’ wealth, nor my natural talents, which allow me to acquire wealth. So perhaps it’s not a violation of my rights to take some of that property from me.

(3) Public Goods: [11] ‘When objects, including capital, must be shared with others, then no one is strongly motivated to produce them. In turn, society is poorer and labor is more difficult because production is inefficient.’ [12]

Critique : People might be motivated to produce capital for altruistic reasons, [13] or may be coerced in some socialist systems to do so. Some putatively socialist systems allow for profitable production of capital goods. [14]

  (4) Tragedy of the Commons: ‘When capital, natural resources, or the environment are publicly controlled, no one is strongly motivated to protect them.’ [15]

Critique : As before, people might be motivated by altruism. [16] Some systems with partially-private control of capital may nevertheless qualify as socialist. [17]

2. Socialism

Arguments for socialism tend to hold that it’s unfair or harmful to have a system like in the story of the magic wand, a system with widespread wage labor and property income. Here are four arguments for socialism, stated briefly:

(1) Fairness: ‘It’s unfair to make money just by owning capital, as is possible only in a capitalist system.’ [18]

Critique : Perhaps fairness isn’t as morally important as consent, freedom, property rights, or beneficial consequences. And perhaps wage laborers consent to work, and capital owners have property rights over their capital. [19]

(2) Inequality: ‘When people can privately own capital, they can use it to get even richer relative to the poor, and the wage laborers are left poorer and poorer relative to the rich, thereby worsening the inequality that already exists between capital-owners and wage-laborers.’ [20]

Critiques : This is a disputable empirical claim. [21] And perhaps the ability to privately own capital encourages people to invest in building capital goods, thereby making goods and services cheaper. Further, perhaps monopolies commonly granted by social control over capital are “captured” by wealthy special-interests, [22] which harm the poor by enacting regressive laws. [23]

(3) Labor: ‘Wage laborers are alienated from their labor, exploited, and unfree because they must obey their bosses’ orders.’ [24]

Critiques : If this alienation and exploitation are net-harmful to workers, then why do workers consent to work? If the answer is ‘because they’ll suffer severe hardship otherwise,’ then strictly speaking, this is a critique of allowing poverty, not a critique of allowing wage labor.

(4) Selfishness: ‘When people can privately own capital, they selfishly pursue profit above all else, which leads to further inequality, environmental degradation, non-productive industries, economic instability, colonialism, mass murder, and slavery.’

Critique : These are also disputable empirical claims. Maybe when people are given control over socially -owned capital, they selfishly extract personal wealth from it. [25] Maybe when the environment is socially controlled, everyone is individually motivated to over-harvest and pollute. [26] State intervention in the economy may be a major cause of the existence of non-productive industry, pollution, and economic instability. [27] Last, some of the worst perpetrators of historical evils are governments, not private corporations. [28]

  3. Conclusion

It is difficult to justifiably draw general conclusions about what a pure capitalism or socialism would be like in practice. [29] But an examination of the merits and demerits of each system gives us some guidance about whether we should move a society in either direction.

[1] See my Defining Capitalism and Socialism for an explanation of how to define these systems.

[2] For much-more-extensive surveys, see Gilabert and O’Neill n.d. and Arnold n.d.

[3] By analogy, different people might try to construct even better magic wands, or use them for better purposes. Typically the benefits are thought to include lower prices, increased equality, innovation, and more options. See Smith 2003 [1776]: bk. 1, ch. 2 and Friedman and Friedman 1979: ch. 1.

[4] Schweickart 2011 presents an outline of a market socialism comprising much competition.

[5] By analogy, if I legitimately own the magic wand, then what gives you the right to threaten violence against me if I don’t give it to you? Nozick 1974: ch. 7 presents a general discussion of how socialism might restrict freedom and how taxation may be akin to theft or forced labor.

[6] Spencer 1995 [1871]: 103-4 and Zwolinski 2015 discuss how property might require coercion. See also Scott 2011: 32-33. Indeed, property in general may essentially be theft (Proudhon 1994 [1840]).

[7] See Rawls (1999: 176-7) for this sort of argument. See John Rawls’ ‘A Theory of Justice’ by Ben Davies for an introduction.

[8] See e.g. Burawoy 1979 for a discussion of whether workers consent to work. See also Marx 2004 (1867): vol. IV, ch. VII.

[9] Rawls 1999: 62 ff.

[10] Relatedly, while one may currently hold capital, one may greatly owe the existence of that product to many other people or to society in general. See e.g. Kropotkin 2015 [1913]: chs. 1-3 and Murphy and Nagel 2002.

[11] A public good is a good that is non-excludable (roughly, it is expensive to prevent people from using it) and non-rivalrously consumed (roughly, preventing people from using it causes harm without benefiting anyone) (Cowen 2008).

[12] By analogy, why bother building magic wands at all if someone else is immediately going to take it from me and start using it? Standard economic theory holds that public goods (non-excludable and non-rivalrous goods) will, on the free market, be underproduced. This is normally taken to be an argument for government to produce public goods. See e.g. Gaus 2008: 84 ff.

[13] For example, according to Marxist communism, the ideal socialist society would comprise production for use, not for profit. See e.g. Marx 2004 [1867]: vol. 1 ch. 7. See also Kropotkin 1902, which is a defense of the general claim that humans will tend to be altruistic, at least in anarcho-communist systems.

[14] In a market-socialist system (cf. Schweickart 2011), it is possible to make capital goods and sell them at a profit that gets distributed to the laborers.

[15] By analogy, if I know that anyone in the neighborhood can use the magic wand, I might not invest my own time and money to maintain it. But if it’s mine alone, I care a lot more about maintaining it. This is the basis of the well-known ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ alleged problem. See, e.g., Hardin 1968.

[16] Kropotkin 1902.

[17] As before, in Schweickart’s (2011) system, firms will be motivated to protect capital if they must pay for capital’s deprecation, even though the capital is owned by society.

[18] By analogy, as noted, the wand-owner might make lots of money for basically doing no work. Sherman 1995: 130; Schweickart 2011: § 3.2.

[19] See e.g. Friedman 2002 for a collection of consequentialist arguments for capitalism, and Nozick 1974: chs. 3 and 7 for some arguments concerning freedom and capitalist systems.

[20] By analogy, the wand-owner might accumulate so much money as to start buying other magic wands and renting those out as well. See e.g. Piketty 2014.

[21] Taking the world as a whole, wealth in absolute terms has been increasing greatly, and global poverty has been decreasing steeply, including in countries that have moved in mostly capitalist directions. See e.g. World Bank Group 2016: 3. Friedman 1989: ch. 5 argues that capitalism is responsible for the improved position of the poor today compared to the past.

[22] See e.g. Friedman 1989: ch. 7 for a discussion of regulatory capture.

[23] Friedman 2002: chs. IV and IX; Friedman 1989: ch. 4.

[24] By analogy, the person I’ve hired to use the wand might need to obey my orders, because they don’t have a wand of their own to rent out, and they might starve without the job I’ve offered them. Marx 2009 [1932] introduces and develops this concept of alienation. See Dan Lowe’s 2015 Karl Marx’s Conception of Alienation for an overview. See also Anderson 2015 for an argument that private corporations coercively violate their workers’ freedom.

[25] See n. 21 above. This result is most-obvious in countries in which dictators enrich themselves, but there is nothing in principle preventing rulers of ostensibly democratic countries from doing so as well. Presumably this worry explains the presence of the Emoluments Clause in the U. S. Constitution.

[26] See n. 14.

[27] See e.g. Friedman 2002: chs. III and V and the example of compliance costs for regulations.

[28] See Huemer 2013: ch. 6 ff.

[29] All or nearly all large-scale economies have been mixed economies. In contrast, a pure capitalism would be an anarcho-capitalism (see e.g. Gaus 2010: 75 ff. and Huemer 2013), and a pure socialism wouldn’t permit people to privately own scissors. See also the entry “Defining Capitalism and Socialism.”

Anderson, Elizabeth. 2015. Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk about It) . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Arnold, Samuel. N. d. “Socialism.” In The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ed.), The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy , URL = < https://www.iep.utm.edu/socialis/ >

Burawoy, Michael. 1979. Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism . Chicago, IL and London, UK: The University of Chicago Press.

Cohen, G. A. 2009. Why Not Socialism? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Cowen, Tyler. 2008. “Public Goods.” In David R. Henderson (ed.), The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics . Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.

Dagger, Richard and Terence Ball. 2019. “Socialism.” In Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (ed.), E ncyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/socialism

Dahl, Robert A. 1993. “Why All Democratic Countries have Mixed Economies.” Nomos 35: 259-82.

Dictionary.com. N.d. “Capitalism.” URL = < https://www.dictionary.com/browse/capitalism >

Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. 2019. “Henri de Saint-Simon.” In Encyclopædia Britannica , Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henri-de-Saint-Simon

Friedman, David D. 1989. The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism , Second Edition. La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company.

Friedman, Milton. 2002. Capitalism and Freedom . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Friedman, Milton and Rose Friedman. 1979. Free to Choose: A Personal Statement . New York, NY: Harcourt Brace.

Gaus, Gerald. 2010. “The Idea and Ideal of Capitalism.” In George G. Brenkert and Tom L. Beauchamp (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Business Ethics . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Gaus, Gerald. 2008. On Philosophy, Politics, and Economics . Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Gilabert, Pablo and Martin O’Neill. 2019. “Socialism.” In E. N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socialism/ .

Hardin, Garrett. 1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162(3859): 1243-48.

Herzog, Lisa. 2019. “Markets.” In E. N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Spring 2019 Edition, URL =https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/markets/

Huemer, Michael. 2013. The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey . Houndmills, UK and New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Investopedia. 2019. “Mixed Economic System.” Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mixed-economic-system.asp

Kropotkin, P. 1902. Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution . New York, NY: McClure Phillips & Co.

Kropotkin, Peter. 2015 [1913]. The Conquest of Bread. London, UK: Penguin Classics.

Lowe, Dan. 2015. “Karl Marx’s Conception of Alienation.” 1000-Word Philosophy . Retrieved from https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2015/05/13/karl-marxs-conception-of-alienation/.

Marx, Karl. 2009 [1932]. “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.” In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and the Communist Manifesto , tr. Martin Milligan (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books), pp. 13-202.

Marx, Karl. 2004 [1867]. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume One . New York, NY: Penguin Classics.

Merriam-Webster. N.d. “Capitalism.” URL = < https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism >

Mill, John Stuart. 1965 [1848]. Principles of Political Economy with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy, Volume I: The Principles of Political Economy I , ed. J. M. Robson. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.

Murphy, Liam and Thomas Nagel. 2002. The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Oxford English Dictionary, N.d. a. “Capital.” Retrieved from http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/27450

Oxford English Dictionary. N.d. b. “Capitalism.” Retrieved from http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/27454

Oxford English Dictionary. N.d. c. “Mixed Economy.” Retrieved from http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/120348

Oxford English Dictionary. N.d. d. “Socialism.” Retrieved from http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/183741

Piketty, Thomas. 2014. Capital in the Twenty-First Century , tr. Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph. 1994 [1840]. What is Property? Ed. Donald R. Kelley and Bonnie G. Smith. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Rawls, John. 1999. A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Schweickart, David. 2011. After Capitalism , Second Edition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Scott, Bruce R. 2011. Capitalism: Its Origins and Evolution as a System of Governance . New York, NY: Springer Science+Business Media.

Sherman, Howard J. 1995. Reinventing Marxism . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Smith, Adam. 2003 [1776]. The Wealth of Nations . New York, NY: Bantam Dell.

Wikipedia. N.d. “Capitalism.” URL =

Wiktionary. N.d. “Capitalism.” URL =

World Bank Group. 2016. Global Monitoring Report 2015/2016: Development Goals in an Era of Demographic Change. Washington, DC: World Bank Group and The International Monetary Fund.

Zwolinski, Matt. 2015. “Property Rights, Coercion, and the Welfare State: The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income for All.” The Independent Review 19(4): 515-29

Related Essays

Defining Capitalism and Socialism by Tom Metcalf

Marx’s Conception of Alienation by Dan Lowe

Karl Marx’s Theory of History by Angus Taylor

On Karl Marx’s Slogan “From Each According to their Ability, To Each According to their Need”  by Sam Badger

John Rawls’ ‘A Theory of Justice’ by Ben Davies

Social Contract Theory by David Antonini

Ethical Egoism: The Morality of Selfishness  by Nathan Nobis

Reparations for Historic Injustice by Joseph Frigault 

George Orwell’s Philosophical Views by Mark Satta

PDF Download

Download this essay in PDF . 

About the Author

Tom Metcalf is an associate professor at Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL. He received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He specializes in ethics, metaethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of religion. Tom has two cats whose names are Hesperus and Phosphorus. shc.academia.edu/ThomasMetcalf

Follow 1000-Word Philosophy on Facebook , Twitter and subscribe to receive email notifications of new essays at 1000WordPhilosophy.com

Share this:, 13 thoughts on “ arguments for capitalism and socialism ”.

• Pingback: Defining Capitalism and Socialism – 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Reblogged this on SIPAHOUSEPRESS .

• Pingback: The Week’s End // A Thought-Provoking Round-Up – Lisa Marie Blair
• Pingback: Online Philosophy Resources Weekly Update - Daily Nous
• Pingback: Reparations for Historic Injustice – 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology
• Pingback: John Rawls’ ‘A Theory of Justice’ – 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology
• Pingback: Political Philosophy: A collection of articles, videos, and podcasts - The Daily Idea
• Pingback: Distributive Justice: How Should Resources be Allocated? – 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology
• Pingback: George Orwell’s Philosophical Views – 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology
• Pingback: Business Ethics – 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology
• Pingback: Karl Marx’s Conception of Alienation – 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology
• Pingback: Ethical Egoism: The Morality of Selfishness – 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Comments are closed.

Discover more from 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

How do I place an order with your paper writing service?

Progressive delivery is highly recommended for your order. This additional service allows tracking the writing process of big orders as the paper will be sent to you for approval in parts/drafts* before the final deadline.

What is more, it guarantees:

• 30 days of free revision;
• A top writer and the best editor;
• A personal order manager.

* You can read more about this service here or please contact our Support team for more details.

It is a special offer that now costs only +15% to your order sum!

Would you like to order Progressive delivery for your paper?

Niamh Chamberlain

Customer Reviews

Finished Papers

Can I hire someone to write essay?

Student life is associated with great stress and nervous breakdowns, so young guys and girls urgently need outside help. There are sites that take all the responsibility for themselves. You can turn to such companies for help and they will do all the work while clients relax and enjoy a carefree life.

Take the choice of such sites very seriously, because now you can meet scammers and low-skilled workers.

On our website, polite managers will advise you on all the details of cooperation and sign an agreement so that you are confident in the agency. In this case, the user is the boss who hires the employee to delegate responsibilities and devote themselves to more important tasks. You can correct the work of the writer at all stages, observe that all special wishes are implemented and give advice. You pay for the work only if you liked the essay and passed the plagiarism check.

We will be happy to help you complete a task of any complexity and volume, we will listen to special requirements and make sure that you will be the best student in your group.

Can I Trust You With Other Assignments that aren't Essays?

The best way to complete a presentation speech is with a team of professional writers. They have the experience, the knowledge, and ways to impress your prof. Another assignment you can hire us for is an article review. Evaluating someone's work with a grain of salt cannot be easy, especially if it is your first time doing this. To summarize, article reviews are a challenging task. Good that you've found our paper service and can now drop your worries after placing an order. If reading 100-page-long academic articles and digging into every piece of information doesn't sound like something you'd want to do on a Sunday night, hire our essay writing company to do your research proposal. Are you struggling with understanding your professors' directions when it comes to homework assignments? Hire professional writers with years of experience to earn a better grade and impress your parents. Send us the instructions, and your deadline, and you're good to go. We're sure we have a professional paper writer with the skills to complete practically any assignment for you. We only hire native English speakers with a degree and 3+ years of experience, some are even uni professors.

The writers of PenMyPaper establish the importance of reflective writing by explaining its pros and cons precisely to the readers. They tend to ‘do my essay’ by adding value to both you (enhancing your knowledge) and your paper.

• Paraphrasing
• Research Paper
• Research Proposal
• Scholarship Essay
• Speech Presentation
• Statistics Project
• Thesis Proposal

Why is writing essays so hard?

Patterns and boring topics imposed by schools and universities are not very conducive to creativity and human development. Such essays are very difficult to write, because many are not interested in this and do not see the meaning of the text. There are a number of criteria that make it impossible to write essays:

• Boring and incomprehensible topics. Many topics could be more interesting, but teachers formulate them in a way that makes you want to yawn.
• Templates. 90% do not know how to make an essay interesting, how to turn this detailed answer to a question into a living story.
• Fear of not living up to expectations. It seems to many that the essay is stupid and that they simply did not understand the question. There is a fear of getting a bad mark and disappointing the professor, parents and classmates. There is a fear of looking stupid and embarrassing in front of the team.
• Lack of experience. People don't know what and how to write about. In order to make a good essay, you need to have a perfect understanding of the topic and have the skills of a writer.

That is why the company EssaysWriting provides its services. We remove the responsibility for the result from the clients and do everything to ensure that the scientific work is recognized.

1035 Natoma Street, San Francisco

This exquisite Edwardian single-family house has a 1344 Sqft main…

Copyright © 2022. All Right Reserved -

Megan Sharp

Finished Papers

Essay Service Features That Matter

A professional essay writing service is an instrument for a student who’s pressed for time or who doesn’t speak English as a first language. However, in 2022 native English-speaking students in the U.S. become to use essay help more and more. Why is that so? Mainly, because academic assignments are too boring and time-consuming. Also, because having an essay writer on your team who’s ready to come to homework rescue saves a great deal of trouble. is one of the best new websites where you get help with your essays from dedicated academic writers for a reasonable price.

Customer Reviews

Finished Papers

PenMyPaper: a student-friendly essay writing website

We, at PenMyPaper, are resolute in delivering you professional assistance to write any kind of academic work. Be it marketing, business, or healthcare sector, we can prepare every kind of draft efficiently, meeting all the points of the question brief. Also, we believe in 'research before drafting'. Any work without ample research and evidence will be a flawed one and thus we aim to make your drafts flawless with exclusive data and statistics. With us, you can simply relax while we do the hard work for you.

Customer Reviews

• History Category
• Psychology Category
• Informative Category
• Analysis Category
• Business Category
• Economics Category
• Health Category
• Literature Category
• Review Category
• Sociology Category
• Technology Category