It Isn’t Because Human Nature is “Selfish and Immoral”
that Communism Can’t Work
There is something to be said for the notion that it is human nature that finally destroys any possibility for communism as a Utopian paradise. There are many flaws to the theory of communism – including the necessity for planning in a non-market system – but finally the thin line that separates the ideal of communism from the New Leviathan depicted by Bukharin[1] (and based on Thomas Hobbes’ play) is only that under a well-intentioned communism, by the workers and for the workers, man’s very nature will change and without economic classes in society, the state would wither away.
Bukharin argued that the pluralistic laissez faire economy had given way to a “collective capitalism,” state power was entrenched in all branches of production; statization would culminate in a “state capitalist trust.” The state would have a monopoly on the economic power of the nation. In addition, he argued, already the state “as if driven by an unquenchable lust, had spread its organizing tentacles into all areas of social life.”
If in communism the economy is also centralized, would this not also happen under communism? Marx explained that “the chief function of state power is the guaranteeing of the process of exploitation.” So, the state itself would not be necessary, and the workers would own this monopoly of power, they would own the means of production, they would cooperatively run the production in society as enlightened workers without coercion. Bukharin and Preobrazhensky explain in thus in the ABC of communism:
The basis of communist society must be the
social ownership of the means of production and exchange. … In such a social
order, production will be organized. No longer will one enterprise compete with
another; the factories, workshops, mines, and other productive institutions
will all be subdivisions, as it were, of one vast people's workshop, which will
embrace the entire national economy of production. … It is obvious that so
comprehensive an organization presupposes a general plan of production. … In
the communist social order, there is such a plan. … Mere organization does not,
however, suffice. The essence of the matter lies in this, that the organization
shall be a cooperative organization of all the members of society. The
communist system, in addition to affecting organization, is further
distinguished by the fact that it puts an end to exploitation, that it
abolishes the division of society into classes. We might conceive the organization
of production as being effected in the following manner: a small group of
capitalists, a capitalist combine, controls everything; production has been
organized, so that capitalist no longer competes with capitalist; conjointly
they extract surplus value from the workers, who have been practically reduced
to slavery. Here we have organization, but we also have the exploitation of one
class by another. Here there is a joint ownership of the means of production,
but it is joint ownership by one class, an exploiting class. This is something
very different from communism, although it is characterized by the organization
of production. Such an organization of society would have removed only one of
the fundamental contradictions, the anarchy of production. But it would have
strengthened the other fundamental contradiction of capitalism, the division of
society into two warring halves; the class war would be intensified. Such a
society would be organized along one line only; on another line, that of class
structure, it would still be rent asunder. Communist society does not merely
organize production; in addition, it frees people from oppression by others. It
is organized throughout.
The cooperative character of communist
production is likewise displayed in every detail of organization. Under
communism, for example, there will not be permanent managers of factories, nor
will there be persons who do one and the same kind of work throughout their
lives.[2]
As Lenin said in The State and Revolution “the whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labor and pay.” But, he went on, “From the moment all members of society, or at least the vast majority, have learned to administer the state themselves … the need for government of any kind begins to disappear altogether.”[3]
Another assumption that allows this ideal to be differentiated from the Leviathan is abundance. Forgetting the cardinal economic rule of scarcity the advocates of communism, in part because of this idea of communal and Utopian new human relations and in part due to the sharing of profits, assume that there will be enough produced that each person will experience satiety (from the same source):
At first,
doubtless, and perhaps for twenty or thirty years, it will be necessary to have
various regulations. Maybe certain products will only be supplied to those
persons who have a special entry in their work-book or on their work-card.
Subsequently, when communist society has been consolidated and fully developed,
no such regulations will be needed. There will be an ample quantity of all
products, our present wounds will long since have been healed, and everyone
will be able to get just as much as he needs. 'But will not people find it to
their interest to take more than they need?' Certainly not. Today, for example,
no one thinks it worth while when he wants one seat in a tram, to take three
tickets and keep two places empty. It will be just the same in the case of all
products. A person will take from the communal storehouse precisely as much as
he needs, no more. No one will have any interest in taking more than he wants
in order to sell the surplus to others, since all these others can satisfy
their needs whenever they please. Money will then have no value. Our meaning is
that at the outset, in the first days of communist society, products will
probably be distributed in accordance with the amount of work done by the
applicant; at a later stage, however, they will simply be supplied according to
the needs of the comrades.
This assumption flows directly from Marx:
In a
higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the
individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between
mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a
means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also
increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the
springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow
horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on
its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his
needs![4]
But it is only the changed nature of man that would allow the state to dissolve and the state-capitalist cum socialist tentacled beast to relax away into a communist state-less society.
“…the feeling of a
collective bond between people is one of the principal traits of socialism”[5] -
Bukharin
This idealization of the communist human nature which will emerge is the foundation of the promise that the centralized economy of communism will not be simply a state controlled Leviathan. It is also what many today cite as the primary reason for failure of communism and for its idealistic and well-intentioned promise of a better society, which they explain is sadly not possible due to the corrupt and unethical nature of man. It is sad, they say, but humans are simply not that moral and good at heart. If man were primarily good, rather than primarily greedy – having fallen from grace, being born with sin – then we could realize communist Utopia.
At last
with the dawn of a new economic era, the era of social production for social
uses, we shall have also the dawn of a new Ethic, an Ethic whose ideal is
neither personal holiness nor personal interest, but social happiness-for which
the perfect individual will ever be subordinate to the perfect society.[6]
But, is it true that this human nature depicted by Marxists is a better nature than the nature we were born with? Marxists see selfishness and individualism (at the expense of the group, society or individuals within it) as the primary enemy of morality in the capitalist society. They describe the way that socialism will destroy the need for selfishness:
Acts that
are in the interest of the community as much as of the individual, and of the
individual as much as of the community, cannot be described either as selfish
or as unselfish. They are both and neither. In proportion as the organisation
of society of itself abolishes the antagonism of interest between the
individual man and his fellows, by so much will the opposition between
selfishness and unselfishness dwindle into insignificance.[7]
And in the communist society, youth are taught about communist morality and the ways that their society have ended selfishness:
Communist
morality is that which serves this struggle and unites the working people
against all exploitation, against all petty private property; for petty
property puts into the hands of one person that which has been created by the
labour of the whole of society. In our country the land is common property. … Morality
serves the purpose of helping human society rise to a higher level and rid
itself of the exploitation of labour.[8]
But is subordination to a common interest truly a morally respectable stance? Is individuality wrong? Is it wrong to put yourself and close family ahead of the people of your class, country or before all mankind?
Certainly the species would not be well served by the valuation of all mankind equally. Self-defense would be indefensible in such a case. One must morally put himself above others for him to be morally justified to defend himself with force. Similarly, the defense of one’s family against intruders would not be justified without a moral sanction to put one’s family above the rest of the species.
But the propagation of the species is not necessarily the role of morality. But what is love without the ability to hold some above others, to feed one’s family with hard work and devotion for only them; what is love except distinguishing some as better or more important than others?
So, how is a society moral if the members are expected to put the collective ahead of any individual? How is it moral that the society itself and all of the members are to, in each circumstance, come before oneself and one’s family?
In a certain situation – such as a military battle – one can be expected to put the group ahead of himself; but even then we see it as moral to go after one solitary soldier and save him, even at the risk of the whole company of men. So, how moral is a society that refuses to see any man as important in himself and in which morality requires one to put the society ahead of each individual man?
[1] Imperialism and the World Economy, Nikolai Bukharin, 1917
[2] Bukharin and Preobrazhensky "The ABC of Communism", written 1920, Penguin Books, 1969
[3] State and Revolution, V. Lenin, 1917
[4]
Marx Critique of the
[5] Poetry, Poetics and the Problems of Poetry in the U.S.S.R., Nikolai Bukharin 1934
[6] The Ethics of Socialism, Ernest Belfort Bax, 1893
[7] Beyond Selfish and Unselfish, Ernest Belfort Bax, 1904
[8] Tasks of the Youth Leagues, V. Lenin 1920