by Herr Komm
I came across this video by the youtube user Dhorpatan where he explains why capitalism is supposedly better than communism, so I decided to watch it to see if he has any valid arguments against communism or marxism specifically, but as to be expected I was to be disapointed by the usual strawman arguments coming from capitalist apologists, that either deliberately put words into the writings of Marx and then after having deliberately misrepresented Marx claim to have refuted him, or just know nothing about Marxism to begin with (which in an era where we have online databases of marxists writings seems like a non-excuse).
As such I would like to proceed with actually dealing with the video.
Dhorpatan starts by saying;
“Communism on it’s face, as in on the surface, seems like a great idea.”
As we can see here is that Dhorpatan starts with the “good on paper” argument, which should be obvious to anyone that it is a complete non-argument, if you’d turn the argument around and said; “Well capitalism just looks good on paper!” no capitalist apologist is going to look at that argument and drop his position, because this argument lacks any explenatory power, shows no sign of knowledge on the subject and thus in no way shape or form actually seeks to refute the tennets of communism, but instead just puts up a pretence of having actually refuted it.
Let us continue with the video;
“It could be argued that it’s intent was to have all goods and services shared equally, have control in the hands of the people, rather than a ruling elite, eliminate poverty, and eliminate the upper class.”
Dhorpatan is correct here, that is indeed the intent of the communist movement, so nothing needs to be added here.
Let us move on;
“What makes communism so wrong is that it’s nothing but a form of ultraism and collectivism, as it gives priority to the group or society, rather than the individual”
First of all Dhorpatan just asserts that ultraism and collectivism are wrong, without giving any actual argument as to why they are wrong, and thus he’s merely giving an unfounded assertion.
Second Dhorpatan puts up the false capitalist apologist dichotomy of collectivism versus individualism, where both concepts are concidered to be irreconcilable and in contradiction with eachother, where you either do something that benefits the individual, or something that benefits the collective, and thus we cannot have a system that seeks to benefit both simultaneously. If Dhorpatan had actually read Marx (which would be quite uncommon for a capitalist apologist) then he would have known what Marx meant with terms such as “collectivism” and “individualism”, and would know that they are not mutually exclusive, but even if we would assume (for the sake of argument) that Marxism does value a group or society above the individual, then the burden of proof is on Dhorpatan to demonstrate why this is wrong, and since he doesn’t do that he’s once again giving us a baseless assertion.
However, I’m now going to continue with quoting Marx on this subject to demonstrate how collectivism and individualism are not mutually exclusive;
“The transformation, through the division of labour, of personal powers (relationships) into material powers, cannot be dispelled by dismissing the general idea of it from one’s mind, but can only be abolished by the individuals again subjecting these material powers to themselves and abolishing the division of labour. This is not possible without the community. Only in community [with others has each] individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible. In the previous substitutes for the community, in the State, etc. personal freedom has existed only for the individuals who developed within the relationships of the ruling class, and only insofar as they were individuals of this class. The illusory community, in which individuals have up till now combined, always took on an independent existence in relation to them, and was at the same time, since it was the combination of one class over against another, not only a completely illusory community, but a new fetter as well. In a real community the individuals obtain their freedom in and through their association.
Individuals have always built on themselves, but naturally on themselves within their given historical conditions and relationships, not on the “pure” individual in the sense of the ideologists. But in the course of historical evolution, and precisely through the inevitable fact that within the division of labour social relationships take on an independent existence, there appears a division within the life of each individual, insofar as it is personal and insofar as it is determined by some branch of labour and the conditions pertaining to it. (We do not mean it to be understood from this that, for example, the rentier, the capitalist, etc. cease to be persons; but their personality is conditioned and determined by quite definite class relationships, and the division appears only in their opposition to another class and, for themselves, only when they go bankrupt.) In the estate (and even more in the tribe) this is as yet concealed: for instance, a nobleman always remains a nobleman, a commoner always a commoner, apart from his other relationships, a quality inseparable from his individuality. The division between the personal and the class individual, the accidental nature of the conditions of life for the individual, appears only with the emergence of the class, which is itself a product of the bourgeoisie. This accidental character is only engendered and developed by competition and the struggle of individuals among themselves. Thus, in imagination, individuals seem freer under the dominance of the bourgeoisie than before, because their conditions of life seem accidental; in reality, of course, they are less free, because they are more subjected to the violence of things. The difference from the estate comes out particularly in the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. When the estate of the urban burghers, the corporations, etc. emerged in opposition to the landed nobility, their condition of existence — movable property and craft labour, which had already existed latently before their separation from the feudal ties — appeared as something positive, which was asserted against feudal landed property, and, therefore, in its own way at first took on a feudal form. Certainly the refugee serfs treated their previous servitude as something accidental to their personality. But here they only were doing what every class that is freeing itself from a fetter does; and they did not free themselves as a class but separately. Moreover, they did not rise above the system of estates, but only formed a new estate, retaining their previous mode of labour even in their new situation, and developing it further by freeing it from its earlier fetters, which no longer corresponded to the development already attained. [3]
For the proletarians, on the other hand, the condition of their existence, labour, and with it all the conditions of existence governing modern society, have become something accidental, something over which they, as separate individuals, have no control, and over which no social organisation can give them control. The contradiction between the individuality of each separate proletarian and labour, the condition of life forced upon him, becomes evident to him himself, for he is sacrificed from youth upwards and, within his own class, has no chance of arriving at the conditions which would place him in the other class.
Thus, while the refugee serfs only wished to be free to develop and assert those conditions of existence which were already there, and hence, in the end, only arrived at free labour, the proletarians, if they are to assert themselves as individuals, will have to abolish the very condition of their existence hitherto (which has, moreover, been that of all society up to the present), namely, labour. Thus they find themselves directly opposed to the form in which, hitherto, the individuals, of which society consists, have given themselves collective expression, that is, the State. In order, therefore, to assert themselves as individuals, they must overthrow the State.
It follows from all we have been saying up till now that the communal relationship into which the individuals of a class entered, and which was determined by their common interests over against a third party, was always a community to which these individuals belonged only as average individuals, only insofar as they lived within the conditions of existence of their class — a relationship in which they participated not as individuals but as members of a class. With the community of revolutionary proletarians, on the other hand, who take their conditions of existence and those of all members of society under their control, it is just the reverse; it is as individuals that the individuals participate in it. It is just this combination of individuals (assuming the advanced stage of modern productive forces, of course) which puts the conditions of the free development and movement of individuals under their control — conditions which were previously abandoned to chance and had won an independent existence over against the separate individuals just because of their separation as individuals, and because of the necessity of their combination which had been determined by the division of labour, and through their separation had become a bond alien to them. Combination up till now (by no means an arbitrary one, such as is expounded for example in the Contrat social, but a necessary one) was an agreement upon these conditions, within which the individuals were free to enjoy the freaks of fortune (compare, e.g., the formation of the North American State and the South American republics). This right to the undisturbed enjoyment, within certain conditions, of fortuity and chance has up till now been called personal freedom. These conditions of existence are, of course, only the productive forces and forms of intercourse at any particular time.”
– Karl Marx, The German Ideology – 1 Feuerbach: Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook
In addition to Marx I would also like to quote Xu Junzhong from his chapter in The Human Person and Society where he explains the marxist concepts of individualism and collectivism;
“What kind of collectivity then does Marx want to reconstruct? To distinguish it from illusory collectivity, Marx names it “real community”. “The illusory community in which individuals have up till now combined always took on an independent existence in relation to them. . . . In real community the individuals obtain their freedom in and through their association.”5
Since this “real community is to be realized in the future, it is natural that one cannot describe its characteristics in too much detail.” We should not look for an exhaustive blueprint, but Marx does des-cribe its nature and essential characteristics. In explaining that to which the term “real community” refers, Marx puts it as “the community of revolutionary proletarians who take their conditions of existence and those of all members of society under their control”.6 In so doing, Marx excludes the bourgeois community from this category. “In this community,” continues Marx, “individuals participate as individuals for it is the association of individuals (assuming the advanced stage of modern productive forces, of course) which puts the conditions of free development and movement under their control”.7 The characteristics of Marx’s autocritical community can be summarized as follows:
First, as it arises form the need to solve the contradiction bet-ween the expansion of social relations and the separation of indivi-duals, it must be reconstructed on the grounds of highly developed productive forces, the formation of wide social relations and a com-prehensive development of people’s personalities and systems of abilities.
Second, it must eliminate the social conditions producing “illusory community” that is, the separation of people in the society. In order to achieve this objective it first must eliminate private ownership, for the separation of people has its root in the division of interests which originate from private ownership of the means of production Therefore, the sublation of private property, and thereby the integra-tion of the interests of the members of society, is another characteristic of the “real community”.
Third, the nature of this community is proletarian and revolu-tionary, but its most essential characteristic is the control of one’s own “conditions of existence and those of all the members of society”, which means “putting the conditions of the free development and movement of individuals under their control.” Thus, in this community the position of human beings is adequately highlighted; they mani-pulate things, but not the converse.
Fourth, this community does not negate the individual; on the contrary, it is a community in which “individuals participate as indivi-duals”, that is to say, it is above all as a member of the community that a human being must be “individual” above all. Here the word “indivi-dual” has two meanings: 1) The individual does not take part in the community “as a member of a class”, but as a socialized human individual, and therefore can be free of various limitations caused by class interest and separation from one another. 2) He is not only a human being in the flesh, or a biological individual, but also one who has a developed system of abilities and a highly enlightened self-consciousness, that is, one who has an independent personality and thus can stand up for himself in social life. This determinant means that a “real community” can accommodate individuals and provide ade-quate social conditions for their self-realization, but that it cannot come into being in a society in which persons are not able to act as `individuals’.”
– Xu Junzhong, The Human Person and Society – Chapter 6 Characteristics of the Marxist Theory of Collectivism
As we can clearly see, there is no contradiction whatsoever between individualism and collectivism (in the marxist sense), and thus the assertion that we put a “group or society above the individual” is simply wrong.
Let us proceed once again;
“Communism denies and imposes the right to private property, which is thus an attack on human freedom, to attack and abnegate human freedom is wrong, which is one of the main reasons why communism is wrong”
His criticism that denying the right to private property is an attack on human freedom is a nonsensical argument, as I could turn around and say that denying people the right to own slaves is an attack on their freedom and therefore it’s wrong, yet nobody seems to think this is a good argument, because we can all understand that having slaveowners denies the freedom of others, namely the slaves. And the same counts for owners of private property (the capitalists), if we allow capitalists to continue to own property, that means that the vast mayority of the population (just like the slaves) are denied the freedom to control and operate the means of production, so for the same reason we deny slaveowners “the freedom” to own slaves, we also deny capitalists “the freedom” to privately own the means of production and to exploit workers, so in it’s essence it’s merely taking away the privilege of a small group of individuals to give freedom to the vast mayority of society, and since Dhorpatan apparantly values freedom, it seems nonsensical of him to have a problem with that.
Also this mere assertion that denying human freedom is wrong, without providing anything to back it up is once again giving us an assertion without any foundation, now I will give him the fact that I also value freedom (otherwise I wouldn’t be a communist), however since Dhorpatan was making the argument the burden of proof is on him, but in the end as stated, communism doesn’t deny human freedom, it in fact gives it to the vast mayority that doesn’t have it under capitalism.
Let us continue;
“But it’s actually worse than that, because communism opposes private property rights it fundamentally entails slavement of the people, because property and wealth are put into society as a whole, independence is lost, as the fruits of ones efforts are taken from you and given to the community.”
Now here it gets kind of very awkward. Who would have thought that a proponent of the exploitative capitalist mode of production would complain about others taking the fruits of your labour? As that’s one of the main arguments communists use against capitalism, that the capitalist leeches off of the fruits of the labourer.
So first I will demonstrate that capitalism does take the fruits of other people’s labour and that communism in contrast does not.
Allow me to quote an article on the issue of capitalist exploitation from the blog Spectre Haunting Europe;
“As the founder of classical economics, William Petty, said: “labor is the father of material wealth, the earth is its mother”. Indeed, it is human labor, and human labor only, that mediates the exchange between society and nature. In every mode of production society has hitherto utilized to reproduce itself, it is ultimately labor that granted the power of society over nature. In all modes of production a surplus always remained, directed at the expansion of production and material wealth. The method of extraction of this surplus in capitalism has been exploitation of workers by the property owners. This seems pretty obvious to anyone with a materialist perspective on the world, however the forces of reaction are still unable to grasp the very obvious fact that without labor and its social division society would stop functioning overnight.
It must first be understood that there is a difference between the value of labor-power and the value of the produced commodity. Labor power is sold against wages, the labor value of the commodity depends on the production conditions and is independent of the labor contract.
The cost of a unit of a commodity, its marginal cost, dC/dQ, is equal to its labor value in money terms. Cost, C, is a function of quantity, Q, produced, so, C = f(Q).
The marginal cost of a commodity is dC/dQ = f’(Q)
The marginal cost of a commodity is given by the labor value of a commodity multiplied by wage rate, w. Multiplying labor value by wage rate is necessary to maintan the equality of the dimensions. The labor value of a unit of a commodity has the dimension labor units per piece whereas the marginal cost has the dimension money per piece. The dimension of the wage rate is money per labor unit. So the product of labor value with the wage rate has the dimension money per piece.
w * labor value = marginal cost
If marginal cost, dC/dQ, is the adequate expression for the costs of a unit of a commodity, then this means that dC is the cost, which result from the additional production of a unit of the commodity, dQ. We can conclude that δL represents the quantity of additional labor units, which are needed for the production of an additional unit of the commodity δQ. We use here the partial derivative, because another factor of production, capital, K, has to be considered. However, capital, K, is taken as a constant.
Thus, marginal cost is equal to the product of marginal labor value and the wage rate:
w * (δL/δQ) = dC/dQ
The marginal labor value, δL/δQ, represents the socially necessary labor for the production of a commodity. This solution results indeed, if one examines the profit maximizing and/or cost minimizing firm under conditions of perfect competition.
Under conditions of perfect competition the profit maximizing firm faces a situation, in which the price of the product, p, the interest rate, r, the wage rate, w, and capital resources, K, are given. The problem consists then of maximizing profit by determining the optimal quantity of labor power, L, to be used.
The quantity of output, Q, is a function of the quantities of the factors of production capital, K, and labor, L. This is the production function:
Q=g(K, L)
A firm optimizes the profit for a given production process, if the factors of production are used so that the value of their marginal products equals the cost of their services. This means for the factor labor power, L, that the value of the marginal product of labor is equal to the wage rate:
w= p*(δQ/δL)
Rearranging we get p = w * (δL/δQ)
To invert the marginal productivity, δQ/δL, of labor presuppose that the production function is invertible. The equation means that under the conditions of perfect competition the price of a commodity is proportional to its labor value. In addition, profit maximization under conditions of perfect competition requires that the price of the commodity, p, equals marginal cost: p = dC/dQ
The proof for the validity of the labor theory of value results, since we receive the desired solution now by substitution:
w*(δL/δQ) = dC/dQ
Historically, the discovery of the marginal labor value, δL/δQ, goes back to Jevons. However, Jevons recognized the meaning of his discovery and inverted it immediately and used in the following only its inverse, the marginal productivity of labor, δL/δQ. This proof also resolves Adam Smith’s paradox of the labor theory of value on the one hand and the “Adding-up Theorem” of wages, profits and rent on the other in the determination of the price. It can be shown that the difference of the marginal labor value, δL/δQ, and average labor value, L/Q, is equal to the surplus labor whose monetary value corresponds exactly to the value of profits and rent.
Profits + rent =w[(δL/δQ)−(L/Q)]Q
In Marxist terminology the surplus labor is equal to the difference of marginal labor value and average labor value.”
– Klaas Velija, Hagendorf and the Labour Theory of Value
If one wants to read more on the subject of capitalist exploitation and to see mathematical proof for capitalist exploitation, I’d like to recommend;
James G Devine, A Simple “Neoclassical” Model of Marxian Exploitation (which can be read here; http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/JD-NCMofExploitDraft.pdf)
And now I will continue to demonstrate that communism actually in contrast does not take away the fruits of someone’s labour.
Allow me to quote Marx first on the subject;
“Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase “proceeds of labor”, objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.
What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society — after the deductions have been made — exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.
Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.”
– Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme – Part 1
“But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only — for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.
But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
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!”
– Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme – Part 1
And subsequently here is Lenin talking about the fruits of one’s labour under communism;
“In the Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx goes into detail to disprove Lassalle’s idea that under socialism the worker will receive the “undiminished” or “full product of his labor”. Marx shows that from the whole of the social labor of society there must be deducted a reserve fund, a fund for the expansion of production, a fund for the replacement of the “wear and tear” of machinery, and so on. Then, from the means of consumption must be deducted a fund for administrative expenses, for schools, hospitals, old people’s homes, and so on.
Instead of Lassalle’s hazy, obscure, general phrase (“the full product of his labor to the worker”), Marx makes a sober estimate of exactly how socialist society will have to manage its affairs. Marx proceeds to make a concrete analysis of the conditions of life of a society in which there will be no capitalism, and says:
“What we have to deal with here [in analyzing the programme of the workers' party] is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes.”
It is this communist society, which has just emerged into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism and which is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society, that Marx terms the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society.
The means of production are no longer the private property of individuals. The means of production belong to the whole of society. Every member of society, performing a certain part of the socially-necessary work, receives a certificate from society to the effect that he has done a certain amount of work. And with this certificate he receives from the public store of consumer goods a corresponding quantity of products. After a deduction is made of the amount of labor which goes to the public fund, every worker, therefore, receives from society as much as he has given to it.”
– Vladimir Lenin, The State and Revolution – The Economic Basis of the Withering Away of the State
So as we can see the assertion that communism takes away the fruits of someone else’s labour is simply wrong and that it’s actually capitalism doing that, so that would be a good reason for Dhorpatan (since he made the argument) to oppose capitalism and to support our side.
However this section is not over yet, as Dhorpatan also said that; “because property and wealth are put into society as a whole, independence is lost”, now here Dhorpatan is simply confusing “private property” with “personal property”, and had Dhorpatan actually read the most basic and fundamental marxist text, namely; the Manifesto of the Communist Party, he would have already known this distinction, as can be seen here;
“The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”
– Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party – Chapter 2 Proletarians and Communists
So once again, we can clearly see the entire lack of understanding of communist theory by the capitalist apologist, and as such this argument has been dealt with.
Let us proceed further;
“Once work and production are sacrificed to the society rather than belonging to the worker, sacrifice directly entails a need of coercion and force as sacrifices counter to human nature and survival and thus usually produces resistance and unrest”
Well as we noticed before since communism doesn’t take the fruits of someone else’s labour, and capitalism does, therefore capitalism is founded on the principles of coercion and force and is counter to human nature (according to Dhorpatan).
Let us proceed again;
“This is why communist countries often have so much suffering, misery, and killing, because communism is fundamentally based on the evil ethics of ultraism, and collectivism”
First of all we never had communist countries, what we did have however are socialist states, so once again we see how our capitalist apologist can’t even tell the difference between socialism and communism, second on what basis does he conclude that these socialist countries had “so much suffering, misery, and killing”, he made no argument and provided no data whatsoever to show that this was the case, since he made no arguments and provided no data he is once again merely giving us a baseless assertion. My best guess is that he’s probably refering to stuff like the black book of communism, however he didn’t provide anything and therefore I cannot be sure about what he’s actually talking about, in any event here are sources of refutations of the black book of communism (for just in case) and other claims of mass murder and genocide in socialist states;
– Black Book of Communism Debunked
– On the Alleged Deaths in Stalin’s USSR
– Did Mao Really Kill Millions In The Great Leap Forward?
– Mao’s Famine Debunked
– Ella Rule, The Katyn Massacre
– Through Hell For Hitler
– Ludo Martens, Another View of Stalin
– Mario Soussa, Lies Concerning The History of the Soviet Union
– Soviet Communism – the truth
– John Puntis, The Ukrainian famine-genocide myth
– Douglas Tottle, Fraud, Famine and Fascism
– Jeff Coplon, In Search of a SOVIET HOLOCAUST A 55-Year-Old Famine Feeds the Right
– Grover Furr, Kruschev Lied
In contrast I would also like to mention all the crimes/mass murders by capitalist regimes, such as all the crimes of colinialism, imperialism, and people whose lives could have been saved had we not had a system based on pure personal gain, such as the following crimes/disasters;
– 228 Massacre in Taiwan by the Kuomintang regime
– People killed in invasion of Libya
– Famine in Somalia
– People that died as a result of the mass privatisations in Russia
– Tens of thousands of children die everyday as a result of not properly distributing the food
– People killed as a result of the Iraq war
– Genocide in the Congo
– Mass executions in the Republic of Korea
– The great depression
– Mass murder in India as a result of British Colinialism
– Bengal famine
– Native American Genocide
– Black people that died as a result of the slave trade and the murders of black people
– People that died as a result of US backed Pinochet coup/dictatorship
– People that died as a result of the dictatorship of Suharto
And there are many more examples one could appeal to, and thus we once again see how the argument applies to capitalism, as opposed to communism.
Dhorpatan also says that “communism is fundamentally based on the evil ethics of ultraism, and collectivism”, we had already showed that there is no contradiction between collectivism and individualism and on top of that Dhorpatan is once again giving us an unfounded assertion by merely asserting that our ethics are “evil” without any argument as to why it’s supposedly true.
Let us proceed further with Dhorpatan’s video;
“This is because the individual’s production of wealth is not allowed to be their own, but is rather taken from them, and they don’t have control of what they earned and thus have to sacrifice for others and sacrifice for the group”
We have already demonstrated that this assertion against communism is wrong and that it instead applies to the capitalist who takes the surplus of the labourer, therefore there is no need to go into this here again.
And so we proceed;
“Communism also entails the sacrifice of an individual man’s mind to the group, since the group’s needs come first, and the group as a whole gets an equal share of the wealth produced. This sacrifices man’s mind by forcing him to have to give up his creativity or innovation for the benefit of others and society at his expense”
Dhorpatan here keeps up the fallacious dichotomy that collectivism and individualism are opposed to each other, whereas I had already demonstrated previously that they are not, as such we don’t tell people to “sacrifice their mind”, as we can see once again when we look at the Manifesto of the Communist Party that it’s in fact the opposite, that capitalism deprives labourers from individual freedom and that communism in fact enriches it, as can be seen here;
“The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourer appropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.
In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.
In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.
And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.
By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.
But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the other “brave words” of our bourgeois about freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself.
You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.
In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.
From the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolised, i.e., from the moment when individual property can no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment, you say, individuality vanishes.
You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.”
– Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party – Chapter 2 Bourgeois and Proletarians
Right afterwards Dhorpatan said that people had to give up their “creativity or innovation for the benefit of others and society at his expense”, first of all he provides absolutely nothing to show why this is supposedly true, and second it means that in essence he’s implying that there will be a lack of innovation under communism (and probably socialism aswell), which Marx & Engels had already dealt with as can be seen when you continue reading;
“It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property, all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.
According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work. The whole of this objection is but another expression of the tautology: that there can no longer be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital.
All objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating intellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of class property is the disappearance of production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to him identical with the disappearance of all culture.
That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous majority, a mere training to act as a machine.
But don’t wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions of freedom, culture, law, &c. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economical conditions of existence of your class.”
– Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party – Chapter 2 Bourgeois and Proletarians
Once again we see how Dhorpatan’s claims simply don’t correspond to reality (as should be expected from a capitalist apologist).
Let’s move on;
“This is also why communism stifles and stagnates wealth, there is little to no motivation to create or achieve if no matter how hard you work or how brilliant you are you still will only get an equal share as someone who didn’t work as hard, or didn’t innovate his will, or isn’t as brilliant as you”
This is an obvious case of the “capitalism gives you an incentive” argument, which capitalist apologists love to bring up, despite the fact it does not correspond to reality (as Marx already dealt with that argument previously), because there are plenty of examples of how we can see socialist states achieving things before capitalists states did, and actually motivating more people to do something, as opposed to capitalist states.
Here are some examples that talk about examples of where capitalism goes against our interests and/or deincentivises people to achieve something;
– More people with higher education get jobs with lower wages
– The gap between the lower classes and the top 1% keeps increasing
– Wasting food for commercial purposes
– Americans having poor healthcare
– More homeless people as a result of the recession
– Refuting Dr Flynn And “Economics For Dummies” On Marx
– Grain left to rot as many are left to starve (for personal gain)
– Vacant homes and many homeless
– Letting people starve which could have been given food
And now I’d like to give examples of where socialism incentivices people to do something, demonstrate that the workers benefitted more from socialism than capitalism, and to give examples of where socialism had invented/innovated things;
– David M Kotz, Socialism and Innovation
– Cuba trains a lot of high quality doctors each year
– USSR launched a satelite into space before capitalist West did
– There were tons of inventions made in the USSR
– The fact that most people in the former-USSR and in many former eastern block countries prefered socialism over capitalism
– The fact that the capitalist reforms in Russia destroyed the russian economy and living standards
On top of this we see Dhorpatan merely asserting that because someone “is more brilliant” than someone else he by default ought to be given a bigger share, which is obviously the naturalistic fallacy.
And we proceed once more;
“Your individuality is sacrificed to the group, your creativity is sacrificed to the group, and that is collectivism, which on a singular level is altruism, as you are then as an individual sacrificing what you value or have to others at your expense”
As had already been dealt with before, this is an obvious strawman of the marxist concept of collectivism, and therefore let us proceed;
“Communism is wrong because it entails collectivism and ultraism, and boils down to an attack on human rights and freedom, and when freedom and rights are violated or taken away repression and force are almost always needed, because man cannot be expected to go very long sacrificing for the sake of others, this runs counter to self interest and thus counter to survival and happiness, which is why so many communist regimes have failed”
Here Dhorpatan starts by once again giving an assertion without any foundation by just asserting again that collectivism and ultraism are “evil”. Dhorpatan then asserts that communism “is an attack on human rights and freedom”, which is another baseless assertion, as he does not define rights and freedom and how communism supposedly violates it, however concidering his position we can probably guess that he conciders private property to be a “right”, but since Dhorpatan supposedly values freedom and concidering the fact that private property can only be maintained by force, there is no argument for him to be made here, on top of that he opposed taking the fruit of someone else’s labour and thus communism is not violating any rights here, but in fact capitalism is, on top of that what about the rights for people all over the world, their rights to healthcare, food, job security, home security etc. capitalist apologists don’t seem to be that concerned about their rights, so kind of an odd position once again.
And in the end he concluded that so many “communist regimes” have failed. As already demonstrated, Dhorpatan knows absolutely nothing of communist/marxist theory, so how he can conclude that communism/marxism has failed is beyond me.
* * *
Sources:
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Refuting Dr Flynn And “Economics For dummies” On Marx
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<a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/201