Private Property in Communism
On a forum I sometimes frequent, a Communist claimed private property is allowed and compatable with a Communist state. Here is his statement and my response:
there is nothing in communism that opposes private property. You can own your house, or your car or your summer cottage. After all the wealth is distributed equally, it´s up to you what you do with it.
Hmmm, that doesn’t sound like a society of this sort would remain communist for long. A one time redistribution and then leaving people alone would just allow those people to turn into filthy capitalists as they begin to buy, sell, and trade property on their own.
Ok, lets say everyone has a house, a car and a summer cottage in this communist society. We all own them. Since we own them we are free to sell them, rent them out, fix them up, or do whatever we want with them, right? Do you see how that could lead to amassed capital?
Your retort may be that since everyone has a house, car, and summer cottage why would they buy mine? Ah well that assumes perfect equality, and even hardcore Communists must admit that perfect equality is impossible due to limited resources. Lets say this is the United Socialist States of America, USSA, and lets say the best spot to have a summer cottage is Lake Tahoe and Key West. Out of the 300 million people in the country, how many of these good Communists will get a summer cottage on Lake Tahoe or Key West? Very few. So some will be stuck with a summer cottage in New Jersey, or Mississippi, or heck, Kansas.
So that creates inequality, and thus a motive to buy/sell/rent/renovate/advance. So the guy with a summer cottage in Key West decides he isn’t all that much for vacationing anyhow, so he decides to rent it out by the week to those poor schmucks who were stuck with cottages in New Jersey and Kansas, and eventually gets quite a good amount of money. Buys homes from others, fixes them up, rents them out, etc etc.
Capitalism is reborn.
So private property is incompatable with true communism. Unless you mean the person “owns” their house, but if they decide to sell it or rent it the transaction has a 90% tax put on it. Well… sure. Even then someone would find a way no doubt. Or if you mean they “own” it but can’t buy, sell, rent, or renovate it, well….uh-huh.
May 17th, 2005 at 6:36 pm
Good reply.:)
May 18th, 2005 at 8:50 am
ah communism. . .it looks good , on paper.
too bad people are oppurtunistic bastards (;
May 18th, 2005 at 5:04 pm
I really don’t understand how people can even think it looks good on paper. Looks like slavery on paper to me.
May 18th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
erm,. . .well, I meant to say it “works” on paper. . . either way, I was being a bit sarcastic. No offense hopefully
June 2nd, 2005 at 10:49 pm
The opposition to private property in pure communist, i.e., Marxist, ideology lies in the private ownership of capital. The private ownership of, say, a car, does nothing to harm another persons free, uninhibited production. But the private control of capital is capitalist society is what the bourgeoisie uses to command and direct the labor of others. To a communist, this is alienation from human nature, which is the nature of production, the desire being free production. It is this private property which a communist sees as evil, and only this form which communism will do away with.
Communism presupposes a human nature which is inherantly good. Greed, tyranny, hatred, malice, etc, are all seen as “excesses” (to borrow a phrase from Lenin) which are products of any society with a division of labor between classes. Because mankind is a producer by nature (our main, defining and separating feature as sapien sapien), naturally the freedom of production must be mankind’s prime want. Societies based on subjecting production, in our day capitalism, particularly neo-liberalism, are what the communists (i.e., Marxist) sees as inherantly doomed (as all such societies before have proved by their dimise). Hence the prediction that human progress ends when we reach a society without this division of labor, also known as communism.