Anti-communism

Anti-communism is the opposition to communist ideology, organization, or government, on either an ideological or pragmatic basis. Anti-communism is a catch-all phrase which defines any opposition to communism as a philosophical basis for a political and social alliance.

Objections to Communist theory

The central part of Karl Marx's communist theory is historical materialism, a methodology for studying history using dialectical reasoning which concludes that human society has grown or evolved through several historical stages due to the contradictions inherent in each stage, with each transition to the next stage involving the overthrow of the existing socioeconomic order. This idea was first theorized by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, but Marx used it to justify his beliefs. Using this method, Marxists conclude that capitalism will be followed by socialism, just as feudalism was followed by capitalism. Marxists then suppose that socialism would be followed by communism, which Marx claimed would not be able to be improved upon as it has no contradictions of its own.

Related Topics:
Karl Marx - Historical materialism - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - Feudalism

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Most anti-communists reject the entire concept of historical materialism, or at least do not believe that socialism and communism must follow after capitalism. Some anti-communists question how and why the state is supposed to wither away into a true communist society.

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Many critics also see a key error in communist economic theory, which predicts that in capitalist societies, the bourgeoisie will accumulate ever-increasing capital and wealth, while the lower classes become more dependent on the ruling class for survival, selling their labor power for the most minimal of salaries. Anti-communists, claiming that this argument is equivalent to the statement that "the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer", point to the overall rise in the average standard of living in the industrialized West as proof that contrary to Marx's prediction as, they assert, both the rich and poor have steadily gotten richer. Communists reply that even during periods of great prosperity, the rich are get rich much faster than the poor, and posit that such periods of prosperity are historical abberations and will be wiped out by future crises of production. Communists also argue that the industrialized West profits immensely from the exploitation of the Third World through globalization, that the gap between rich and poor capitalist countries has widened greatly over the past hundred years, and that poor capitalist countries vastly outnumber the rich ones. The standard anti-communist reply to the latter argument is pointing out the examples of former Third World countries that have successfully escaped out of poverty in the recent decades under the capitalist system, most notably the Asian Tigers. Anti-communists also cite numerous examples of Third World Communist regimes that failed to achieve development and economic growth and in many cases led their peoples into an even worse misery, for example the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia or the North Korean totalitarian government. Supporters of Mengistu or Kim typically attribute the shortcomings in their societies to "imperialist" Western meddling. Other communists, such as the Trotskyists, while agreeing that imperialism harmed these countries, also say that Ethiopia and North Korea were never communist--they were Stalinist, meaning that they were ruled by a clique of bureaucrats who claimed to be acting in the popular interest but actually betrayed it, being more oppressive to its working class.

Related Topics:
Labor power - Exploitation - Third World - Globalization - Asian Tigers - Mengistu - Ethiopia - North Korean - Totalitarian - Trotskyists - Stalinist

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Many refer to both Communism and fascism as totalitarianism, seeing similarity between the actions of Communist and fascist governments. It should also be noted that many modern left-attributed communists, particularly Anarcho-Communists, use these similarities, and actual sayings from Marx himself, to argue that those self-proclaimed Communist regimes were not actually following any sort of Communism at all.

Related Topics:
Fascism - Anarcho-Communists

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