Communism or Marxism in another word is an ideology that has been in existence since the dawn of time, but the works of the German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are what made communism be referred to both of them in general and Carl Marx specifically. Marx was born and raised in Germany, he was into politics and a big intellectual, he admired communism and he supported lower class citizens and workers, Marx wrote a lot of works about communism and how can this system be beneficial to both the people and the state.
Marx criticized capitalism and proposed a solution for a better and stronger economic system, a system that will make our future safer where no one is lifting behind (communism). Karl was not a big fan of capitalism because he saw how the workers are being used and exploited. For Marx, it is not fair that any profit generated by the employees goes to the business owner, that is why Karl denounced in his books to abolish this form of inequality. In recent history and after the second world war II, several countries were inspired by how communism is working in the USSR. Chile and Cuba were among these countries, they both have attempted to institute their own version of communism.
Most of the time people get confused between socialism and communism, these two terms are close in meaning where socialism states that equal share in profit and property are what workers deserve, while communism states that workers should not be forced to work for money instead they should work as much as they can, and get as much as they need. Most if not all of the attempts of achieving this ideal philosophy ended up so bad, we saw governments get corrupted, living standards getting very low, human rights and freedom of speech getting violated, and in the case of the USSSR a total collapse and failure.
The question that arises is that why communism hasn’t worked out throughout history. Most people who criticized communism believe that this philosophy removes the incentive and the desire for people to work harder than they can handle, this creates nonintentional inequality where workers receive the same even if some of them work less. This explains why most countries in the world don’t adopt communism as its economic system, because even if it sounds great in theory it’s disastrous in practice.
We can’t talk about Communism without talking about capitalism. When we say Communism, we say also capitalism that Carl Marx didn’t agree with. Capitalism seems to be working better than communism until a crisis happens and people start suffering especially the poor. So, is communism just a political and economic idea that leads to a weak economy and dictatorship governments? or it’s more than that. To get to know what communism is best at we have to take a look at what capitalism is bad at, in other words, it will be unfair to disagree with Marx’s ideology too quickly. Through Marx’s works, we can see his diagnosis of capitalism illness. The first thing that comes to mind that Carl hates the most is that in a capitalist economy workers get paid little while capitalists get rich, this strategy makes it hard for poor people to have a prosperous standard of living, and easy for rich people to get even richer.
Communism was good enough as an ideology to spread all over the world. Cuba and Chile both tried to institute this economic system. But these two countries adopted communism differently.
For Cuba, things were a little bit tough, Fidel Castro (Cuban leader) came to power after a revolution that ended up by replacing a dictatorship regime of Batista in 1959 with another dictatorship regime, but this time with communism. after the revolution, Cuba turned upside down, a lot of severe decisions were taken such us no more privatization.
People lost everything, and everyone had to work for the state, that’s why a lot of people especially rich Cuban moved to the United States. Not everything was so bad in Cuba in the first years after the revolution, a lot of areas such as health care and education became free, that’s why the fertility rate got higher and Cuban people had free access to education. Sadly, this situation was not as perfect as it seems, because Cuban people didn’t have the chance to reach a good standard of living. the Embargo and other economic trade restrictions put Cuba in a difficult situation where it couldn’t manage to have a stable economy, especially after the collapse of the USSR that was a strong ally to Cuba where most of Cuba sugar exports were taken by the USSR. After all these years Cuba still a communist state, didn’t give up on its dream to create an ideal communist state, but one thing for sure is that the economy of Cuba is not doing well and Cuban people don’t have their complete rights, such as human rights and freedom of speech.
In another hand, Chile adopted communism in a democratic way where Salvador Allende becomes the first socialist president in 1970 after a democratic election, Allende didn’t stay in power for so long because of his economic ideology the country didn’t do good enough economically, Allende stayed in power only for 3 years, and that was because of Pinochet that took over the power after a coup d’état and overthrew Allende who was elected democratically after that Chile adopted a capitalism system, that helped Chile to overcome its economic struggles with the help of Chicago boys, but this couldn’t justify how brutal Pinochet was. Pinochet was a true dictator that he ruled over Cuba with an iron feast. In his time Chilean, also didn’t have freedom of speech and other human rights.
In short “A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of bot” Milton Friedman.
