Crisis of capitalism, socialism and communism

In this article, I would like to consider such a concept as the “crisis of capitalism”, what it can mean and whether it has a place to be. What is “capitalism” should already be clear to you in general terms, however, later, we will consider it in more detail, but first we will allow ourselves to speculate about what we should understand by a crisis. Without referring to the dictionary, let’s assume that this is some not the best period of time during which something changes. For example, if the concept of a crisis is applied to one’s own life, then any disease can be called its crisis. Or it may be a period of life filled with worries that you have done something before, and it did not lead to the desired results. Crisis, like illness, tells us that something in life is going wrong. However, the regularity of other minor illnesses, as well as crises, is sometimes seen by us as a kind of norm.

Crisis at war

Concerning the person the concept “crisis” is more or less clear. But as far as the crisis of capitalism is concerned, who feels bad from the crisis, who should change and why? In itself, capitalism is not a person, not a state, not a subject that may feel bad, but a certain concept that describes certain processes in society, which, apparently, because of the crisis, cease to proceed as they should. In practice, the crisis will be a certain state of mind of the people involved in these processes. For example, if there is a war, when the soldiers of one of the belligerents think about surrendering and stop fighting, there will be a crisis of one belligerent. The fear of imminent death will force a change in behavior, and this can be called a crisis. The crisis in the war of one belligerent means in it the victory of the other belligerent.

 Crisis in civilian life

In civilian life, a crisis means a deterioration in the state of affairs in the economy, and we can understand this by high prices in stores, the absence of well-paid jobs, etc. at least the part of the economy in which we are involved. But only it is essential and important for us. Just like we care little about the state of the economy somewhere on the other side of the world.

Industry example

But what could cause such a crisis? Take for example a separate industry – coal mining. If, for any reason, coal becomes less in demand, the coal mining industry will begin to experience a crisis in such a way that people involved in it will either have to put up with a drop in income or change their occupation to a more popular one .. And the reason is that the same as in war, in the economy, some forces win over others. The coal mining industry has been pushed back, let’s say by gas and oil. Coal has been replaced by cheaper or, according to certain criteria, more efficient fuel. Or the earth may get warmer, and coal will become less in demand. And it would seem fair to assume that without the need to heat the house, life should become easier. This will indeed be the case in general, but specific miners and their families will suffer from the emerging coal mining crisis. Next, the coal mining crisis will affect the mining village and the entire service sector represented there. It can be assumed that if a village can suffer from a crisis, then in the same way, a whole state can become poorer from a crisis in many industries, which for some reason stops selling goods in demand on the market. This process is also called market redistribution. And he still does not talk about the crisis of the economy as a whole, since this is only part of the natural economic process of competition for more efficient methods of production, sales markets, etc. Nevertheless, from the examples we see a crisis in any sector of the economy, and a crisis in war does not arise by itself. This is a natural decline in demand for one product due to an increase in demand for another that satisfies the same need.

Let’s go back to the war example.

Let’s go back to the war example. Suppose that the winning side does not go on the attack, but, together with the losing side, stops fighting and retreats to their positions. The war ends without victory or defeat. Such behavior of soldiers can be called a crisis of military operations, a crisis of war as a process as a whole. For whom will this be a crisis? Not for the soldiers themselves, as it was in the first example, since no one will kill them, but for those who would like to achieve their victory with the help of the soldiers. For him, the unwillingness of the soldiers to fight and obey the order will be a crisis, and he will need to do something. The same can be considered a crisis of the economy as a whole, and it consists in the fact that people stop working and earning money. If this understanding of the crisis is correct, then the crisis of any process as a whole will be our idea of ​​its uselessness or meaninglessness.

Usually, a military crisis is called a situation when the hostile side provokes military action. In this case, the military crisis will be that period of time when decisions are made to decide on an armed response. The same is true with the economic crisis. Statements about it in the media suggest some kind of response from the state, omitting and justifying state intervention in the economy, in particular, issuing money to eliminate this crisis.

What is meant by capitalism

But can a person stop wanting to work, or rather, to earn money, because this is precisely what is meant by an economic crisis, and is this the same as the crisis of capitalism? And here we will be forced to agree on what we mean by capitalism. The very concept of capitalism is rarely used, more often you can hear concepts that are closer in meaning – a market economy, private property, free enterprise, and others that do not have the negative connotations present in the concept of capitalism. First of all, capitalism is explained by the fact that it is an economic form of relations that has replaced feudalism. The capitalist relations of employer and worker gradually replaced feudal relations, in which the worker, usually a peasant, who worked on the land after the birth of the person to whom it belongs – a conditional feudal lord, owed him his labor or finished product. The same ideas about the feudal lord as a person of the highest class, using someone else’s labor, were also transferred by contemporaries of the birth of the concept of capitalism to the capitalist, that is, the entrepreneur organizing this or that commercial enterprise and hiring workers. The concept of capitalism was used not so much to describe the economic structure, but to morally denounce what it implies, namely: the exploitation of people, the withdrawal of surplus value, etc., all that can be found in the writings of Marx, his successors and other socialists.

Capitalism also means a very real connection between state power and business, which led to the infringement of the rights of ordinary workers. This is also explained by the fact that the free market has never been free, and then, and now, it depended on money, and therefore, on the state and its representatives, who could issue this money and traditionally had fixed capital. Thus, the former aristocracy, investing in enterprises, became the same first capitalists. Unwilling to treat employees as equals.

It’s not just an abstract relationship, although this relationship could result in very specific legal support from the state, for example, in the suppression of various kinds of strikes and riots, which any government does over time. In contrast to the peasants, who were accustomed to independently feed themselves by their labor on the land, the position of working specialists was more precarious and risky. Since at any moment in mind, for example, a fall in demand for the goods they produce, their labor could become less in demand, that is, lose its market value. Which later reflected on income or on the very possibility of continuing to work.

Now, it would seem that the position of workers has changed, however, we can simply not see or pay attention to working conditions in the countries of the 3rd world, convincing ourselves that the economy is naturally arranged quite well. This self-belief does not mean a really well-organized economy, but it is such only when it creates goods or services that are in demand and valuable for all. And it has always been a boon for people that this demand does not occur due to the cheapness of these goods and services.

 Crisis of capitalism

Linking the crisis and capitalism in one phrase, we can assume that these are all sorts of strikes, strikes, etc. There is a refusal to participate in economic relations. Factors that cause a crisis for workers can be deteriorating working conditions, low wages, etc. For a capitalist, accordingly, the crisis will be their refusal to work. Such a state of affairs may exist in one enterprise or even in an industry, but this will not yet be a crisis of capitalism. But, if this happens throughout the state, as it happened in Russia, in 1917, it can be said quite confidently that during the period of the revolution, capitalism and the capitalists in the country definitely experienced a crisis.

I tried to explain the concept of “crisis capitalism”, based on the meaning of its words, however, its more common meaning is to denote any future distant undesirable events in the economy, which will become, as it were, the consequences of an imperceptible, but occurring here and now or in the near future the crisis of capitalism. This is a kind of prediction and warning, akin to the prediction of the day of judgment, the apocalypse or something like that, but rather man-made. On this issue, different authors may differ in their opinions.

historical concept

Taken together, all this indicates to me that capitalism, like its crisis, is more of a historical concept than an economic one. And the fact that a certain circle of people called a certain state of society capitalism, and any entrepreneur a capitalist, in my opinion, is incorrect or leads away from the essence. Since for this kind of entrepreneur associated with state power, there is a more suitable word – an oligarch, this is a person. who owns large capital and influences political processes, or, even worse, who initially became such an oligarch through political processes. Thus, using the word oligarch, not capitalist, we criticize not the market economy as a system of relations as a whole, but its individual representatives who use politics for their own selfish purposes. It’s the same with capitalism – it’s better to say a free market economy. I mean by the problems of capitalism, first of all, specific economic problems related to resources and the well-being of people. And on the part of the capitalists – the oligarchs, I will sum up with my own conclusion that the problem is not that a rich person will invest in politics, in promoting his own ideas or his party. It is important that he does not benefit from politics more than all those to whom this policy is directed.

 And this requires transparent financial systems, in which you can see who gets the money and for what.

Communism

Having considered what the crisis of capitalism is, one should also consider at the same time what is considered to follow this crisis, that which, as some people think, resolved it – communism. We usually know communism as a socio-economic state system, which is an alternative to the same capitalism. Nevertheless, the communes from which the word communism originated existed and exist without becoming part of the state ideology. A commune can be called any society, different from the family, living on its own, with the common property of everything that each member of this community has. Such a commune is quite possible if living in it, for whatever reason, is more desirable than living outside it.

With this understanding, the commune is identical to the religious community on the basis of any worldview, no matter what. The only important thing is that the elements of this worldview for its members will form a picture of a better life. Whereas for the rest of the “capitalist” world, the best life remains wealth, the direct result of labor in the form of goods and services that can be bought with the money received from their creation.

This form of organization of society, along with the state, has a place to be and, just like the state, helps to survive, especially in small communities. But attempts to develop this form to the size of the state still lead to a misunderstanding.

Communes or other closed communities, unlike state communism, involve voluntary adherence to their ideology. People in communes voluntarily give up their welfare in favor of remaining in the commune and pursuing its common interests. And if a commune allows survival and its members have children who want to stay in it, it means that it is quite viable. Such communes and closed communities may well be called the seeds of original new societies. But they can give their growth only in a free, non-ideologized society. In this sense, communism makes sense as a local basis for a new social order, consisting of specific people, but by its nature and purpose, it cannot and should not become universal. On this account, there is a free market society, which allows the best possible satisfaction of the interests of many people who are unfamiliar and independent in worldview from each other. And without this very independence of outlook, communism itself would have been impossible.

Communism in the modern state

In a modern state, no matter how market-oriented it may be, you can see the features of a community or a commune, since, firstly, it collects taxes, that is, it takes away part of the property. Secondly, the state, as well as almost any ideology, involves the self-sacrifice of its members for the sake of their own preservation. Thirdly, one way or another, we inevitably own common property – this is the entrance to the house, water supply, road, electricity, etc. All these places are called communal, that is, common to everyone. This kind of common things includes the nature around us, and everything that has eternal value and it must be preserved not only by someone personally for himself, but by common efforts, let it be called the state, community, commune, or whatever.

But what is a “common effort”? This would be understandable if we were pushing a cart, a car that does not want to start. Regarding the conservation of nature or any other processes in society, I honestly have no idea what this means now. While this may sound like ad integration, I do know what it could mean in an OA system, as it will have the tools to turn these efforts into a simple and understandable form of voting and allocating funds to solve specific problems. . After all, we do not live in a commune, and it should be obvious to everyone that no one will solve common problems for free yet. Everything needs money, goods that can be consumed or sold. And in order for them to appear, their activities need to be organized, which, in fact, is the creation of an OD system.

 Actual problems and communism

To summarize and draw conclusions about thatwhether there is a crisis of capitalism and whether we need communism, I will answer the following. Communism in some form is quite possible, and at any time and right now for anyone who considers some abstract idea more important than their physical comfort, well-being and everything else, probably including procreation. Nothing today prevents people from arranging a crisis of capitalism by uniting in a commune, and then sharing everything they earn with each other, and this has always been the case in difficult times and is in all kinds of religious organizations.

As for the expression “crisis of capitalism”, I believe that such an expression should be left in history. The problems of the economy, which are usually assumed to be under the crisis of capitalism, are a permanent phenomenon that requires constant attention. Like any imperfect human activity, it does not have limits to perfection. Another thing is that environmental conditions and technical progress of the direction

 A person must solve the problems that are relevant today, arising in the current environmental conditions, effectively using all the means of technical progress for this. Such problems, first of all, are environmental problems, and not far-fetched ones, like the same crisis of capitalism.