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The Capitalist/Communist Conundrum

By Saqib
I too was struck while reading Engels and Lenin on the apparent common underpinnings found in both the capitalist and communist ideologies. In Engels' writings, he discusses the parasitical nature of the bourgeois class whose monopoly on the means of production is cited as the chief reason for underdeveloped condition of the masses. What was conspicuously absent from his list of principles was the manner of governance which was to take shape under the perceived communist state. What democratic safeguards would be put in place to ensure that the bourgeois would not be replaced by another "dominant political class" capable of abusing the confiscated property and redirected wealth? Engels' hesitates to embrace the strategy of armed revolution and insists that "society" will seize the means of production, but a society represented by whom?

Ultimately, the principles as communism as spelled out by Engels suffer from the same fatal flaw that lies at the heart of the capitalist system. Namely, the assumption that the social order and financial system will be perpetuated through the "limitless expansion of production." Is a system based on unlimited growth on a finite world truly sustainable? Given the historical framing of these writings, in the mid-1800s in the age of the Industrial Revolution and the internal combustion engine, the claim that such a system will propel civilization forward was more than understandable. Ecological and environmental disasters, the peaking of the global oil supply, and rapid population growth of today suggests otherwise.

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