COMMON RESISTANCE

Is the commonwealth really an urge to combat hunger and desiguality?

An answer to the idea that socialism would necessarily be inefficient

One of the most repeated criticisms against communism states that socialist societies would inevitably be unable to fight hunger and inequality.

The statement seems simple:

"Capitalism produces wealth; communism produces poverty."

But a serious historical analysis cannot be built on slogans.

The correct question is another:

What systems have been able to improve the material conditions of the population, under what circumstances and at what cost?

Countries, historical periods, initial conditions, economic policies and concrete results must be compared.

FAME IS NOT AN INVENTION OF SOCIALISM

One of the biggest problems of this debate is to treat hunger as if it were an exclusive characteristic of socialist experiences.

That doesn't match the story.

Capitalistic societies have also gone through — and continue to go through — situations of hunger, extreme poverty and food insecurity.

The existence of sufficient food does not automatically mean that everyone has access to it.

A society can produce huge amounts of food and yet possess people unable to buy them.

It is precisely here that a fundamental question arises for Marxist analysis:

producing wealth is different from ensuring access to wealth.

RICH AND DISTRIBUTION

Capitalism has demonstrated enormous capacity to increase productivity and expand production.

Marx recognized this ability of capitalism.

The problem is asking:

Who controls this production?

Who appropriates your results?

How is wealth distributed?

An economy can grow as part of the population continues to live in precarious conditions.

Therefore, measuring the success of a society only by the size of its GDP is insufficient.

We must also observe:

• income;

• equity;

• feeding;

• life expectancy;

• infant mortality;

• education;

• housing;

• access to health;

• working conditions;

• inequality.

WHAT ABOUT DIGUALITY?

Here there is an important difference between proposals.

Capitalism accepts the existence of great differences in property and wealth as a normal result of the functioning of the system.

Socialism is part of a different criticism.

If the main means of production are concentrated in few hands, economic power also tends to concentrate.

The problem is not just someone owning a bigger house than someone else.

The question is the concentration of productive property and economic power.

One person owning a television better than another is inequality.

Few people control companies, land, banks and large amounts of capital is a completely different structural issue.

BUT SOCIALIST COUNTRIES HAVE ALSO HAD FOUND

Yeah.

And ignoring that would be intellectually dishonest.

The history of the Soviet Union, China and others Socialist states include serious episodes of hunger, as well as economic and political problems.

The defense of socialism does not require denying these events.

On the contrary:

If we want to build a different society, we also need to study what went wrong.

The historical question, however, cannot end in:

"There was hunger in a socialist country, so communism causes hunger."

That reasoning is not enough.

It is necessary to investigate:

• what was the previous situation;

• which policies were adopted;

• what were the natural and economic causes;

• which political decisions worsened the situation;

• how the distribution of food worked;

• what were the international conditions;

• what were the subsequent consequences.

History is more complex than an automatic relationship between ideology and result.

SOVIET EXPERIENCE

The Soviet Union offers one of the most important cases for this debate.

The country emerged in extremely difficult conditions, going through war, economic destruction, internal conflicts and subsequent World War II.

In the following decades, an extremely accelerated industrialization occurred.

The USSR managed to transform a predominantly agrarian society into a great industrial and scientific power.

That doesn't mean the Soviet model was perfect.

There were serious problems of planning, bureaucratization, political repression, scarcity of certain products and other contradictions.

But simply stating that Soviet experience was unable to develop its economy would also be incorrect.

The most reasonable conclusion is more complex:

the soviet experience demonstrated both real economic mobilization capabilities and deep planning and political organization problems.

THE CHINESE CASE

China presents another even more important example.

After decades of economic transformation and subsequent reforms, hundreds of millions of people left conditions of extreme poverty.

This cannot be attributed exclusively to socialism or exclusively to the market.

Contemporary China has a hybrid economy with a strong state presence and a large private sector.

Therefore, using it simply as proof that "communism works" would be as simplistic as using it as proof that "communism does not work".

The Chinese case shows precisely the need to analyze institutions, economic policies and concrete historical conditions.

CAPITALISM ALSO NEEDS TO BE JUDGED BY THEIR RESULTS

There is a curious pattern in the debate.

When a socialist country faces poverty, they say:

"This proves that socialism is inefficient."

When a capitalist country faces poverty, they often say:

"This is the result of a specific policy."

We need to apply the same criterion to both systems.

If we want to evaluate capitalism, we must observe its historical results.

If we want to evaluate socialism, we must do exactly the same thing.

No system should receive a free pass.

EFFICIENCY FOR WHO?

There is still an issue that rarely appears in the debate:

efficiency for what purpose?

A company can be extremely efficient in maximizing its profits.

This does not necessarily mean that you are being efficient in fighting hunger.

A food distribution system can be extremely efficient in serving those with greater purchasing power.

That doesn't necessarily mean that you're seeing who you need most.

Socialism proposes to change precisely this priority:

economic production must be increasingly guided by social needs.

DO NOT REDUCE DIGUALITY

We also need to avoid another mistake.

A socialist society cannot be assessed only by income equality.

If everyone is equally poor, we will not have solved the problem.

The objective should be to combine:

economic development + reduction of inequality + improvement of material conditions.

A society needs to produce enough wealth to ensure high standards of life.

The socialist challenge is to do so without turning the wealth produced into the permanent privilege of a minority.

THE CENTRAL ARGUMENT

So when someone says:

"Communism is inefficient against hunger and inequality."

Our answer should not simply be:

"It's not."

Our answer should be:

"Let's compare evidence."

Let's look at countries.

Let's study historical periods.

Let's observe social indicators.

Let's study hunger, mortality, life expectancy, education, industrialization and income distribution.

Let's study the hits.

Let's study the failures.

Let's compare systems.

And, above all, we will avoid turning complex historical events into slogans.

SOCIALISM NEEDS TO BE JUDGED BY WHAT IT NEEDS TO BUILD

The goal is not simply to replace businessmen with bureaucrats.

It's not getting everyone the exact same thing.

It is not to prevent economic development.

The goal, in Marxist tradition, is to transform social relations that allow one class to control the main means of production while another depends on the sale of its workforce.

The question of hunger is directly linked to it.

Who decides what to produce?

For whom to produce?

How to distribute?

Who controls the resources?

Who benefits from development?

These are economic and political questions.

CONCLUSION

Communism must not be defended through the denial of historical failures.

And capitalism must not be defended by denying its contradictions.

Both need to be historically analyzed.

Socialist experiences have shown real problems and in some cases have had extremely serious consequences.

But they also demonstrated that alternative forms of economic organization can mobilize resources, industrialize societies and expand certain social services.

Similarly, capitalism has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to generate wealth and innovation, but continues to live with inequality, poverty and economic concentration.

The question therefore remains open:

how to build a society capable of producing abundance without turning this abundance into the privilege of few?

It is that question that the Communist Resistance considers it fundamental.

We do not want to defend an ideology by ignoring reality.

We want to study reality to find out what forms of economic organization can guarantee more freedom, more equality and better material conditions for most of the population.

COMMON RESISTANCE

Against the slogans.

Against unprovoked propaganda.

For the study of history.

For overcoming hunger and inequality.

For the emancipation of the working class.