Communism and Libertarianism

"the USSR, China, and other so-called communist-run economies were always capitalist in the Marxist sense"

communism  This old idea has many versions, some even being ^*libertarian insofar as they are freely-opted into small ^*communities. Some interpretation of the ^*Marxist sense is the one usually assumed to have been imposed on large parts of the world in the previous century. Only that is dealt with here.

With Marxian communism the ^*anarchy of the ^*market, and so also ^*money, will be replaced by ^*common ownership of the means of production ^*society-wide. That should enable people to live up to the slogan, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. Whether such a society is to be directed by a central committee or by polycentric committees is a matter of debate among Marxists. But no mass society has ever been communist in this sense, nor could one be so because of the problem of large-scale ^*economic calculation without money and markets. Thus, the USSR, China, and other so-called communist-run ^*economies were always ^*capitalist in the Marxist sense, despite assertions to the contrary by themselves and their enemies. It is sometimes said that they were ^*socialist and that communism would only come later with the eventual “withering away” of the ^*state. But this distinction between socialism and communism does not appear in Marx’s writings.

So-called “communist” states were not ^*free markets, of course. Free markets only exist to the extent that states, or other ^*agents, do not interfere with voluntary markets. But none of the states opposed to so-called “communism” allowed anything approaching a full free market either. The real-world politics of “communism versus capitalism” has been an opposition between somewhat more and somewhat less state-regulated capitalist societies. However, that “somewhat” can make a significant difference to ^*liberty and ^*welfare.

(This is an entry from A LIBERTARIAN DICTIONARY: Explaining a Philosophical Theory [draft currently being revised]. Asterisks indicate other entries.)