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Why Communism Collapses: The Moral and Material Failures of Command Economies are Intertwined*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

John Clark  and
Aaron Wildavsky
John Clark
Affiliation:
Political Science, University of CaliforniaBerkely
Aaron Wildavsky
Affiliation:
Political Science, University of CaliforniaBerkely
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Abstract

Communism is vulgar capitalism; that is, the communist command economy is based on mistaken notions of how capitalism grew by exploiting workers. Command economies not capitalism fulfil Marx's predictions, collapsing because they are unproductive and immoral, basing economic choices on corrupted personal relations. Without competition, decision in command economies are unproductive through negative selection, and immoral, being based on corrupt personal relations. Each and every Marxist and neo-Marxist prediction about capitalism, from commodity fetishism to the alienation of the citizen from the state, comes true under communism. The explanation is straightforward: Marxist assumptions about the state and the economy are far more true for communist than for capitalist countries.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , October 1990 , pp. 361 - 390
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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