But the more I thought about it, the more I began to wonder whether the commentator or I was the one who was crazy. Karl Marx defined Communism (as he would have societies practice it) as inherently political, true. But he demarked the political sides based entirely on their economic status in their communities.
So politics and economics are inherently intertwined, according to Marx. Saying China is not being self-contradictory by combining a Communist-Party-dominated government with a capitalistic economic system is thus delusional. Then again, Communism as it is and has been practiced in the actual world has virtually nothing to do with Communism as practiced according to Marx. Marx maintained that the working industrial proletariat would overthrow capitalism. Yet Communism has taken deepest root in agrarian, subsistence societies. Marx maintained that Communism in practice would cause "the withering away of the state." Yet Communist states are run by pervasive, totalitarian governments. Marx maintained that under Communism, everyone would contribute "according to his ability" and be cared for "according to his needs." [I never cease to be amused by how many Americans think this concept is enshrined in the US Constitution, but who proudly call themselves anti-Communist and who scream bloody murder at the smallest attempts at "social engineering," even when it would help them.--Ed.]
Of course, the biggest problem with Marx's entire system is that he never set forth who decides what an individual's abilities and needs are, thus determining who has to give and who gets to take. The upshot? The rise of nominally Communist totalitarian regimes, because "he who has the gold makes the rules." Even though their existence contradicts Marx's prognostications, their rise answers perfectly what Marx failed to address. Who decides? Those in power do. Whether their power is political and gives them the opportunity to control the economy or whether their power is economic and thus gives them the ability to control the government is irrelevant. Politics and economics are inseparable.
And there's the rub. Capitalism by definition promotes the idea that anyone who can will earn as much money as possible by dint of his own efforts. Thus capitalism, for all its faults, is a bastion of individual liberty. Your success is limited only by your own efforts. And that is the contradiction built into the idea of a Communist totalitarian government running a capitalistic economic system. It contains the seeds of its own destruction. Once people realize the regime is limiting their ability to earn more money, they are no longer going to support the regime. Sooner or later a tipping point will come, and the regime will come down. The only question is whether what replaces it will be worse.
Keep all this in mind while watching the Olympics. And don't worry too much about the title question for this post. It's from a Monty Python sketch wherein notable Communists in history compete in a game show to win a lounge suite. The title question stumped Karl Marx himself. At least Mao Tse Dong knew that Jerry Lee Lewis sang "Gleat Balls of File!"
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