Spot the Difference

Yesterday I had an enlightening conversation with a friend of mine whose wife comes from Vietnam, a notoriously communist country.

It is very evident that unlike capitalism, which is intrinsically exploitative and slips into neoliberalism no matter who is at the top manning the wheels, socialism and communism are political systems that are only as good as who is behind the wheel.

When you look at the systems that are most continually in conflict, what is really the difference between them?

I am not talking in terms of ideology; the ideology is drastically different.

I am talking materialistically here.

I see both regions as being dishonest about themselves.

The west tries to insist that the so-called liberal system elevates the working class’ economic status by “trickle-down economics”, which is really recycled cash as it is pumped back into benefits that further empower the capitalists whose cash flow continues to grow exponentially in spite of being taxed, making their narrative of being “more taxed than the working class” entirely redundant. That is not to mention the international corporations that are being given tax cuts in order to set up shop here, for which we were told off for being a tax haven in this regard. In other words, whole strata of people possess far more than those below and cement themselves as such with a wider gulf being dug down as time goes by as the system is hardwired to keep a select few with the same benefits.

The east, on the other hand, especially those who dub themselves socialist and communist countries, completely betray the notion of either by having people running the show declare lordship over a chunk of the social goods, fast transforming into an oligarchy that is a far cry from a “classless society” that Marx and Engels originally envisaged. In other words, strata of people possessing far more than those below cement themselves as such with a wider gulf being dug down as time goes by as the system is hardwired to keep a select few with the same benefits.

My friend said most of the corruption in Vietnam exists even on a societal level; this is also true of capitalist countries. If you espouse a system that leaves loopholes for people to exploit in order to reach a perceived top, then people are bound to exploit it irrespective of what political system you espouse. People are bound to disagree, and those same people are bound to rebel.

One would say “at least one of them is being consistent with what it sets out to be” or “this is inevitable as it is the natural order of things; some are on top and some at the bottom.”

I say no. We are better than this. We can at least make an effort to give opportunities to each other to elevate society, and seek to empower it rather than extorting it to empower ourselves. I would rather espouse the intent of socialism over the way it has been applied; of course, context is king. I believe that Socialism had not worked because, like religion, people used it as a flag to put themselves in power rather than to actually benefit society.

But what if it was turned around?