Socialism: Good Only For Ants, Bees and Termites

Socialism is a known success - for millions of years - among certain organisms.  These organisms owe their  existence and survival to that one and only that one system. We are talking about ants, bees and termites.  

The cartoon above, of course, illustrates the obvious - the entire ant colony is the offspring of the queen ant so every single ant is related to it and, naturally, to one another. (Note: Antcestors.com on the computer screen adds more to the humor). 

Even more significant is that the colony is a monarchy, lorded over by the queen which runs a socialist system that has made both the ants and termites as the  most successful species to have lived since the time of the dinosaurs.  They are also likely to survive, if it happens, the end-of-the-world cataclysm  that could wipe out  other species.  We'll get back to this later.

Now, how do we rate socialism in terms of its success or failure throughout our own human history? For one thing it has been tried more than once. There were several versions of it  and some iterations of socialism have been tried at different times or eras.

Formally, this year, there are 12 countries that have socialist constitutions; 10 countries that have  socialist ruling parties; 4 countries that have communist constitutions; 38 countries that have tried and abandon them altogether.  The only true remaining communist countries are China, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba.  China and Vietnam apparently run a hybrid version of communism where they run their economy like a capitalist while ruling the country as a communist regime.

By geographic area, about a third of the world have tried socialism and communism although a good chunk of it was the former USSR and the Warsaw pact countries like Hungary, Romania, Poland, Ukraine, etc.

Today, proponents are sensitive to being labeled as adhering to communism and insist that their idea is based on democratic socialism, not its extreme version which is, of course, communism. So, let's just call it socialism then. A generation ago, no political candidate in the U.S. would have had the courage to even hint the slightest inclination towards socialism.  Today, we have a New York city mayoral candidate openly admitting and espousing the merits of a socialist administration.  A handful members of congress are sympathetic and openly supports the mayoral candidate. 

Young people today seem to be enamored with socialism so let's see what definitions we can share with them. Italicized paragraphs signify actual quotes from several references but the "theme" is consistent.

"Communism is one of multiple variations of socialism. Therefore, communist countries are inherently socialist, but not all socialist countries are considered communist".

 

noun:

"A theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, capital, land, etc., by the community as a whole, usually through a centralized government."

A political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

"Communism is a political and economic system that seeks to create a classless society in which the major means of production, such as mines and factories, are owned and controlled by the public. There is no government or private property or currency, and the wealth is divided among citizens equally or according to individual need. Many of communism’s tenets derive from the works of German revolutionary Karl Marx, who (with Friedrich Engels) wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848)."

What is a Socialist State?

"It can be difficult to accurately define a socialist country because the term has come to have many meanings and interpretations. Broadly speaking, socialism is a political and economic theory that seeks to close the gap between a nation’s rich and poor by ensuring that the means of production, distribution, and exchange of goods and services are publicly owned, not privately owned, so that the profits are shared by all, not hoarded by a few rich owners. However, that basic definition encompasses a wide range of real-world variations on socialism. In its purest form, socialism is decidedly progressive. In practice, socialist countries can run the gamut from impressively progressive to staunchly conservative, often hinging upon the level of corruption in the government."

That last phrase above is significant.  But first, we need to recognize that it was primarily the concentration of power and wealth among the royalty that primed the French Revolution (1787), followed by the Chinese revolution against the Qing dynasty (1911), then the revolt against Tsarist Russia (1917). Let us not forget though all the above were preceded by the American Revolution in 1776. Some historians claim that the French actually got their inspiration from  America. 

It was Karl Marx, German philosopher and revolutionary, who brought to light the brewing discontent of the people against the unjust aggregation of wealth and power only among the elite members of royalty that at that point was merely dictated by bloodline. But what he abhorred the most was capitalism that was fueling the emergence of industrialization and the notion that the workers were being taken advantage of. Perhaps true then but no longer true now.

Both are economic systems; however, their political platforms are diametric opposites.

A. Capitalism

1. In a democracy, its economic foundation is the capitalist system. It puts no limit to how much individuals, or groups pooled together into corporations, can earn in terms of return on what they put into a business. This creates different classes of people, tiered into Rich, Upper middle class, Middle class, and the Poor (usually needing public assistance)

2. Government is not generally involved in commerce

3. Individual freedom is guaranteed

B. Socialism

"From an economic perspective, socialism and communism are the same. They’re both based on government ownership, central planning, and price controls.

From a political perspective, however, there’s a difference. Communism is an authoritarian form of government, while socialism can be the outcome of the democratic process".       --------- Dan Mitchell

1.There is no class system, strictly speaking but in reality there is.

2. Individual freedom is severely curtailed. The power of the state supersedes everything

3. Resources and wealth belong entirely to the state

The two statements below are a way of looking at the difference between the two systems:

"It is easy being a communist in a free country

Try being free in a Communist country".

Back to the ants and termites. The way the colony is ran the queen rules as a  monarch - the one true benevolent dictatorship.  Each member of the colony is its offspring.  The rest of the colony are made up of infertile females (not capable of producing offspring) and males called drones.  The females do most of the work - foraging for food for the colony, caring for the eggs and the young. The queen can lay hundreds of eggs everyday and it determines whether those eggs will become females or males. The drones do very little until the need for their service arises.  At some point in the life of the colony, it will have grown so large that the need arises for a new colony to be established somewhere else.

At that point the queen will produce fertile females which will sprout wings and for many drones as well.  Both fertile females and drones will take to the air in a swarm to mate. Each female will mate with several males. The sad part is that every drone dies after mating.  It is also certain that few of the fertilized females will survive because of predations from predators like birds and bats and dragonflies, etc.

The surviving females will later find a suitable place in the ground to establish a new colony of her own where she will become queen. The cycle begins again.

And that is true for termite and bee colonies as well.  The queen gets the bulk of the food gathered by the workers and the rest goes to the larva after each egg hatches.  Each worker and drone gets only enough food to sustain them literary for just one day. Therefore, except for the queen, every other member of the colony gets only their daily share.  That is socialism. The fate of every other member of the colony is determined by the monarch queen. None of the workers or drones may determine on their own how to live their lives except as dictated by the queen. That is monarchy and a severe example of dictatorship. It works and splendidly so but good only for ants, bees and termites.

In March, 2019 I wrote then:  "The Freaky Economics of Income"

A quote from it: 

To get the very notion  of "equality of income for all" deeply ingrained in our psyche  defeats the very principle of the free economic system. 

Socialism is the illusion created by those in power so all their subjects will feel as if indeed they are all getting equal shares provided by the state. When Mao prescribed that everyone wear the same jacket style that came to be known as the Mao jacket, little did the general populace know that while they were wearing the same style, theirs was from coarse cotton while Mao and his entourage had theirs made from the finest silk or linen. 

Every would-be socialist must ask this question. Is income equality good for me as an individual? Is it so bad that I strive to have more income than the next person if I am capable of working harder to earn it?  Will socialism be as inspiring to entrepreneurs and innovators in a country like the U.S. that was built solely on the belief that "if we try harder we can be better than anyone else".