Has the Welfare System Made Communism Obsolete?

"How happened it, that your workers were able to produce more than so many savages would have done? Was is not wholly on account of the heritage of the past knowledge and achievements of the race, the machinery of society, thousands of years in contriving, found by you ready-made to your hand? How did you come to be the possessor of this knowledge and this machinery, which represents nine parts to one contributed by yourself in the value of your product? You inherited it, did you not? And were not these others, these unfortunate and crippled brothers whom you cast out, joint inheritors, co-heirs with you? What did you do with their share? Did you not rob them when you put them off with crusts, who were entitled to sit with their heirs, and did you not add insult to robbery when you called the crusts charity?" - Bellamy

Many of the early heralds of communism were doing so as they saw injustice in the systems of society. The poor and weak were often exploited by the rich and powerful thus ensuring that a gap of wealth was sustained. Bellamy attempts to explain why he sees this imbalance as an injustice, the effectiveness of our work is only enhanced by our own personal skills by a tiny fraction compared to the improvements and developments made by our ancestors. Direct reward based only on an individuals aptitude is therefore, according to Bellamy, unfair. In Bellamy's era, along with other prominent early communists such as Marx, Owen and so forth, who lived in a time where the state only really provided military protection against other nations. The idea that a state would also take up the mantle of its citizens health, education and so forth was not yet conceived.

These pioneers of communism, the theorists rather than those who eventually came to lead real communist states, were attempting to enhance the condition of those people who they saw society as unjustly letting down. They developed a model for society which ensured that all were provided for. Communism is a social model that does achieve the aim of supporting those less able, however it does so at the cost of hampering other aspects of society. The potential for corruption within the communist system aside, there are still significant issues with both social and economic factors within a communism.

Socially speaking people compete with one another, each person wishes to “rise above their piers” by virtue of their achievements. This is not strictly speaking a financial desire but in capitalist systems the easiest way of measuring success is monetarily. Fame is also a measure of someone’s social success but this is harder to quantify than wealth and can only be achieved by a tiny fraction of the populous. As a result of these two limitations of measuring success in communisms a stagnation of the industrial and innovative forces was observed. Without the incentive of reward or even recognition of achievement a communist society of people (rather than fictional utopian altruists) will not keep pace with the world economy*.

*[I feel the need to make a small disclaimer here regarding the patent inaccuracy of this claim in regards China, a communist nation destined to be the greatest economic power in the world within the century. I am not suggesting that China is destined to fall victim to the ills of impotence and apathy, simply that it is a concern for such nations. The debate between communism and capitalism is still afoot and there are so many factors to be considered that it is hard to pinpoint exactly why the results differ as they do. It is clear however that we are yet still to find the perfect balance for society and success stories like China will help provide us with new solutions and ideas.]

In essence the problem communism is attempting so solve is the very real and highly significant gap of wealth, and the communist solution is the equalisation of wages. The negative ramifications of this solution are a tendency towards impotence in industry and apathy in the populous. Capitalism (which has many problems of it’s own that will be the subject of other essays) does not suffer from apathy or impotence as a communism does, it invigorates industry and forces people to always improve by many of the same mechanisms that govern biological evolution. Can we find a solution which gains the best of both worlds? One that would be considered just in that it provides for those who should inherit the benefits of modern society but are less able to contribute while also maintaining a strong productive workforce?

Around 1870 Bismarck was making the first political reforms in Germany that could be called the welfare state or ‘sozialstaat‘. Other countries followed suit and gradually things like national health services, state education, state pensions, social housing and so forth were more widespread throughout the developed democracies. The aims of the welfare state are very much in tune with those of the early communist pioneers in that they wished to better the condition of the poorest and weakest within society.
The welfare state therefore seems to be the best of both worlds solution, it provides a safety net for those who might otherwise struggle to survive while maintaining the benefits of a capitalist economy. The welfare sate, rather than handing out equal remuneration to all so they may support their needs, provides help specifically to those who require it; education for the young, medical care to the sick, pensions to those to old to work etc. A welfare state reduces the wealth gap but does not remove it entirely. Taxes levied on those who are supporting themselves by their labours are used to support those who cannot. This ensures a base level of poverty that is hard to fall below while reducing the maximum possible earnings for those at the other end of the spectrum.

The extent to which the wealth gap is reduced depends on the size of the welfare system. One taken to extremes would bare uncanny resemblance to a communism, the welfare state therefore creates a sliding scale as it were between pure capitalism - the survival of the fittest, where nothing is provided for those in need, and pure communism where all the nations resources are put into a welfare system. The optimal point between these two extremes is hard to say and subject to opinion. The English welfare state offers some support I see as socially harmful and would choose to reduce or remove while it also offers some support that I would fund more heavily.

Capitalism and communism are not two separate models but a single system determined by the level of welfare and therefore it would seem reasonable that some of the issues found in communism may also be found within a welfare state. The dole, child benefits, housing benefits and other such case handouts can act as a disincentive to productive labour. While being noble ideas aimed at supporting those in need, they are also exploitable. Great care should be taken when designing a welfare system so that it does provide for those in need but does not offer the opportunity to act solely as a drain on the system or nation. Not only must the level of wealth redistribution be appropriate but also the manner in which it is redistributed. When the difference one can get in the quality of life between working full time at minimum wage and being wholly supported by welfare is minimal there is little incentive to work.

I shall come to describe the manner in which I would personally design an entire welfare system in later essays but I shall conclude this one with the assertion that communism is not obsolete, it exists wherever welfare exists. We get too caught up in the words and assume that capitalism and communism are mutually exclusive where in fact they are just the two far points at either end of a single stick! Problems arise in social design due to its complexity and we should not castigate words based on these problems. Welfare has allowed us ways in which we may get the best of all options but it how we implement it that determines how much benefit may be derived. If we avoid trying to group entire social organisation structures with single words and instead attempt to understand the mechanisms behind those nations we will be vastly better equipped to understand the various failings and successes of those mechanisms enabling us to create a better society for everyone.