Communism

Communism can be understood as a form of social organization, a set of ideals, and a movement toward those ideals and the kind of social organization that would embody them. As a form of social organization, communism would abolish private property in the means of production, articles of consumption, or both. In so doing, it would try to realize such ideals as a rationally ordered and just society, a society that prioritizes communal and social welfare, a cooperative and caring community that transcends individual competition and egoism, and an egalitarian and classless society. From ancient times to the present, a variety of different kinds of communist experiments have been attempted, and a number of communist utopian ideals have been proposed. Self-conscious communist movements and utopian proposals have taken both [Page 365]religious and secular, ascetic and materially affluent, celibate and sexually promiscuous forms. They have also taken authoritarian, democratic, and libertarian forms. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the dominant political movements were inspired by Marxist or anarchist thinkers who, for the most part, assumed that a general social and political revolution was necessary to bring about communism.

There is good reason to believe that early hunting gathering societies were communist, as such societies could not have a developed division of labor or class structure. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels labeled such social forms “primitive communism.”The Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras organized a communist experiment in southern Italy, which was a combined university and monastic order. The Pythagoreans were mystics who believed that the physical universe and moral universe could be reduced to a harmonious system of numbers. Thus, for the Pythagoreans, private property, which destroyed the harmony and equality of the whole, was the origin of social injustice. The example of the Pythagorean community, as well as the philosophy of Pythagoras himself, influenced Plato's conception of justice as described in The Republic. Plato's utopian ideal divides society into three classes: (1) artisans, who are allowed to have private property as long as it is kept within supervised limits;(2) auxiliaries, who are a combination of soldiers and police force and who are allowed to have some degree of luxuries but not private property;and (3) Guardians, who rule the society and are allowed neither private property nor material luxury. The basis of the society is the division of labor, each part of which must evidence a certain virtue in harmony with the society as a whole. For Plato, the society is just if each of these classes is fulfilling its appointed task well. As the Guardians have the responsibility for the society as a whole, it is especially important that anything that would promote self-interest or would divert them from being wise and socially responsible must be eliminated. Hence, they must live communally without any private property or material luxury. Plato also insists on the equality of women and the ability of women to be Guardians. However, insofar as family ties would promote private interests over communal interests, the Guardians are also not allowed to form separate families, and their children must be raised communally. Plato's conception of communism may strike the modern reader as strange, because it emphasizes class distinctions and is communism only for the ruling class. However, it is important to recognize that Plato's allowance of private property for the artisans is based on his assumption that only certain people can have the sort of knowledge required for wisdom. If, however, one makes the modern assumption of the potential equality of all human beings, Plato's reasoning for the necessity of communism could be generalized to everyone.

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