China and the Democratic-Communism Conundrum

So the big news of the day is that the Nobel Committee awarded the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese scholar who is currently serving an 11 year prison term for his pro-democracy and human-rights advocacy. This came just a few days after a likely counter-productive statement to the Nobel committee from the Chinese government warning that giving the award to Liu would have a negative impact on Chinese-Norwegian relations.


This got me to thinking about the nature of communistic governments and why China's government is so belligerent towards its dissidents. The combination of watching too much Star Trek and having a great world history teacher have always led me to believe that communism would work great if humans weren't involved, or at least the current human nature was radically altered. The problem is, of course, that humans are selfish and often materialistic creatures.



The Star Trek fix is to give everyone ample supply of food, water, shelter, etc. and then people will choose to engage in productive pursuits that will benefit all of society (note this took the help of aliens to accomplish). But even then you need a radical shift in human nature; people must desire to improve society without regard to their own standing in it. Good luck with that!


It is not inherent that a communist society need to be a one-party autocracy. In fact Marx himself would likely not to recognize modern "communist" states as a the finished product of his ideals, but rather as a twisted and prolonged pit-stop along the path he planned for a capitalist state to transition into a communist one. Marx himself never actually described in detail the ideal communist society that would come out of the socialist revolution necessary to lift the proletariat into power.

Average wealth of members of the US
Congress as provided by OpenSecrets.org

Democratic ideals are a tricky part of Marx's vision. A representative-democracy in a capitalist society is seen by Marx as a corrupt and frankly unrepresentative process that allows those with power or money to maintain their political and monetary advantage. To run an effective campaign, one either needs to be exceedingly wealthy or bank-rolled by wealthy entities that will expect some throw-back if the candidate is elected. This is still a valid criticism of representative-democracies such as in the United States in regard to millionaires and lobbyists holding the vast majority of the political capital.


However, after the socialist revolution is dissolved, a new sort of democracy is supposed to arise. A society still needs a democratic aspect to choosing who would run the colossal bureaucracy needed to oversee the distribution of resources. In theory, since all services including media are state-owned, then you wouldn't need money to gain power. An interesting theory, but sadly nothing more.

"Communist 'Party'" T-shirt from Threadless.com

But back to real-life. The warped socialist societies currently in place don't want democracy because they are each stuck in a self-perpetuating revolution where the revolutionaries refuse to give power back to anyone, the unpopular government they replaced or the workers they championed.


But even if the Chinese government had a change of heart and wanted to let the people choose via a direct democratic vote whether they really wanted to be a communist society, a practical reason that the states like China don't relish the idea of democratic elections is that it would be incredibly difficult to deal with the ramifications of losing. If, in a representative-democracy, a party losses their hold on power then the government remains but it is run by different people with a different agenda; Conservative instead Labour, Democrat over Republican, etc. If democracy wins over communism then the entire socio-economic structure of the country has to change. That transition would be disastrous for the country. There is a reason that changes in government systems only coincide with revolutions.


My point is not to side in any way with the Chinese government or even to sympathize with Marxist/communist/socialist ideals. I merely aim to point out that the Chinese government has no incentive to loosen its grip on the freedoms of its people. A truly Marxist intermediary government would give up its power voluntarily once a classless society had been attained. China's lack of progress in this regard indicates that any social freedom will likely only be achieved by force, either internal or external.


I wish China's quiet dissenters the best of luck and thank the Nobel Committee for bringing more international pressure to this issue.


Update (10/18/2010):
Thomas L. Friedman, the author of The World is Flat, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that has interesting parallels to my post.