| I wasn't trying to define communism - if I was doing that I would say it was the public ownership of the means of production - or something along those lines. A better way of putting it would be 'all countries who have turned to communism have a lack of freedom to change the status quo'. It's not the definition of communism - or even one of it's stated goals - but the lack of ability for individuals to benefit from their efforts creates a situation where the status quo is difficult to change. Your example of China illustrates this perfectly - all the while that mao-ist communism held sway, China went nowhere - or backwards - in terms of changing. The current weak-communism allows people to retain the rewards of their benefits - and so the dynamism of china has increased greatly. I'm not talking at the single voter level - I'm more talking at the Bill Gates/Steve Jobs/Elon Musk level. You need strong individual change agents to move the whole game forwards, and in a publicly-owned, incentive destroying regime, these individuals never flourish. That is what entrenches the status quo, and that is why communism is characterized by a lack of status quo. There certainly is no argument that communism causes stagnation, the results are quite shocking even if you remove the tendency for brutal dictators to leverage themselves into the position of power and murder their opponents. I agree that democracy at the federal level is very flawed, particularly in the EU, but also in the US, where Federal departments and laws overrule too many local and state laws. The success of Federalism lies in the reuiqrements of individual regions to compete in terms of opportunity and the ability of like-minded people to gather and control their destiny. Texas and Oregon should be allowed to evolve in different directions, as should Sweden and Greece. Forcing harmonious regultions and taxation on them makes both areas feel aggrieved. The benefits from Federalism are really about applicability of similar laws, common defense and completely free trade within the borders. The drawbacks are losing your voice by vote dilution. The balance has to be at the point where a federal government is limited as to the extent it can override state laws. |