Trotsky the Prophet vs Daniel Fielding: A debate on Communism [1/3]

Intro:

Hi readers! Two weeks ago, I, Trotsky the Prophet, published an article regarding the misconceptions of Communism. I will continue with the series in future articles if you guys like it. But at the moment, I feel like posting a debate based off of the article between Mr Daniel Fielding and me.

The debate was originally published on WeAreNerds, another platform, with a brief introduction written by Daniel. I agree with him on how our debate to a certain extent cleared up misconceptions about Communism and revealed some potential flaws and falsehood in the Marxist-Leninist theory. The debate has also sparked my inspiration on the meritocratic system, which I will cover in an essay at a future week.

What the heck does COMMUNISM really mean? [1]

The Prophet: Here is my writing. I came up with the idea of writing about Communism and Marxism because of the Khmer Rouge unit of Grade 8 History. I found that the version of ‘communism’ we learnt from Humanities was, to some extent, misconceived and vulgarised. For educational purposes, of course, complex ideas should be simplified for better understanding. Yet, I felt that there is a need to dig a bit deeper into the philosophy for those who want a more well-rounded comprehension of Marxism.

Daniel: Thank you for giving me this article to read. I enjoyed the insight that your argument raised; however, you are foregoing human attributes, such as selfishness, which drives many human beings, and as a result, I don’t think Communism will work. I am, however, a moral and philosophical fan of Communism. I believe that it would eliminate many injustices of the modern world, such as poverty and its effects. I, like you, shun the idea of capitalism and how capitalists claim a free market to be ‘fair’.

P: I would describe myself as a Marxist but not a Communist Marxist, a Communist but not a Marxist Communist. I agree with Marx’s analysis of class struggle, capital accumulation, and exploitation of surplus-value. But some of his anticipations of a Communist society are out of date considering the status quo of contemporary society. For example, he did not take artificial intelligence, where the means of production can essentially produce goods without the intervention of labour, into account. Neither did he anticipate the peasants’ potential in Communist revolutions, as shown in China and Cambodia.

Some response to your claims:

“You are foregoing human attributes, such as selfishness.”

No. Selfishness is never a human attribute. (Same with greed.) We become selfish only when a property is valuable. What makes something valuable, then? Its utility? No, the utility only determines the use-value of a commodity, whereas the real value is directly related to the labour expended.

Let’s again take air as an example. NO ONE is selfish when it comes to respiration. We don’t desire to keep the air as private property or breathe as much air as we can despite it being one of the essentials to sustain our lives. Why? Because air is a free good. It requires neither labour nor opportunity cost to produce. If one day the Earth is running out of air, I’m certain that “artificial oxygen” will be put onto the market with a price-tag—just like what some capitalists are doing to water today.

Communism will not be realized until “the productive forces have increased with the all-round development of the individual,” as stated by Marx. In general, the greater the productiveness of labour, the less is the labour time required for the production of an article, the less is the amount of labour crystallized in that article. The lower is its value, and the less selfishness; vice versa.

D: What makes property valuable to me is the prestige that comes with something; if people think that something is valuable, then it becomes valuable. According to you, this triggers selfishness. So, to bypass selfishness and greed, you would need to remove public thought. That is both almost impossible, and a violation of human rights (free speech). You also need a leader of a Communist society. How would you choose that leader? Public thought (i.e., voting). Therefore the abolition of selfishness is impossible (at least, a technology’s current stage). Therefore it must be a human emotion.

If Communism will not happen until everything is valued at the same, you would have to do things such as limit the amount of bread to the number of diamonds, because rarity increases value. That is not feasible. And about your argument for selfishness with respiration, that is redundant. People can’t suck up more air than others, and even if they could, it is a basic human need—unlike something such as diamonds (a commodity).

P: I respect the argument that you have raised about commodities’ value and social mindset. Admittedly, the abolition of selfishness and greed can not be accomplished under the current stage of technological and societal circumstances. Yet I solely believe that the attribute of human beings is not selfishness but dedication, that only under abnormal circumstances will people be “alienated” (in the words of Georg Hegel) into being selfish and greedy.

I also noticed how you mentioned, “value is prestige.” To me, this sounds more idealist than materialist. Marx, as a materialist philosopher, believed that the value of a commodity is independent of the will of the people, but only concerning the way it is produced, namely, the labour expended. Diamond is an atypical example because of its natural scarcity, like gold and silver. As you have mentioned, the diamond itself does not possess any value; instead, there is a form of social validity that endows it with a certain amount of recognized value. The example of the diamond is not, however, reflective of the majority of commodities as most of them are produced by human labour instead of nature.

“If communism will not happen until everything is valued at the same...,”

No. Technically, it should be phrased as “If communism will not happen until all LABOR is valued at the same.” Commodities, of course, should not and cannot have the same value because they consume different magnitudes of labour and resources to produce.

“People can’t suck up more air than others, and even if they could, it is a basic human need— unlike something such as diamonds (a commodity).” First of all, the word “commodity” in the Marxist context does not only stand for luxuries. He defines a commodity as “an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another.” Bread satisfies human wants for food (or energy, technically), while diamonds satisfies human wants for prestige.

As we both agree, diamonds have attained a high value because they give people more prestige by making people think that they’re valuable due to their scarcity. From this simple fact, we can deduce that the only utility of diamonds is embodied in its social expressions for the superfluity of wealth. In a communist society, however, diamonds would no longer possess such a value because no one has more wealth than another. People don’t show off their wealth status by walking around with diamond-decorated belts or watches on their body. In other words, diamonds will no longer be “petrified into a hoard”. And becoming a hoarder of diamonds would no longer offer you any benefits, either. Hence, Lenin stated that,

“There will then be no need for society... each will take freely ‘according to his needs.’”