I stumbled upon this debate that took place a couple of years ago. The topic really interested me as I've always known a little about Communism and Capitalism, and I wanted to know how Communism, which on paper sounds quite ideal, could end in such disaster as I'd recently learned about in the Tower of Terror, Budapest.
I mostly enjoyed listening to Jeremy Corbyn on the 'yes' side and Daniel Hannan on the 'no' side. I'm definitely a socialist but I do understand what Hannan is saying. Unfortunately we do not live in my ideal sort of world.
Click on their names to watch the full speech, or see my highlights below:
Jeremy Corbyn:
"The party that is heavily represented by the other side here are presiding over an explotion of free market private rented flats which now make up a 3rd of my constituency and the people are being socially cleansed by high rents and insufficient benefits and the refusal of government to bring in any form of rent control.
Again, better quality housing leads to better education which leads to better health."
To John Redwood, " You promoted greed at the expense of an egalitarian society."
"The moral case about socialism - those people opposite that spoke will have you believe that there is something normal and natural about living in a society where dog eats dog, the poorest go to hell and the richest do well. Do you want to live in a society where there is no public provision of any kind of service. There is only private provision and the only thing to worship is money and getting rich at the expense of others, or do you want to live in a society where there is universal health care, where there is a protection against total destitution and poverty, and every child gets to go to school. I want to live in a society that has that kind of collective principle about it.
"I also think we have to have a thought about the natural environment in which we live. We live in a free market society - certainly the domination of the worlds multinational companies and banks very powerful indeed. Are they really caring about what happens to the environment, are they really caring about the level of exploitation of oil and other mineral resources, are they really caring about the damage they are doing to the environment. Only if you live in a society and a set of principles where u take from people what they can afford in order to give that to people what need it. In other words, from each according to their means to each according to their needs."
Daniel Hannan interrupts with a point:
"That principle found its fullest expression in the Eastern Europe Marxist states, which taught that nature is a resource to be exploited and that resulted in the smoke stag (?) degredation which has not ben likened anywhere in the capitalist world. The best thing to happen to the environment was the fall of the Berlin wall so that property rights began to reverse the ecological catastrophe that Marxism had created.
Jeremy's response:
"There is some interesting parts of Marx that you obviously didn't get round to reading about Marx and the environment and about the sustainability of life. I have not actually said anything in defense of the exploitation of natural resources in Eastern Europe or anywhere else, I'm making a point that if we want to survive on this planet, we cannot go on exploiting and polluting at the rate we are, we cannot ruin our environment and destroy an Eco system and expect to survive. If you live in a free market society, a free market capitalist society will grab every piece of resource it possibly can and it wont give a damn about the environmental effects of it. A collective principal, where care about everybody does give us that opportunity to protect the natural world and the natural environment.
If you want to live in a decent world then is it right that the worlds economy is dominated by a group of unaccountable multi national corporations? They are the real power in the world today not the nation state. And if u want to look at the victims of the ultimate of this free market catastrophe that the world is faced with at the moment, go to the shanty towns o the fringes of so many big cities around the world. When the world bank arrives and tells them to privatise all public services, to sell all state owned land to make inequality a paragon of virtue, that is what drives people into danger and poverty. Think about what kind of world you want to live in - Do you want the dog to eat dog or do u want us all to care for each other, support each other and eliminate poverty and injustice? A different world is possible."
Daniel Hannan:
"Contention that fascism had emerged out of socialism."
"Socialism rests on compulsion. Its defining ethic is not equality but coercion.
Socialism and capitalism are matrices, they are economic systems within which people can be generous or greedy, they can be selfish or altruistic. Human nature is something that comes whether from our genes or from our maker. It isn't something that's created by an economic system. But what's unique about socialism is the readiness of a state to deploy coercive force. Now we've evolved a great vocabulary to describe this; We talk about things like 'asking people to pay a bit more tax', see what happens if they choose not to - behind all that polite sounding 'asking them to pay their share to contribute' is the threat of prison. Now of course there are some occasions where any society will need to rely on coercive force, on incarceration, there are some taxes that are necessary in any system, but the use of coercive and ultimately lethal force by the state is its most awesome and awful power. We should tilt the balance as far as we can to liberty. That power should be used as the prayer book says of marriage reverently, discretely, advisedly, soberly."
"The idea that those of us on this side are in favour of dog eat dog, if by dog eat dog you mean the desire for material improvement, that is a fundamental in human nature under all systems, you had it under the communist regime, the feudal regime, but what is unique about capitalism is that it harnessed that ambition to a socially useful end. Under every other system devised by human intelligence, a group of people sat on top and the way to get rich was to suck up to those in power. We uniquely in this country - and we then exported it - came up with a system where you satisfied your ambition by serving the rest of your fellow citizens under the law. We channeled that desire for self improvement in a socially productive way. and that's why socialist countries are not just less wealthy, they are also less free. It's not just that socialism doesn't work in the sense that if fails to provide material advance, it doesn't work in that it takes away human dignity, and civil rights above all our freedom to make choices as antonymous individuals."
"Somehow on this side that we are said to be more materialistic, greedier, less humane that we have less by way of fellow feeling and sympathy than those of the other side. If you contrast socialist and capitalist economies, you see precious little evidence of that, but for what its worth, I'm a conservative politician, I spend a lot of my time with libertarians,conservatives and free marketers of every stripe. I can tell u hand on heart that I've never met anyone who derives more pleasure from a healthy bank balance than from listening to Beethoven or playing with his children, or going for a walk in the country. But what is it that enables us to do those things? Its economic progress. The fact that you have a dishwasher and don't have to spend all that time washing by hand means you can go for that walk in the country, the fact that you have a car and don't have to queue at the tram station means you can listen to Beethoven symphonies, the fact that you don't have to do 6 weeks of work just to feed your children means you can spend the weekend playing with them... and where did those economic advances come from? From the system that unlocked the inventiveness of a creative people, that tapped into the unlimited potential of human innovation and raised our species to a standard of living that a couple of generations ago would have been unimaginable. Now that has happened for about 1 billion people in the world, those of us who can afford the cars and the dishwashers. There are 6 billion people who can't afford cars or dishwashers, but they will, they will as free exchange, and specialisition and comparitave advantage run there course, raising people to a higher and higher standrad of living UNLESS we go down the road of Cuba or Zimbabwe or any other socialist country because ths notion doesn't work. Don't make the mistake of judging socialsm as a textbook theory but by judging capitalism buy its necessarily imperfect outcomes. Judge like with like - in the real world you find me a funcitoning socialist country that as delivered more than a free market alternative."
