Conflating Communism and Capitalism

A lot of what a person believes is based on logical building blocks of words used to represent ideas. So, let me throw some words out there and see if it affects what you believe.

The left-right spectrum of political ideology is riddled with faulty logic in wordplay.

In the first place, the left-right spectrum of ideology includes a lot more values than it was ever intended to. At root, extreme left is meant to represent no personal ownership of anything, and the extreme right is meant to represent no shared public ownership of anything. Of course, neither extreme is actually possible in practise.

That said, let's turn to the words. I'd posit the notion that all the instruments of measuring value in capitalism are present in a communist society. Value in materialism still exists even if assets are communally owned. Likewise, a commons and a set of communities arise in the extreme of right-leaning values. People form clubs and corporations that do things together and own things together, wherein privately owned assets are contributed (which I see as a different pathway to a similar end).

To be sure, my conflation is over simplified and easily picked at with examples to the contrary. This whole topic is ripe with powerful emotional commitments too, so I expect some of that to happen.

I'm not trying to say that capitalism is the same as communism. I'm trying to say that they have similarities, and they don't belong on opposite polar ends of a spectrum. First and foremost because neither end of the spectrum is actually possible, an element of both emerges in every possible scenario. Second because the words themselves are misrepresentative of the ideals. Also, because so many other values get dragged into this left-right spectrum, it all becomes very conflated and confusing.

What I am saying is that we can do better for the future of society by using words that better represent the concepts.

Community, sharing, co-ownership, and commons all abound plentiful under the measurement instruments of capital. I don't particularly care for the word capital as it refers to cash or currency, but that's the word our society uses, so I'm using it.

Source: https://sustainablehuman.com/

At this time in human history, from my perspective, we can see healthy aspects of both ideologies and unhealthy aspects of both ideologies. It's important also, to remember that both ideologies have the same goal: to maximize the wealth and wellbeing of everyone participating in the system.

How can two opposite ideologies have the same goal? Doesn't that evoke an inherent similarity between them?

So, if we just stick to that goal of eliminating real poverty and forget about the debate between which pathway leads us there (knowing full well that all feasible pathways contain elements of both), the whole thing becomes easier.

Inspiration for this write-up came from my meditation practice of un-schooling and re-wilding. I find the practice very energizing, liberating, and clarifying. It's simple. I just remember my place as an animal on this planet, and take it from there.

As an educated person, I have all sorts of tools & knowledge available to go on. Using those tools & knowledge through the lens of an unassuming position has a way of cropping up some fresh perspective. When I say unassuming, specifically, I'm referring to the assumption that the words we use make sense, that the lessons & values we hold are sound ... things like that. Just drop all of it, and go to the space in your mind where you can re-discover something true about this world.

I recommend everyone tries a practice like that. It's like an extension of beginners mind under the discipline of Zen Buddhism, which I correlate to the widely know western phenomena of beginners luck.

I'm getting off topic a bit here. Sorry about that.

Maybe my point is finished being made. The extreme of capitalism contains an element of communism, and the extreme of communism contains an element of capitalism. While they appear to be opposite, they are actually one. We will be whole when we embrace the benign aspects of both, and end the false dichotomy of saying "it's one or the other".