Introduction

Capitalism. Ask anyone what this word means and you will get a wide variety of responses. Some enthusiastically explain the high degree of freedom that is afforded to societies that adopt it. Others decry it for the promotion of greed, forming a powerful motivation for misdeeds if they are profitable enough. In the modern day of massive wealth inequality and a 1% that owns 80% of the wealth, perhaps it is worth asking if Capitalism could be reined in a little? In general, such conversations generally go back to the historical examples of other wealth distribution systems that failed utterly: Communism and Socialism.

Most economists, political theorists, and historians generally agree that Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of property, extending to the means of production. This stems from John Locke’s (1632-1704) political theory surrounding his theory of natural rights – in a “natural state”, all people were equal and independent, and everyone had a duties to their neighbours. To not kill them, not steal from them, and not oppress them – from this, the natural rights to life, property, and liberty are formed. According to this philosophy, everyone is entitled to the products of his or her own labor, and the profits that they bring. In theory, this is a sound principle, and as a counterpoint to the previously established “divine right” aristocracy, this was quite a liberating idea for the population of pre-Industrial Europe. The rapid advancement brought about by the Industrial Revolution is partially due to the implementation of Capitalism in most of the societies that practiced it. But as we will see, the practical, real-world implementation of Capitalism would have some downsides.

I want to note here, that this book is not an argument to completely abolish Capitalism – rather, I think it’s a little narcissistic to believe in the perfection of ideas. We should be honest with ourselves – nothing is perfect, reality is rife with imbalances and slight imperfections. However, the advancement of humanity has mostly been accomplished by making intelligent trade-offs to increase quality of life. In comparison to the systems of the past, capitalism has allowed for humanity to experience an unprecedented amount of abundance and wealth. The factories of the industrial revolution have produced enough to support a higher population than has ever been possible. Unfortunately, it has not been a straight path to prosperity for all of humanity, down to the individual level. Some individuals are born into very unfortunate circumstances, with practically no hope of progressing beyond the rampant poverty they are surrounded by.

The beginning of the industrial revolution was marked by a massive migration of laborers from the countryside into cities. The reason for this was that they were made economically obsolete by the introduction of the factory system – no longer could tradesmen run independent shops. They just could not compete with the massive production that the new technology could supply. Textile workers were priced out of the market by the new textile mills, and had no choice but to take whatever wages the factory owners deemed acceptable. In practice, this was often barely enough for food and shelter. Some of them rejected the technologies that had forever changed their way of life – the Luddites. An anti-technological movement that started with riots against the textile factories that revolutionized the industry, and ended with a government crackdown. This was only the beginning of the “labor unrest” that would plague industrial society through the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

The Luddites’ rage was justified. No longer could a person live a life with their families in the homes they were born in – they were all forced to relocate to barely-livable cities, work in extremely difficult conditions, for just enough money to cover their living expenses. There was very limited opportunity for workers due to the technological shift that now found that the market did not value their labor anymore, and education or retraining were not cheap, if they existed at all. In the beginning of the revolution, children were expected to work, and factory owners resisted governors that tried to make it illegal. Even though it was eventually made illegal, the lack of inspectors had made it prevalent in Europe and the United States until the 20^th century.

The Union movement rose in the industrialized world after the concentration of labor into mills, factories, and mines. Combinations or Trade Unions were formed to advance the interests of the workers. They bargained with the factory owner with the threat of withdrawing their labor – a strike. Such events were painful for both the unions and the management, the former sacrificing wages and the latter losing productivity. Laws were put in place to restrict the workers from striking, due to heavy effort from factory owners and powerful financiers, but continued, persistent effort allowed workers to overcome legal restrictions on the right to strike.

The right to strike and the idea of Trade Unions were respected in most First World countries for decades. Recent history has seen a decline of Labor Unions in most countries. Milton Friendman (1912-2006), noted economist, also spoke out against Unions during his time. Since the late 1970s, one can see a marked decrease in the number of unionized workers across most first world countries. Statistics Canada and the Economic Policy Institute have both reported decreases in the number of unionized workers for the past few decades. What is the reason for this? Well, consider that the Soviet Union also began to really unravel economically and politically after the Era of Stagnation, beginning under the rule of Leonid Brezhnev.

Is this a coincidence? Or without the credible threat of what can happen when the labor force is treated poorly enough to enact a Coup to seize power, did management suddenly feel that their workers were slightly more disposable? A disgruntled employee can be fired or replaced if there is no Union to defend them. The interests of each company are to be represented first and foremost – if a worker isn’t productive, then they are not worth paying.

Communism does appear to share some common properties with the Union movement, perhaps most notably in the most common definition of the system: “the workers owning the means of production”. It is a much more extreme form of this, however – there is zero private ownership, and instead everything is owned by all of society: the “collective”. A strike is basically just a temporary assertion of this idea. The workers cease production, to remind the management that the production is impossible without workers that supply their labor, and they can assert this fact to demand a higher share of the profits. It is not surprising that Communism began its rise during the heyday of the Union Movement, before which, government powers consistently sided with factory owners to protect their assets.

In 1820, the Scottish Insurrection took place. A week of strikes and unrest, caused by high unemployment, high food prices, unfair working conditions, and an unresponsive government. The insurrection was quashed by the army, with many of the leaders being executed or sentenced to penal transportation.

Such inequality and the active repression of worker organization seems to have been the primary factor for the emergence of Communism, beginning with the publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848. Written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the manifesto takes an analytical look at society and the class struggle. It argues that post-industrial capitalist society is divided into two classes – the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie are the “owners of the means of production”, and the proletariat can only sell their labor to the owners in exchange for a share of the profits, in order to secure “the means of sustenance”: usually food and shelter. The manifesto argues that the bourgeoisie constantly exploit the proletariat for labour power, creating more and more profit for themselves and accumulating capital. According to Marx and Engels, the bourgeoisie will eventually exploit the proletariat too much and they will become concious of their potential and attempt to rise to power through revolution.

History has shown us the effects of Communism. The Russian revolution in 1917 led to the rise of the bolsheviks, and the creation of Soviet Russia – declaring itself a fully Communist state. Following the Second World War after being subject to the brutalizations of the Japanese and the Western powers, China also began its own Communist revolution in 1945. It had begun spread throughout most of Asia, beginning movements in Vietnam, the Phillipines and Cambodia among many others. The West had been aware of the ideas since the publication of the Communist Manifesto, but after World War Two, Westerners really started their resistance against the ideology, and the Soviet Union that spread it by osmosis. The United States led this movement with their foreign policy of “Containment”, enlisting their allies to aid in stopping the spread of Communism. The embargo on the Soviet Union and on Eastern European countries was most likely another factor in the economic hardship faced by the Communist states. The “Cold War” began at the end of the second World War – with their former enemy removed, the superpowers of East and West found themselves with massive militaries and the very real fear of what they could accomplish with nuclear weapons after the examples in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

From a historical perspective, it seems fairly obvious why the West would resist Communism: the numerous human rights abuses, the starvation, and the slow decline of society are all definitely good reasons to avoid a system which may result in those things. Shortly after the end of WW2, Stalin was afraid that economic integration with the West would allow newly acquired Soviet territories to escape their control, so the tension was not entirely one-sided. But, by only trading with other Communist states, it’s hard to imagine that a country could be economically successful if it restricted its trading partners to only a handful. Another factor to consider is the deterioration of the work ethic – if everyone is getting paid the same no matter what, then workers will only be motivated to put in a minimal amount of effort. The Stagnation Era and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union marked the practical death of Communism in 1991.

China in the current day is ruled by the Communist Party, but they still allow free enterprise and have a lot of trade with the West. It seems that Communism has, for the most part, become extinct on Earth. Probably a good thing, considering that the ideology was the cause of millions of deaths. But now that Capitalism has won the war of ideas and Communism has been defeated. Should we let it go unchecked? Or could we find ourselves repeating history?

Chapter 1: Fertile Grounds for Revolution

For a moment, I would like to go back in time. To truly understand the historical context of events, it is important to consider the flow of history. Thanks to Darwin and being able to understand of how life evolves with time, along with incredible advances in the fossil record, we have a pretty good picture of the evolutionary background of the planet we inhabit. Hunter-gathering tribal societies formed our early history, dating back roughly one million years. This way of life persisted until the agrarian revolution, allowing humans to secure a reliable food supply with agriculture. The first farms really began to appear about 20,000 to 10,000 years ago, mostly in the Great Rift Valley (Eastern Africa) and the Fertile Crescent (the Middle East, in the form of Mesopotamia). With their food source now secure, people did not have to spend all of their time foraging for sustenance.

This led to numerous technological advances that increased the effectiveness of human labor. I think that this is perhaps best encapsulated by the Sumerian civilization. They constructed towering walls that still stand to this very day in the middle east. They had began the use of the Wheel, the Plow, Writing, a centralized Government, Mathematics, a Measurement of time, Metalworking, and even a Calendar.

It seems that the population explosion also had the result of increasing the level of competition between different tribes or groups for land and resources. The formation of the first organized armies, and the increased scale of warfare is, I would argue, a natural consequence of an increased population.

The emergence of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam came shortly after, during the lifetime of these competing civilizations – Moses famously led the Jews to Israel out of Egypt, where they were slaves. Monotheistic religion began to replace the Polytheistic religions of antiquity. It propose that each human life is equally sacred and that the world is not simply a chaotic unpredictable mess, changing at the whim of capricious Gods of the polytheistic religions of the time.

Christianity, notably, rose at the began its rise during the height of the Roman Empire, as the story tells that Jesus was crucified by the Romans. Many have argued that Jesus Christ was most likely simply a Jew that sought to see the end of the cruelty and oppression of the Roman Empire. Slavery, Hedonism, the Arenas – the Empire was decaying, and I do not think it is a surprise that someone would see the pointless suffering around them, and seek to bring about some sort of meaningful change, in direct opposition to the Romans. The birth of this religion in Jerusalem during the Roman Occupation of Judea (modern day Israel), along with the timing of the gradual decline of the Roman Empire I believe is worth consideration. The death of Christ was an important factor in the slow demise of the Empire – the spread of a powerful idea is unstoppable, even by the most oppressive of regimes. The idea of a gracious god that can truly accept you, values you, and asks that you be kind to those around you as you move through life, was appealing to many in a time of such hardship, I believe. Much more appealing than the uncertainty of a chaotic fate that can change in an instant, at the hands of those more powerful than you, because they were endowed with slightly more “divine favour”.

Christianity began to spread throughout Europe shortly after the death of Christ. While the decline of Roman Civilization and the Dark Ages that followed had caused significant amount of technological regression, the process of slowly converting an entire continent into a single religion was underway. Most notably is the absence of sanitation in most medieval cities of Europe – Roman cities utilized aqueducts and cisterns, and enjoyed a much higher degree of cleanliness compared to the cities that would be built after the fall of the Roman Empire. The many illnesses and plagues that wracked the time period are undoubtedly related to the absence of adequate sewage systems.

Light Banishes the Shadows

Those who spread Christendom across Europe were peaceful missionaries at times, and fervent crusaders at others. The ideals of Christianity were noble, but the deaths of millions of pagans and other heathens testify to the violent nature of humanity, even when their cause is just, no matter how benevolent they believe their ideals are.

The Christian unification of Europe, with the Catholic Church acting as a sort of “medieval United Nations”, but wielding the power of God, was a large component of European history. The European Christians carved out a place for themselves in the chaos of reality. I say this, because I believe it’s also very important to consider the entire historical context of the time period. Many pagan religions were quite violent in nature, as the German, Viking, Celtic, and numerous other Stone, Bronze, and Iron-age societies of ancient history can attest.

The formation of a society with a religion preaching Virtue, Divine Grace, and Thoughtful Prayer was a difficult journey for humanity. And although the power of Christian ideas had slowly been abused over time to serve the interests of a few, the stability and progress enjoyed by Christian society was largely greater than anything humanity had ever seen. This, along with a few other historical factors including the introduction of more books into Europe from the Crusades and the Great Plague, provided the conditions for the Renaissance.

Starting in the 14^th century due to the increased supply of books from the invention of the Gutenburg Printing Press in 1455, this was a time of reclaiming the knowledge of the ancients. The Printing Press was a massive factor in dispersing information – before, only nobles and rich men had enough money and time to learn to read and also purchase books.

The renaissance led to many changes in culture, including a new philosophy of Humanism. Reclaiming the wisdom of the Classical philosophers began to slowly thaw the icy grip that the church held on information. But the Roman Catholic Church would not surrender their power over society easily, which perhaps culminated in the inquisition trial of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642).

A short time later, Isaac Newton (1642-1726) began to delve into the mysteries of the universe, armed with a mighty intellect, blessed with a stable society, and given access to an information dispersal mechanism that could spread his ideas to the world with lightning speed. The fruits of his inquiry came to civilization first in the form of the Principia Mathematica, published in 1687. He proposed that the Copernican system Galileo had hypothesized was entirely correct – the Earth revolved around the Sun. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) had discovered a more accurate astronomical model than any other created, and began the study of the stars and planets, dubbing it “celestial physics”, and formed the foundations that Galileo and Newton would use to do their research.

Newton proposed that we could understand the forces that made the planets revolve around the Sun, if they could be understood with a mathematical model, as Kepler and Galileo had attempted. The planets were not carried on the backs of angels – they were moved by some kind of underlying force driven by the physical nature of reality. Reality that, with calculation and reasoning, we could predict and understand. The publication of the Principia Mathematica was a landmark moment in history. Newton also began to research the natural phenomenon of light, and worked to revolutionize humanity’s understanding of the strange phenomenon to a new level, with his publication of Opticks in 1704.

This was a huge step forward for Science. Not just the understanding of the celestial forces, but the idea that human reasoning could understand something as unfathomable as the motion of the planets, or light – the reason that the sun rose and set every day, illuminating the Earth. With Leibnitz’s contributions, the two of them erected the foundations of Calculus – an extremely powerful analytical tool for Science. This, I believe, is a root cause for the Enlightenment of the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

Knowledge and Purpose

Science was now a force to be reckoned with. A century after the publication of the Principia, the Industrial Revolution began in England. James Watt (1736-1819) is generally credited with the first implementation of a practical version of a Steam Engine. But the Industrial Revolution started before the invention of this device – the Factory system was first applied to the textile industry, making the weaving of cloth hundreds of times more productive with the introduction of massive Textile Mills – mills that could be powered by the water currents of rivers. The first “industrial scale” textile mills would emerge by 1721. The Steam Engine was an acceleration of the industrial revolution, bringing huge numbers of factories into cities. Unfortunately, this had a bit of a dark side – Oliver Twist and other works give us plenty of examples of the sentiments of the time, and the problems that arose with rampant wealth inequality.

The industrial revolution was not the only one of the time period, however. Many nations had revolutions with the interest of establishing democratic societies ruled by the people, instead of a monarch and an aristocractic class of nobles. The American revolution and the French revolution were the first and most notable of the time, taking place in the late 17^th and 18^th centuries, respectively. These revolutions deposed the old aristocractic systems and replaced them with representative democracies. The establishment of democracy with parliaments led to a huge advancement in human rights, freedoms, and personal liberty.

The turn of the century led to the Russian revolution and the establishment of Communism. The cause of this was terrible conditions and massive wealth inequality of early industrialized society – sometimes, a lack of employment meant no food. The ideology of Communism was attractive, because its advocates argued for Worker’s rights, the complete abolishment of child labor, and no private ownership. The practical implementation of it, however, required a Proletariat (a term for laborer or working person) Dictatorship. History has shown us just how easy it is for this kind of totalitarian society to become extremely repressive, resulting in many crimes against humanity to maintain absolute control over the population. Political repression such as of imprisonment for “crimes against the party”, mass killings of the “bourgeosie”, and the corruption that results from this dysfunction, are all very real problems that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The very strong aversion in the modern day to the idea of “Communism” that is well justified, as many point to these human rights infractions as evidence of its evil nature. In fact, they are still practiced by the persisting forms of “Communist” systems – modern day North Korea and China.

The reason that this ideology spread so much throughout Russia was because of the extreme poverty brought about by the industrial revolution and the new class of factory owners that were able to massively profit, while the common people were left with whatever the owners decided was sufficient. The time period was rife with dangerous working conditions, child labor, and extreme income inequality. There was no representation of the interests of those at the bottom of society – those that sold their labor to factory owners for their livelihood. The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, argued that because the poor vastly outnumbered the rich, there was truly nothing stopping them from “seizing the means of production” with a violent revolution.

The effect was felt across the face of the earth. In the West, in Britain and North America, labor disputes regularly claimed the lives of workers in strikes and demonstrations. Most notable for this is perhaps the Coal industry, with the most egregious act of force against striking workers perhaps taking place in the Ludlow Massacre. But as Communism began to spread across the East, the factory owners and employers of the West were given pause. If the ideology spread across the entire planet, as it claimed as its final goal, then it would not stop until the entire world was Communist. It was far away for a time, but the West really came to grips with Communism after World War 2. The resulting Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States of America was a dominating aspect of history for the past few decades, until recently coming to a close after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Tensions appear to be growing once again – the rise of the “second Cold War” is happening in real time as of this writing. The Trump Administration claims that Russia has been breaking the Arms Agreement that brought the threat of thermonuclear war (ie. With nukes) to an end at the end of the 20^th century. Some sources state that nuclear proliferation has begun again as a result of breaking the treaty.

As I said before, the threat of Communism seems to finally have gone dormant ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union. North Korea is an isolated country, but China still receives a large deal of trade with the West, as it has reformed to allow free enterprise. The contest between Communism and Capitalism has left Capitalism victorious – the right to property is recognized by most governments across the planet, along with several other rights depending on the country. And this is a good thing. The repressive nature of a Proletariat Dictatorship has resulted in millions of deaths and an immeasurable amount of human suffering in the name of the “greater good”.

Now that we find ourselves in a fully Capitalist world, we can celebrate, right? But unfortunately, not all within society find themselves with cause to celebrate in the modern day. Wealth inequality, unemployment, and record suicide and addiction rates are all uncomfortable realities of the modern Capitalist system. What I seek to do here is analyze the economics and societies of today and determine if they are truly “Capitalist”, or even democratic. I wish to look at the effects of unfettered Laissez Faire Capitalism on the world, and on society in general. With historical evidence and thoughtful analysis, I hope to reclaim some of the noble ideas that Communism brought to humanity, while still recognizing the numerous human rights infractions that the resulting totaliarian societies experienced, and avoiding repeating this dark chapter of history for the rest of time.

Chapter 2: Global Conflict

The most iconic confrontation of the Cold War period is most likely the Vietnam War. Beginning in 1955 (by covert involvement of the CIA to support the French in maintaining colonial control) and stretching to 1975, the war would claim millions of lives and leave hundreds of thousands more maimed forever. The war itself had produced unimaginable cruelty and brutality – even though the Geneva Convention was ratified in 1949 after the second World War, it was routinely ignored by both sides in pursuit of their objectives.

The United States was widely denigrated for their involvement in the conflict, for their involvement in human rights infractions and crimes against humanity. This is best exemplified in the malice of the My Lai Massacre, where American soldiers descended upon the village of My Lai and were ordered to “kill anything that moves”. They were indiscriminate in their slaughter, and often seemed to take a perverse pleasure in the suffering they caused.

War truly is hell – these men were subject to the assaults of an enemy that looked the same as these peasants. After suffering hundreds of casualties at the hands of this hidden enemy, they took out their grief and rage on the only target available to them. Another example of the American’s capability for brutality is the infamous Tiger Force, that would routinely attack civilian villages to increase their bodycounts.

These incidents would cause further backlash against the War, which was very poorly understood by the American people. Why should they send their brothers, sons, and fathers to go fight an enemy halfway across the world? Photographs emerging from the war, such as the “self-immolation” demonstration where a monk set himself on fire in protest, and other pictures of the suffering the war was causing among the civilian population, such as the famous “Napalm Girl” – a civilian child that was burned by an airstrike that dropped its napalm on the wrong target.

The politicians of the time were fearful of the spread of communism. And with good reason: the Soviet, Chinese, and Korean regimes of the time were extremely repressive, and had all allied with each other to advance international Communism. To maintain their totalitarian control on the population, they resorted to many different methods to force the people into capitulation. Communism is famous for starvation, and this is one of the reasons why: food allocation was carried out by the state, and if they wanted to apply pressure to a certain unruly demographic, they would prioritize them last for food.

The Truman administration needed allies on the world stage after the second world war had given way to the Cold War. The French were a valuable ally, and they knew it: they threatened to join the communist alliance if America supported the Vietnamese Independence movement. Their hand was forced: they had to help fight against the Vietnam, who had just helped them against the Japanese only a few years before.

After Eisenhower had brought the Korean war to an end, he threatened the Chinese Communist state with the threat of nuclear weapons. In doing so, he had halted the spread of Communism through Asia – for the moment, at least. He brought his time in office to an end with his famed address that mentioned the “military-industrial complex”, in 1961.

The Kennedy administration that followed would begin a gradual escalation of the conflict. The first U.S. Direct support to the South Vietnamese forces in combat would land in downtown Saigon on 11 December 1961. They did not directly attack the enemy, but the help of the U.S. Air support was a great asset, allowing paratroopers to achieve tactical surprise.

Kennedy would eventually find the dysfunction and corruption that was rife throughout the South Vietnamese regime too difficult to operate with. The CIA would back a coup d’etat, leading to the brutal murder of governor Ngo Dinh Diem. Kennedy’s assassination a short time later was perhaps influenced by his desire to withdraw the United States from the conflict. The assassination of Kennedy in 1963 was a shadowy affair, and Americans questioned the truth surrounding it for a long time.

Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy’s replacement, would continue the war, escalating it and sending a great deal of military support to aid in the fight against the North Vietnamese. The escalation included the “Rolling Thunder” campaign (headed by Johnson), which had hoped to essentially “bomb the enemy into submission” with overwhelming firepower. The North Vietnamese Army knew the American’s approach, and used insurgency tactics to strike at their opposition, then disappear into the jungle. Traps such as punji spikes, explosives, or ambushes were the most common methods used by the “Vietcong”. The Americans fought a conventional war against an unconventional enemy.

The public outcry against the war became a defining facet of the discourse surrounding it. Even though the Cold War and the cultural narrative had firmly entrenched Communism as the enemy of freedom (which, to be fair, it was), many still felt that the suffering that was being caused was not worth the notion of opposing “the Reds”.

The history of the conflict is very complex, as it is with all history. The French had colonized Vietnam, and established colonial rule upon their subjects as a part of the French Empire, using puppet emperors and interpreters to carry out their wishes. The colonies of the past are often the topic of derision, and for good reason: the human rights abuses carried out by the colonists were established methods of securing dominance.

It is a terribly tragic sequence of events that would lead to U.S. Involvement in later years (they actually helped Ho Chi Minh when he was starting out), bringing to bear the full force of their military might against a developing nation fighting for independence. The ensuing war would end only after immeasurable suffering on both sides, resulting in the eventual defeat of the Americans and their withdrawal. Vietnam won its independence with the blood of millions of its people.

What could America claim from the war? Thousands of scarred veterans, a massive distrust in their government, and a divisiveness over the entire affair that still divides people to this very day. Why did America go to Vietnam? Was it really to “stop Communism”? After the end of the second world war, Roosevelt stated that all peoples of the world should be able to choose the government under which they lived. Unfortunately, the Cold War, and the threat that the Soviet Union posed to America and their allies, changed the geopolitical climate in a very short period of time. If France hadn’t decided it wanted to keep its colony, the Vietnamese may have been an instrumental ally for the Americans in southeast asia.

During the Vietnam War, Cambodia was also seeing a rise in communist ideology. This led to the Cambodian Civil War and the establishment of “Democratic Kampuchea”, headed by the infamous Khmer Rouge. The war was fought between 1968 and 1975, ending with the Khmer Rouge seizing power and beginning the Cambodian Genocide. The Khmer Rouge barbarically killed approximately 1.5 to 2 million people in their effort to establish their Communist Utopian State that Pol Pot had envisioned.

The Americans were involved in the conflict, as they carried out a massive bombing campaign of the region in attempt to fight the Khmer Rouge. This seems to be an unfortunate consequence of the anti-war movement back home: Americans were already engaged in the protracted conflict of Vietnam, and were weary of seeing their men killed. The bombing campaign significantly reduced the risk to the Americans, allowing them to strike without much concern for counter-attack.

President Nixon launched the Cambodian incursion in 1970, as an amendment to the rules of conflict for American troops, allowing them to pursue Northern Vietnamese forces into the jungles of eastern Cambodia. They did so with an umbrella of air support, but American troops would never engage the Khmer Rouge directly – they only pursued Vietcong and NVA combatants into the jungles of Cambodia, to prevent them using the national boundary as an “invisible fence” that the Americans could not cross. The American Air Force would lend their support to the local guerillas against the Khmer Rogue, providing air support in the form of bombing runs. The fighting in Cambodia between the anti-government rebels and the Khmber Rouge would end with the Khmer seizing control of the country, and attempting to enforce their totaliarian regime with a reign of terror. This marked the beginning of the genocide that would see the Khmer Rouge brutally murder approximately twenty percent of its own population. It seems that if America had sought to stop any tragedy stemming from the reign of Communism, they had utterly failed.

The country itself, however, seemed to be experiencing a period of economic growth. The corporations of Monsanto, Colt, and Dow Chemical had received a huge number of defense contracts to supply the military with armaments. Monsanto supplied Agent Orange, Colt the M16s for the soldiers, and Dow Chemical made the napalm for the bombing missions carried out by American forces. They had been able to turn a large amount of profit from the war.

It seems that America had suffered a terrible defeat. With their defeat and withdrawal, the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia actually preemptively attacked the Vietnamese, with the fear that Vietnam would attack after claiming victory. The Vietnamese ended up liberating the population of Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge by removing them from power in the ensuing conflict. But not before millions would suffer at the hands of Pol Pot’s regime.

After America left southeast Asia, Communism still managed to spread across the islands to Indonesia and the Phillipines. After an attempted coup that was quickly put down by the sole-surviving Indonesian General, he ordered the summary execution of hundreds of thousands of suspected Communists. Many communist movements would rise in other parts of southeast Asia during this period, but after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the spread of Communism appears to have halted and the ideology has mostly died. North Korea and China are perhaps the most notable remaining communist states, but Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos are also counted in this category as well. The fear of the spread of Communism appears to have mostly dissipated over many years, as much of the world seems to trade with each other with little restriction. Private property is recognized by most countries in the modern world.

From this perspective, it seems like if America had hoped to stop the spread of Communism, they had failed, and if they hoped to prevent any tragedies that the ideology would cause, it seems that they utterly failed. The only thing that America gained was increased stock price for corporations with military contracts, and the suffering of an entire generation.

Winner Take All

The reality of warfare is that if one side thinks that they will gain more than they will lose by attacking, there is not really much to stop them from doing so. The threat of invasion and war is constant throughout human history – feudal lords would take payment from their subjects in exchange for protection. For most peasants, this was a good deal, because the law of the land basically forced them to pay: if they didn’t they would be driven off the lord’s land. Such were the times. Lords had laid claim to the land, thanks to the actions of their ancestors who had usually fought to scrape out some territory from the anarchy that swept across the land. Bandits, barbarians, and brigands were all very common in human history – there was no law or order except for that which you could create, and this requires force.

As stated before: if there is a gain to be had by using force, then without enough threat of retaliation, there will be those that will be desperate or unscrupulous enough to use force to get what they want. Civilization has been slowly built up over millennia, slowly developing across Earth in many different directions. The fossil record seems to show that humans evolved in the Great Rift Valley of eastern Africa, and migrated across the planet as our evolutionary advantages made us excel in almost any environment or ecosystem we found ourselves in. Almost everywhere you go on planet earth, there have been humans there at some point, whether it’s now or centuries in the past. A constant across all human cultures seems to be some sort of warfare. Every single culture in history has their own weapons and warriors, evolving with different technologies and civilizations all across the world.

The events of the enlightenment and the rapid development of science and technology that would follow were instrumental to the Age of Discovery and the resulting Colonial Era. These advancements would give Europeans access to the most advanced weaponry on the planet: gunpowder and steel. Along with the religious and historical background of the West that ingrained in Europeans a sense of agency in the world – if one truly labored hard enough, they could accomplish anything. There was no limit to the understanding of humanity – Galileo and Newton would exemplify this and unlock the secrets of the heavens: a sun-centered solar model, and the theory of gravity. This was also part of the Humanist movement of the Renaissance.

The strength of gunpowder weapons proved the advantage that the colonists had over the native populations of the colonies. Many actions of the colonizing Europeans would show just how much the difference in advancement between cultures can express itself as a difference in power. North America, Pacific America, South America, Africa, Oceania, Asia – take your pick and there is no shortage of what we would consider today to be blatant abuses of human rights. The Opium Wars of China perhaps cast a clear example of how military force can be abused for pure economic and geopolitical advantage. The British wanted to maintain a trade route with China for tea, but the only thing that there was demand for, was opium. China tried many times to get the British to stop selling drugs to their people, but the British wanted to maintain control. Two wars would be fought over this in the 19^th century.

Power Dynamics

The effect of the economy of a nation on the power of its military would be noted by many throughout the ages. The power advantage that the Europeans had over their colonies was granted to them by the technology that gave them their weapons – gunpowder rifles and steel breastplates were immeasurably more effective than stone axes and tanned animal hides. All across the world, the empires of the Age of Discovery spread their influence with their advancements: ships armed with cannons, compasses to guide their sailors, and the aforementioned weapons to protect them from whatever they find on their travels.

The legacy of the colonists can be seen all around us, and the historical effects of the imperialist tendencies of the Europeans has had many terrible effects on developing nations. But, spreading of European technology across the world had some relatively positive effects, when considering the state that some of the colonists found the New World in. Most of the inhabitants outside of Europe had technological developments ranging from an iron age in most of Asia, to stone age in the majority of the Americas. The lifestyles that such civilizations had were quite primitive, were extremely demanding on the people that lived in them, and would often involve the threat of violence. The history of the colonies is a clear indicator that the Europeans would not be above using lethal force either, but the Europeans thought it was necessary to help bring these people progress, instead of just leaving them to their “savage” ways. Their customs have evolved over the course of centuries, just like the European’s, but the progressiveness of Europe at the time when compared to most of the underdeveloped world cannot be understated. This is perhaps best personified by Sir Charles James Napier, once the Commander-in-Chief in India. When he heard that some priests wanted to burn a widow, he vehemently reprimanded them, stating:

“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”ⁱ

The civilizations that Europeans encountered ranged quite a lot in the way their stages of development and civility. Some cultures were even so barbaric as to condone cannibalism, as noted by explorers in the isles of Fiji. It is easy to understand why so many of the Europeans thought of themselves as “noble Christians” bringing “order and civilization” to the “brutal savages”. It is unfortunate how much this would allow them to justify their mistreatment and dehumanization of the local native populations.

The long term affect of colonization and European influence has allowed some countries to thrive in the modern industrial world. South Korea, Japan, India, and China are perhaps the most noteworthy examples of thriving economies that have rapidly developed in the past century.

The uncomfortable reality is that not all places have equally benefited from the introduction of industrialization, and many places suffer some very negative effects as a result of it. Africa and South America are ravaged by unrest, partially influenced by lack of economic opportunity. And where there is opportunity, it often has many external factors that can cause problems. Environmental damage is extremely prevalent in underdeveloped nations, as companies can bribe the local government with the massive amounts of funds available to them as international corporations.

The modern “power dynamic” of the world shows many similarities to those of the past. Change does not happen overnight, and changing the world in a constructive way requires a great deal of effort. The international community has made a great deal of progress since the cruelties of the past, but recent history and current events prove that the process is still ongoing. The Rwanda genocide of 1994 and the establishment of the International Criminal Court under the United Nations in response is an encouraging effort. But the involvement of partisan and corporate interests, along with general dysfunction and incompetence has damaged the institution’s reputation in the eyes of many across the world.

The Cold War resulted in wars and military actions on the part of the Soviet Union and the United States of America across the globe. The unfortunate reality of warfare is that the wounds of modern weaponry take a great deal of time and effort to heal. South America and Africa still roil with unrest, and Asia still bears the memories of millions dying to the warfare of the last century alone.

Why would the Soviet Union fall, and the United States prevail? On the military front, the two sides appeared to be roughly evenly matched, though they would hardly ever directly engage each other. The availability of nuclear weapons to both sides along with their massive industrialized economies granted them “superpower” status for the time period, until the Soviet Union finally collapsed. Historians appear to indicate a large factor on the Union’s collapse was the overallocation of industry on military resources, rather than consumer goods, along with the well-known corruption of the system. So why did America not have the same problem?

Eisenhower’s Warning

The United States of America was the most powerful nation in the Western alliance of the Cold War period – the reasons for this were multifaceted, but the heart of it was their robust economy. Almost all of the fighting during the second world war took place in the European, Pacific, and African theatres. America took a blow during the events of Pearl Harbor, often believed by historians to be in retaliation to the oil embargo placed upon Imperial Japan during the early days of the war. Other than that, mainland America was for the most part untouched by the fighting.

In comparison, much of Europe and Asia was devastated by the fighting – giving the Soviets and their satellite states a disadvantage in economic terms. This was compounded by the numerous embargoes emplaced upon the East by America and her allies. The economy of the communistic system was barely functional to begin with, due to the military force used to install it. Exacerbated by lack of trading partners, the economies of the communist states of history seem like they were doomed to fail.

During this time, a troubling phenomenon began to reveal itself among the higher levels of government and business in America. Coined by Dwight Eisenhower, he called it “the Military-Industrial Complex”, during his Farewell Address to the Nation as President of America, on January 17, 1961.ⁱⁱ His observation is exemplified by this line of his final address as President:

“Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.”

Eisenhower had spent his life as a soldier. He was experienced in warfare because he had first-hand experience. He fought in both of the World Wars, and led America into China and Korea as Commander-in-Chief – he learned what Communism would do to these people if it consumed the entire nation. The threat of the radical, pernicious ideas was very real (as the rise of Soviet Russia had shown them), and many found themselves fighting on the side of freedom against those that would claim to liberate the people while actually just replacing their oppressors. To protect individual freedom and liberty, Eisenhower opposed the Communists, who threatened to take all in the name of “collective, social justice”.

He noticed that, in forming such a strong opposition to the communist dictatorship of the East, the United States was beginning to amass a frightening deal of military power, justified by the ever-present threat of enemies outside America’s borders. “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”ⁱⁱⁱ

Eisenhower saw the threat that this “military-industrial complex” posed to global stability if it went unchecked. It is unfortunate that his involvement in providing military aid to the French in maintaining their colonial rule in Vietnam would lead America into one of the most protracted conflicts in contemporary history. The results of Vietnam, and the end result of the war being only a delay in the spread of Communism to the region (along with the events of Cambodia during the period), along with the massive amounts of military spending that would be justified by the war, seem like Eisenhower’s warning went unheeded.

The Military-Industrial complex, as Eisenhower understood it, was not as simple as “war for profit”, as many could easily misinterpret his observations. In a letter to Theodore R. Kennedy, a Professor at the Michigan State University, he stated that “My 1961 caution in this matter was not inspired by any belief that any sector in the United States now wanted war. Rather I wanted to point out that so many sectors of our nation – defense forces, industry and political officials – were all influenced toward greater and greater armament production in time of piece. This identity of interest could, obviously, occasion a very frightening trend in this country. Indeed, this may be happening now.”, he wrote in reply, on June 21, 1967.^iv

Indeed, there was a fear present in the Whitehouse; that in fighting an enemy as evil as the Communists, such a struggle could change the nation, and not in a good way. The concern of the rise of militarism in America was felt by members of Eisenhower’s staff as well. Ralph E. Williams wrote in a memorandum concerning the upcoming State of the Union address for 1961. He noted that “flag and general officers retiring at an early age take positions in war based industrial complex shaping its decisions and guiding the direction of its tremendous thrust. This creates a danger that what the Communists have always said about us may become true. We must be very careful to insure that the ‘merchants of death do not come to dictate national policy’.”.^v Many were aware of the threat to global security and the good of humanity that an ever-growing armament industry could pose.

The Iron Triangle

The warning voiced by Eisenhower would be heeded by many, as many would begin to question America’s foreign policy in light of this information, coming from someone as esteemed as a former president that had managed to avoid the horror of thermonuclear war. Many scholars and intellectuals would begin to study the so-called “military-industrial complex”, as named by Eisenhower. Foremost among them is most likely Gordon Adams, who has written an entire book on the subject: The Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle. The book analyzes the connection between the United States Department of Defense, and the numerous military contractors that enjoy enormous profits from America’s foreign policy of fighting and supplying wars on foreign soil.

The notes of a culture of militarism have begun to take root in America. After all, the army did a noble thing by going to Europe and the Pacific to defeat the Axis Powers. So eager to aggrandize themselves, they forget to acknowledge that the first soldiers in Berlin were Russian. Sure, the Americans provided support in Normandy, and by supplying the Allies, but Russia was the country that invaded Berlin. This historical fact is the very reason for the beginning of the Cold War – without the enemy that the Axis posed, the alliance that the East and West had forged to defeat Hitler died with him. Now, a clear enemy presented itself, but no clear solutions seemed to be available: the threat of mutually-assured destruction was too much for either side to risk. But, the need for a strong military in the face of such a dire foe can be felt throughout the time period – Americans did not want to lose their “freedom” to the Communists.

This culture justifies any military expenditure in the face of such a threat. Adams analyzes the massive expenditure in his book. The book is a financial study of eight major defense contractors that dominated the top 10 contractor list two-thirds of the time between 1970 and 1979, and really looks over the money flows between defense and politics. The findings are not surprising. These companies received “over $100 billion in DoD contracts, 25 percent of all DoD awards. Nearly $25 billion of this was for research and development – 37 percent of the DoD total for R&D.”^vi Adjusted for inflation, total amount of money awarded to defense contractors comes in at more than $350 billion. This amount of money, spent solely on defense, comes at the expense of other government programs, as it is a part of the government budget. It is not surprising in the slightest that public infrastructure and education are suffering as a result of less priority on the budget as this trend continues over the years. Another troubling trend that the study reveals is NASA’s reliance on defense contractors for expertise. According to Adams, the companies in the study “received over $11.4 billion in NASA contracts, 36 percent of the NASA total.”^vii Not a very good look, for an organization that is supposed to be impartially guiding the advancement of science.

The study details many more findings that further explore the connection between the government and the arms industry. Lobbying costs undertaken by five of the eight companies “spent a total of $16.8 million during a two-year period in the 1970s to operate their offices in Washington. … This amount includes substantial spending on lobbying and government relations, much of which is subsidized by the taxpayer. These five contractors charged $15.8 million of this amount to the Department of Defense as part of general and administrative expenses… all eight companies had registered lobbyists in Washington in the late 1970s.”^viii

Corporate Political Action Comittess (PACs) are also heavily involved in the spending of military contractors. According to Iron Triangle, “PACs of the defense industry, according to the most recent available data (1977-78), are the largest corporate PACs, averaging $81,000 a year in total disimbursements and $55,000 in contributions to Federal campaigns. The eight PACs in this study, created between April 1976 and February 1978 had spent over $2 million by summer 1980, 60 percent of it in Federal campaigns.”. Adjusted for inflation, this would be $7 million dollars in current day value. The conflict of interest arising from the arms industry and a nation’s foreign policy should be enough to give one pause.

The lack of data around the cash flows exacerbates the problem, and the frequency of individuals moving between companies and the government raises more concerns of possible conflict of interest. The “review of DoD data showed that 1,942 individuals (uniformed and civilian) moved between DoD/NASA and the eight companies between 1970 and 1979”^ix Admittedly, this in itself is not immediately considered wrong-doing, and Adams notes that they “may have been resolved in ways that eliminate any conflict” but also that “the high number suggests a need for more adequate reporting requirements, stricter conflict of interest legislation, and new legislation to put greater distance between DoD and the industry.”^x

The real extent of the armament industry’s business is alarming, and to a large degree, unknown. The prospect of selling weapons to those with nefarious aims is a very reasonable concern for corporations that have grown to the size and capacity of international corporations, and trade in armaments for massive profits. The study found that “all eight amit to some involvement in overseas payment about which some questions have been raised. In some cases, such payments were linked to military sales. The three companies most involved with overseas sales-Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas-also have the highest amounts of such overseas payments.”^xi It raises concern that a culture of obfuscation has taken hold, and a lack of transparency is apparent in the industry. While on some degree it does make sense that the military should be secretive with the exact nature of their operations to prevent espionage, especially in the time the book was written with the Cold War in full swing, and the possibility of KGB agents sharing such information against the interests of the American military is a reasonable concern.

The degree this lack of transparency has gripped the industry seems likely to be abused by bad actors. It seems that the culture has grown very secretive, as Adams noted in his book: “The eight companies all refused to disclose information on their government relations practices, pleading cost, lack of time, proprietary information, and national security. In response to our request that each company review the preliminary draft of its profile, three companies-General Dynamics, McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell-failed to respond in any way. Northrop and Lockheed replied with hostile and totally uninformative communications. Boeing and United Technologies provided a small amount of additional information, rating poor in disclosure. Grumman provided an informative review of the profiel, making its fair rating the best in the study.”^xii The industry’s hostility and reluctance to disclose financial information is obviously suspicious, but due to the importance placed on national security, it appears that the inquiry has not really progressed in any meaningful way that actually resulted in much change. Adams notes that “Information on government relations is hard to come by. The secrecy of the contractors is matched by the inadequacy of Federal record keeping and requirements on disclosure. Data on research and development spending is uneven and uninformative. Data on subcontracting is undisclosed, and lobbying data is thin.”^xiii. The lack of information surrounding the flow of money makes it worringly easy for potential bad actors to abuse the system.

The “iron triangle” described by Adams is composed of “a powerful flow of people and money” that “moves between the defense contractors, the Executive branch (DoD and NASA), and Congress.”^xiv. Eisenhower’s concern of an armament industry that continually pressured government for a constantly increased level of arms production seemed quite valid, and the measurable effect of financial growth enjoyed by the companies in Adams’ study alone, seem to confrim the existence of a military-industrial that will continue to perpetually grow if action is not taken. It is a difficult problem to solve, as the creation of this “iron triangle” on defense policy and procurement is very exclusionary to outsiders and alternative perspectives.^xv In the concluding chapter of the study, the authors suggest that wider disclosure and collection of data would be an effective strategy, along with greater restriction on government relations, such as corporate PACs and lobbying. Adams states that “National security cannot be debated wisely in military terms alone. The claims for military spending must be weighed against those of economic renovation, energy independence, full employment, a healthy and educated citizenry and national economic prosperity. Greater disclosure and restraints on the arms industry’s political power can help lead to a wider debate on national needs and a definition of national security that is set in a wider context.”^xvi Ultimately, this can be seen across most of the nation through the decades – as the military budget increases, various other programs like Education, Medicaid, and Social Security are often the first things to be cut to make room. The amount of money spent on America’s military is more than any other nation, and the effectiveness of that expenditure is hotly debated.

Sand and Oil

The Gulf War and America’s continued global operations for intervention against communism and human rights infractions basically meant that America had always had at least some degree of mobilization. Along with this are their many military bases in countries across the world, like Germany, Japan, South Korea, and many others. Most of these were meant to oppose the spread of Communism during the Cold war.

After the end of the Cold War, America mainly utilized its military might in the interest of intervention. Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Serbia – most times when America went to a battle, they tried to make absolutely sure that they only involved themselves as absolutely necessary with interest of reducing violence. It seemed that they had learned from the drawn-out conflict of Vietnam, and were reluctant to repeat their mistakes.

The events of September 11, 2001 would change everything. The invasion of Iraq and the operations in Afghanistan would drag on for another decade and a half. Once again, America found itself stuck halfway across the world, fighting another foreign enemy. And once again, private corporations would enrich themselves with the business of war. Dick Cheney and his holdings at Halliburton, and their involvement in the development of oil resources in the middle-east after the devastation caused by the Iraq war, are a large ethics violation in the eyes of many. Many journalists and ethics lawyers have argued that the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”, as signed off on by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush during the Bush Administration, should classify the two of them as being guilty of war crimes.^xvii

All of the events of the invasion of Iraq were cast in the light of retaliation for the events of 9/11, but in the years that has seen the invasion etched into history, many have begun to doubt America’s motivation for entering the country. The removal of a tyrant like Saddam Hussein, and the countless cruelties that were perpeptrated under his rule by his son alone, Uday Hussein, are definitely positive results of the invasion – such evil should not walk the Earth freely. It is undeniably a good thing that the Hussein’s despotic regime was removed. The devastation caused by the war, and the damage caused by the fighting, still remains, and the reality is that soldiers are better at destruction than repair. The occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq by the US military has not been very restorative for public order or human quality of life – soldiers are there to fight, not to build. The development of a robust infrastructure with modern institutions that can be trusted has never been established by any act of “regime change” conducted by the United States. The reality of the occupation is that the continued unrest has made most of the population reliant on the Americans as a force of order. The existing forces that are trained by the Americans are woefully inadequate, and are rife with problems like robbery, sexually abusing children, and corruption. Ben Anderson, a war journalist, has completed many documentaries on the Middle-East. One of them “This Is What Winning Looks Like”, showcases the extent to which these problems grip the local forces.^xviii It is an extremely difficult situation to rectify.

Unnatural Competition

War is an unavoidable part of human history. It is woven through our timeline like a ribbon of destruction. Why is it that we’re the only species on the planet that competes in such a brutal fashion? Animals will often compete for territory or mates, and sometimes this competition can result in the demise of one of the participants. But the way that humans practice this “intraspecies competition” (competition within the species, between members of the species) is much more violent – history is full of accounts of entire villages, towns, and cities being slaughtered by invading armies. Sexual violence, forced labor, and torture are also extremely prevalent in warfare, on all sides, no matter the conflict or time period. The saying exists for a reason: War is hell.

So why do we, as advanced civilizations, still practice this horrible act? Why does humanity still fight amongst itself? The answer is complicated and difficult to analyze. Conflicts in the modern day that still rage on have their roots in history – there is typically a buildup of resentment between two opposing sides, due to some sort of inequality that distinguishes the two groups. Usually, both sides perceive themselves as the victim of the other’s selfishness; therefore, taking action to remove the “parasites” can be supported by a frustrated population. This is most easily observable in recent history, regarding Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric around the Jews, and his vision for a “utopian” (by his definition) future.

Violent conflict has been present in the world for as long as there have been humans. The first battles were fought between rival tribes, fighting over territory and resources. The brutality of conflict at this point in history is difficult to fathom, but some societies did have varying levels of lethality, along with laws and customs around death in combat to prevent revenge-killings. Prehistoric humans saw rival tribes as threats to their very existence – if they don’t attack first, they will be attacked, and they will most likely suffer more than if they had seized the initiative. Such conflicts often ended with either one side fleeing and conceding the territory, or losing all the males in the tribe with the females being forcibly assimilated into the attacking tribe. Most children would be killed – they are not descended from the males of the tribe, so they have no stake in keeping them alive. Early history is barbaric. Steven Pinker has done a fair bit of research in this area.

This “zero sum game” thinking has extended into modern conflict, I believe. Most modern militaries of today operate on the principle that they should be strong enough that if anyone were to attack, they would take too much damage for it to be worth any advantage to be gained by attacking. The principle of “mutually assured destruction” is based on this idea. The Cold War is full of competition between the two dominant superpowers, including the accumulation of armaments to deter invasion by the other side. The stockpiling of nuclear weapons during the Cold War is a testament to this; it got to a point that the two superpowers began to see who could outdo the other in “overkill factor” i.e. how many times over that they could completely destroy the planet. Civilization during this period was teetering on the edge of destruction.

It can be hard to believe that humanity was so close to eradication. Most people don’t really know just how close the world was to nuclear warfare – the Cuban missile crisis saw the soviets send a nuclear submarine (loaded with nuclear warheads) to the Gulf of Mexico in response to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, sponsored by the CIA. For thirteen days, the world held its breath, before the Soviets pulled out their submarine and lowered the tension between the superpowers. Never again would the two countries wish for such a direct confrontation again. Wars fought by proxies across the world would replace direct competition between global powers. The Vietnam war is a perfect example – the south supported by America, the north by the Communists of China and the Soviet Union.

Chapter 3: Contest of Ideas

The ideology of Communism, as implemented in the nations that would come to practice it, required the installation of a Proletariat Dictatorship to maintain military power. The totaliarian control of the party over all things – the economy, the military, the legislature – was a breeding ground for corruption and the abuse of power. Very little oversight and the motivation to promote the Communist Ideal instead of addressing the reality of the situation were extremely repressive infringements upon human rights. Chernobyl is a very good example of the disaster that can strike when the State enforces absolute control over the population, even ignoring expert advice in the name of political ideology and totalitarian control and promotion of the “Communist Ideal”.

It is overall a political and economic system that has resulted in a great deal of suffering and persecution of those who disagreed with the ideology, and those who had benefited from Capitalism – the bourgeosie. The suppression of democractic elections and replacing politics with a single-party system is not good for the average person’s liberty in society. The battle between Capitalism and Communism has resulted in the Western system emerging victorious. It’s a good thing that humanity has protected some of our most valuable of gifts – Democracy and Freedom of Speech. The right to property and the sanctity of the individual – all very great things for human civilization. An important facet of life to remember is that most things are perpetually imperfect – everything has it’s own set of “pros and cons”. What else does Capitalism offer?

Well, to start on a good note, Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system. The level of abundance and plenty that the first world can enjoy allow us to live lifestyles better than almost any other in human history. The rapid advancement of technological and the quality of products is unrivalled by any other civilization in history.

While this level of opulence is unique to our time period, partially due to the level of technological advancement we enjoy, it is also not perfect. After all, we made the system that gives us access to it, and we are human, and we are not perfect by any means. There are many problems that still grip society today: Crime, Disease, War, and Natural Disasters. Some of these are consequences of nature, but others seem to be caused by people – often for very complicated reasons with many interconnected factors. War itself is a very complex subject that exists throughout history, even though it’s universally looked upon as a very negative thing. And no wonder – war is the man-made cause, whether direct or indirect, of perhaps more human suffering than almost anything else in reality.

We have many institutions and systems in place, developed over centuries, to deal with these various problems: Hospitals for the sick, Police to protect the innocent, and a Military to defend the nation against disaster. Some of these institutions are government-controlled, and others are private, while a few are a mixture of the two. Capitalism maintains that each individual has the right to their own property – extending to the “means of production”. The opposition from decades past, Communism, states that the means of production must be owned collectively by the entire population. In practice, this actually meant that the government owned everything, and when the government is composed of real, flawed people, there will be problems.

The battle between the two ideologies is marked by this difference – who owns the factories? Individuals or “the people”? Or alternatively, why not a group of people – corporations and shareholders often fulfill a similar role. The question becomes one of interest – who should decide what to do with the massive amount of production that industry can supply? The individuals that privately own it, or the Communist Dictatorship? Should the profits be put towards improving production, or is up to the owner’s discretion what is done with their profits? If they have the right to property, they can choose what to do with their profits.

In the past, the West held the stance that the government should stay out of the way of business, and allow the free market to drive the direction of industry – after all, if the factories were privately owned, then it’s your right to do whatever you want with the production. Unfortunately, this also has problems in practice – you still need labor for the factory to be able to produce; a portion of the profits must go to the worker’s wages. Without paid workers, you have no production, and no profits. This was well understood by many in the past, who would regularly strike and attempt to force their employers to improve working conditions or compensation. Before the writing of safety laws, owners could ask their workers to work in dangerous conditions and pay them barely enough to survive. The practice of “strike-breaking” was also very common – using hired thugs to harass the striking workers to make them disperse or go back to work. Luckily, the West has progressed a great deal in that area in modern times – fatal workplace accidents are thankfully very rare, wages are much more livable, and working conditions are astronomically better.

But, the power of free enterprise, without anything to oppose it, has run rampant over society. International corporations have grown greatly thanks to technology and ever-increasing connectivity of the planet. This has progressed to the point that many corporations and financial groups have amassed a higher amount of wealth than some existing countries. While the power of free enterprise has allowed for a lot of progress, the sheer size of some of these organizations can be absolutely staggering. This poses a problem when the government, which was supposed to be all-powerful, becomes overshadowed by massive international corporations.

The most obvious symptom of this is the slow decline of the Union movement. After the Soviet Union rose to power and entered its mortal struggle with the United States of America, the old practices of strike-breaking and worker suppression stopped – for some reason. Perhaps the government and business owners were afraid of a Revolution? But ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we can see a new trend slowly emerge – no longer afraid of a working class revolt, the wealthier in society begin to hoard their wealth once again. When considering this graph, remember that the Cold War lasted from 1947 to 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.

The story seems very simple – after the threat of Communism was dead, and any notion of “labour organization” was demonized as “Socialist”: Capitalism was the undisputed victor. Whether intentionally or not though, through the promotion of free enterprise and the rejection of “class”, the victorious capitalists have forgotten a fundamental lesson: we are all human. There are flaws in human nature – flaws that cause the problems with Communism seem to find their way into Capitalism and wreak havoc, one way or another.

Unfortunately, mentioning this in any contemporary discussion often has the same effect as displaying sympathy for the Nazi Party of Germany. I understand this, as the horrors that humanity has experienced as a result of Communism are well documented. But this often leads to a defense of the current system, a condescending lesson in economics, or a suggestion that you’re an authoritarian that cannot handle differing methods of thought. My stance is this: Communism was a failure, but Capitalism is not perfect either. It needs some work to actually function well for humanity. Just explaining things away as the “nature of the free market” is not good enough – rigorous inquiry is always essential for getting closer to the truth.

Cultural and Media Narratives

There appears to be an interesting phenomenon in recent years, perhaps becoming most apparent during the 2016 U.S. Election: a growing distrust in the “mainstream” media. What mainstream can really mean can differ depending on who is asking: most of the time, this seems to be a result of the Trump Campaign and his inflammatory rhetoric around the “Fake News” media. Many conservatives completely distrust any source of media that is not on the right or “conservative” side of the spectrum: Breitbart and Fox News come to mind.

Upon closer inspection, it seems this is a problem on both sides of the aisle, and perhaps has actually resulted from some elements of the liberally aligned media as well. During the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s opponent was Hillary Clinton, who notably owns shares in CNN, a very large news network. For a large number of moderates, this has wreaked havoc on their credibility, especially because most of the coverage of Hillary during the election seemed skewed to show her in a good light to increase her odds of election.

Another large element of this political discontent with liberal politics stems from the “political correctness” in some areas, particularly surrounding a very large part of leftist politics for the last few decades: identity politics. The notion that all white people are priveleged, for example, does not sit well with many rural Americans that have been dealt a difficult hand at life. Refusing to acknowledge the connection between Islamic Extremism and the possibly repressive religious ideology behind it is another frustration for many moderates as well. The recent trend of some of the increasingly toxic feminism that seems to breed misandry among its followers, is yet another example of insufferably ideological radical leftism.

The underlying cause of both of these phenomena is the interaction of the massive amounts of wealth that international commerce has begun to supply, and the media institutions that are supposed to provide impartial reporting. Sometimes, this may require holding corporations and individuals to account, and if there is a conflict of interest that arises because of money, connections, or other factors, this can have an adverse effect on the impartiality of the reporting. A large part of the problem is the magnitude of media corporations in the modern day – they require a large amount of resources to operate, and are constantly hungry for news to cover. The most profitable news, is bad news – most media companies know that people are drawn to negative information more than positive information, because of cognitive bias. Negative information is more important to your brain, because its important to avoid bad things – our cortexes have evolved over millennia in environments full of hazards.

The rise of the internet age and the “Post-Truth” era of information means that as people have increased their unfiltered access to information about the world, they have found many times when the media has been found to be just as corruptible as any other people-run insitution. Underreporting on pollution in favor of corporate interests, and failing to hold individuals to account has bred discontent in among the populace. Many often completely recede from politics or world affairs, or limit their sources to only a few, trusting that their political bias will make them somehow more impartial than their counterparts.

The rebirth of independent journalism seems to be slowly turning the tide. The internet has quickened the transfer of information like no other technology in history. By using the internet, it is possible for journalists to build an audience with very little resources to begin with. Philip DeFranco is noted for his seperation of his opinion from the facts available, which many of his viewers favor. In general, it seems like most of the public takes anything from the mainstream media with a pinch of salt. But once this trust is lost, it seems to be very difficult to regain. The “mainstream” media has had its image forever tarnished by political bias, conflict of interest, and inflammatory rhetoric. The “dark money” of billionaires and corporate interests, spent with sole purpose of increasing their wealth, gives many people aversions to almost any source of media that isn’t outspokenly impartial.

The largest conflict of interest appears to be arising from the narrative of climate change denial. Massive fossil fuel corporations could easily have influence in the media with the finances available to them; when you’re making billions of dollars, a few million dollars spent on the media is a drop in the bucket. This has also created its own backlash, rooted in the same suspicion: many climate deniers often insinuate that climate scientists and environmentalists are perpetuating the “hoax” of global warming, in the interest of “getting rich”.

This is provably false, as most scientists are paid very average wages. But the distrust in the mainstream media has already taken root: people will not believe it because they suspect the climate scientists of acting in bad faith for selfish gain.

Phantom of a Slain Demon

Mentioning the word “communism” in the modern day can often have undesirable effects in a conversation. Most people go quiet for a moment, as the deaths of millions flash through their memory. That, along with the history of the Cold War, make the ideology a very polarizing one.

The definition of communism is fundamentally clear – there is no private ownership, everything belongs to the collective. The state controls all assets, distributes rations, and allocates housing. The fundamental opposite of this system is Capitalism: free enterprise is protected by the government, to allow the free market to thrive, promoting the most amount of liberty to society due to prosperity. The discourse in America has been so fervently pro-capitalist and anti-communist that is has slowly begun to shift. Any mention of government action is categorized as “socialist”, which in the minds of many in the West, is practically the same thing as communist.

This conflation of the two definitions is one of the primary reasons for the resistance against many government reforms in America, from my perspective. Public, single-payer healthcare is often demonized as “socialist”, and the state of Venezuela defines itself as a socialist system, so many politicians and commentators often point to the adversity caused by Maduro’s regime as a reason to oppose anything remotely “socialist”.

Venezuela, at the time of writing (2019), is experiencing a high level of economic distress and political unrest. To analyze the factors that influence this, let’s consider the historical situation of the country. An oil-rich nation, they have capitalized on their access to natural resources by increasing their connection to the global petroleum market. With such a lucrative resource, the country enjoyed a period of rapid growth. Unfortunately, the authoritarian government of Maduro has micromanaged the resource, and along with global economic instability surrounding the oil market, recent years have seen Venezuela in a dire economic situation.

The currency has been overvalued by the government, which has been unable to compete with the “black market” of exchanging US dollars for Venzuelan Bolivars. The practice of posting high costs and then taking the leftover US dollars and selling them on the black market has been abused by many Venezuelan companies. Along with that, the oil price crashed in 2014, putting further strain on the country’s economy.

This, along with poor government decisions made by Maduro’s regime, have slowly led the country into crisis. Maduro increased oil subsidies and printed more money, driving inflation even further. Along with his silencing of government critics and jailing of political opponents, Maduro has used the military to enforce his strict regime. It’s an ugly situation. But the situation is made even worse by economic pressures exerted by other nations, especially the United States, in the form of sanctions.

Chapter 4: Income Inequality

A large of the problem with Laissez Faire Capitalism seems to be income inequality. If the magnitude of the inequality becomes too great, it can destabilize society. Of course, the true heart of the problem with Communism is that it tries to make everyone equal in all aspects, but functionally, this would be impossible. Who would make decisions if everyone is equally valued? If there is disagreement, should everything be resolved with a vote? Is that really practical, or even beneficial? Overall, as a civilization, we value democracy, but sometimes it is clear that a “hierarchy of competency” is necessary for society to function. Could a welder really do a doctor’s job with the same competency? Obviously not – this can perhaps most easily be seen in government and military organizations. There will still most likely be a chain of command in these cases, related to the experience of each individual, and the knowledge they’ve accumulated over their careers. And if this hierarchy becomes threatened? Well, sometimes a dispute over power occurs, which can be resolved in many ways, depending on the circumstances. Stalin was noted for “removing” those that threatened his position, or superiors that he wished to supplant. Modern capitalism seems to promote a “meriticratic” system, in which those that are most successful, are rewarded the most for their merit. Unfortunately, it seems that the practical implementation of the system can have problems, such as nepotism or the gradual replacement of democracy with plutocracy.

This central tenets of the Communist philosophy – no class division, money, or private ownership – fundamentally fail when introduced to reality. People are not the same – everyone is a unique combination of genetics, experiences, and surroundings that makes every person fundamentally different. Everyone has different interests, passions, and talents. This is just a fact of nature. Some will perform greater than others, and there needs to be a decision making process that is time-efficient enough to be practical. Communism goes wrong in trying to force an equality of economic outcome, because it can cause a stagnation of competition within an economy.

But, the Communist Soviet Union did have a few advantages over Capitalist America. Most strikingly is the Soviet’s victory in the famous Space Race – in October of 1957, the Sputnik satellite was launched into orbit, flying through the night sky above an onlooking America. It seems that Soviet science was slightly more advanced than American science. This can perhaps be explained by their different philosophies surrounding education and scientific research, but it should also be mentioned that the Russians had been developing rocket technology for many years before the Cold War even began. Their Katyusha rocket launchers were used to great effect in the second World War.

The Communists thought that industry should be made to work for all of society, not just the owners of the productive assets, or “means of production”. From this, it follows that the best minds and the best technology should be dedicated to improvements that all of society will benefit from. Essentially, by the people, for the people. The education system in the Soviet union was highly centralized and government run. It allowed total access for all citizens and post-education employment. They believed that the foundation of their system depended upon an educated population and development in the broad fields of engineering, the natural sciences, the life sciences, and social sciences, along with basic education.

By comparison, the Western education systems were much more fluid and decentralized, at the time. They focused more on the Classics, the writings of ancient philosophers, and on writing in general. Every person was expected to pay for their own education. As a result, the only educated people were generally in the upper class with a fair amount of wealth. Public education is generally handled by the provincial or state government in the West, and it is only in very recent history that the federal government has begun to directly fund public education, depending on the case.

While the natural drive of competition for wealth is beneficial for the economy because it forces competitors to try as hard as possible to earn their income. Losing in this system has drastic consequences: if you don’t have a job, you might not be able to afford food or shelter. Unemployment can be rectified by retraining or shifting industries, but there is always a limited demand for labor, and retraining can require a large time and money commitment that is not attractive to a person struggling to feed their kids.

This was the result of a great deal of hardship during the Industrial Revolution, and the drive for many labor demonstrations and unemployment protests, as mentioned earlier. If one was smart and lucky enough, they could use their intellect and assets to create a factory, and become enormously wealthy. This wealth came at a cost – often borne by the laborers. Safety regulation as we know it did not exist. Employers could ask their workers to work in any conditions, and only guaranteed payment if their wishes were fulfilled. The employer was basically all-powerful.

At the time, legislators and government officials would often side with the employers, often as a result of payment or the promise of a favor in the future. Strike-breaking was a very common practice. The production was more important than the laborers, as many slain workers during strikes at the hands of the goverrnment, or privately hired enforcers, can attest.

The rise of a proletarian revolution was first conceived of by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, during their time in the communist party in Germany, gathering in secret. They thought that the current direction of industrial society was enriching a class of the “bourgeosie” at the expense of the working people: the “proletariat”. Their works, culminating in the Communist Manifesto, called for several reforms of society, starting with a revolution by the working class of society to seize the “means of production” i.e. attack all the rich people and their conspirators and declare ownership over the factories and assets necessary to sustain the population.

The last part was main influence on Vladimir Lenin to call for revolution in russia during the early 19^th century. The Russian Revolution of 1905 failed to overthrow the government, and the Tsar Nicholas II accepted a series of liberal reforms in his October Manifesto. Lenin would return to St. Petersburg and continue to privately advocate for the continual escalation, which he believed was necessary for a successful revolution. The resulting carnage against the bourgeoisie, and the repression, torture, and murder of any opposition to the regime that would come to follow, made this a bloodbath in the practical sense.

The following years that the Soviets spent establishing their regime were marked with widespread corruption, human rights abuses, and dysfunction that led to starvation. But the economic hardship was partially influenced by the destruction influenced upon eastern Europe during the fighting of the second World War. The implementation of the communistic system was having some problems, and the absolute power of the government meant that it was impossible for the people to really have their voices heard. The economy was not functioning well with Communism – incompetent leadership, low pay resulting in low productivity, and very few trading partners had doomed the Communist experiment to fail.

Aptitude Inequality

As discussed, the heart of the problem with Communism is the idea that all people truly are equal – Darwin teaches us that as biological creatures of the same species, we are going to have a slight degree of difference between individuals due to our genetics, our environment, and our experiences. Reality is never perfect – the chaos of the universe seems to dictate that nothing will ever truly be flawless, no matter how great it is, and no two things will ever be completely symmetrical, down to the atomic level: entropy is relentless. No matter how hard we work to make our lives easier, the enormous magnitude and staggering complexity of the planet, the galaxy, and the universe, basically necessitate that most of everything has both good and bad aspects. This goes for any economic or political system that we choose for our society.

Capitalism does have some positive aspects for economic growth, that is definitely true: it rewards innovation, hard work, and individual merit. The proponents of it often point to these facts as the best reasons for adopting the system. In the Industrial Revolution of the 18^th century, the system was widely adopted in the interest of enriching the nations that practiced it. Without sufficient regulation or historical precedent, however, those that supplied the labor for the economy were often put in a position of inescapable poverty: they would work to live, and live to work.

Many social reforms would follow from the sentiment of discontent. The French and Russian Revolutions were anchored in this desire – to somehow distribute some of the massive amount of wealth that the rich had among the general population. France established a democracy, but unfortunately, instability resulted in a Civil War and the rise of the Napoleonic Empire. The Russian Revolution failed at first, but after the First World War, the government powers of Russia were weakened enough for a working class revolution to unseat the rich and powerful. The October Revolution, led by the Bolsheviks, would establish the Communist economic system in Russia.

The general trend of liberal and socialist reforms would continue to ripple through most of the West: unions and safety regulation were very strong, ensuring that workers would be fairly compensated, exposed to minimal risk, and the old practices of “strike-breaking” had stopped. Science and technology were improving to protect the people that labored to support the economy, and toxic chemicals have been slowly phased out in favor of less noxious alternatives, when possible. The automation of processes has allowed for safer working conditions, and for workers to stay out of toxic or harmful environments when possible. The New Deal, which brought Social Security to America during the Great Depression to prevent unemployed workers from starving, is another example of a “socialist” reform.

Recent decades have seen a noticeable shift in economic trends, however. For years, pay had risen with productivity. The Soviet Union really began its decline after Khruschev was removed from office by Leonid Brezhnev and his conspirators (don’t worry, they gave him a pension) – most historians seem to believe that a large part of the problem was that the government had shifted the economy to focus much too heavily on the military, instead of consumer goods.

The Reagan administration had also come to power in America during this time. He would be sworn into office in 1981, serving two terms. Interestingly, this is also when the trend of increasing pay with productivity began to drop. Union membership began to decrease, income inequality increased, and many sectors of America’s economy suddenly found their workforces obsolete. Manufacture, Steel, Automobiles – the increased connectivity of the globe and the profits that could be enjoyed by shipping jobs overseas were very great.

The newly displaced laborers from the workforce faced a difficult problem – their skillset had made them worthless to the market. They found themselves unable to compete with the market shift, and the market began to value the abilities of other positions much more than the hard labor of the past. They were basically at the bottom of this “Aptitude Inequality” spectrum, with the coders and salesmen quickly finding their aptitude much more suited for the modern landscape. The laid-off workers could no longer trade their time for money, and this understandably puts a lot of pressure on people: if you don’t have an income anymore, you have to find another job. The problem was that the market was saturated with a high level of labor; lots of people lost employment and were searching for a replacement. Some were unable to find alternative employment, due to long-term injuries accumulated during the course of a career in a labor position. Many would opt for disability, and the combination of this with chronic pain appears to have been a factor in the Opioid Epidemic currently gripping America.

After losing employment, the solution that many turn to is retraining for a different occupation. This is possible, but it requires quite a few external factors: the person needs to be suited for education, they need to have enough savings to pay for training, and also have to hope that the market will still be open after they retrain. For many, after a decades-long career in a labor position, education or retraining is simply not an option. The reality is harsh for many in the modern industrial economy – they can go into debt as they look for a new job, become burdened with medical expenses, or even lose their home. Social Security and Employment Insurance can only mitigate the problems of limited economic opportunity to an extent – they are not perfect solutions.

Perhaps one might say that planning for such eventualities is the best solution? Well, the future is always uncertain and can change in an instant. Along with that, the reality for every person is uniquely different – they are all born into a specific set of circumstances that can make preparing for the future very difficult. They might be at the mercy of a hostile environment that feeds off of them. The result for many is apathy: what is the point of struggling if the chaos of life is just going to wipe it all away?

Another very important factor in this situation is the inequality of being born into different circumstances: life is very different if you’re the child of a billionaire, than if you’re born into a pathological environment like a trailer park or an inner-city ghetto. This creates a sort of perpetual poverty in which people are born into poverty, and have children that perpetuate the same mistakes because the environment makes it almost impossible for them to escape.

Working Smart, Not Hard

The only answer to climbing out of poverty is a great deal of effort – it is not in dispute that breaking the cycle of poverty is very difficult. Some things that can make that journey much easier for someone finding themselves in poverty, is education. This is exemplified in the modern economy – labor jobs are increasingly scarce and require higher and higher levels of qualification. Along with that, higher levels of education generally indicate a specialized skillset, which can also be a reason for more compensation.

Compounding this problem is the exhorbitant cost of education in North America. In Canada it isn’t quite that bad, but the US has a very high tuition cost for the majority of their schools. Canadian student loans are also generally more forgiving when it comes to being unable to pay, but American loans charge a large amount of interest, even if students can’t afford the payments. Add a healthcare bill of a few thousand dollars for an unexpected problem, and you have a system that appears to stack debt on people with no consideration of circumstances or affordability.

The capitalist model, when applied to the education service, seems to fail. Education is not something with an easily measurable return on investment; it’s difficult to tell if the resources being spent on it are actually being effectively utilized. The spending on education has risen in past decades, but the effectiveness of this spending (and the increased cost) are debateable.

The creation of a private sector of education exacerbates the problem. The richest of society most often utilize this when it is available, because it is often of much higher quality. While they may still pay into the tax system which funds the private sector of education, from their perspective, they are not using the public system so they do not see any benefit from it. The result is that they will favor politicians whose policies include reducing taxes and government spending – which can cause the public education system to suffer. The very intention of education becomes subject to scrutiny: does one put effort into their studies to enrich their minds, or is it to enrich their bank accounts in the future?

I would propose the abolishment (or at least, heavy regulation) of the private sector of education and a complete overhaul of the system to rectify this. The world of the 21^st century is rapidly changing, and the previous methods of a broad approach to education are quite inefficient. The West, in my opinion, should adopt a more of a “two-stream” approach: academic and vocational. Not every person wants to be a doctor, lawyer, scientist or an engineer, and it is past time for the education system to recognize that in a practical manner. The money wasted on keeping schools open and paying a bloated administration could be reduced by separating the students at an earlier age. Most European models do something like this, with separate schools after the 8^th grade.

Strong public education is a requirement for equality of opportunity. Those born into the worst conditions must be granted a way out – education fills this role. With a good education in the world today, you can get a better job and work your way out of poverty. A recent study on human development has found that childhood poverty is the largest factor that will determine success in adult life. A strong education and an investment in the development of the child are the best way to mitigate the effect of growing up in poverty. Education is the best way to empower an individual, because the gift of knowledge is priceless. Without knowledge, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerburg, and Elon Musk wouldn’t have achieved all they could. The science discovered by our predecessors brought about the industrial revolution, and gives us access to all of the comforts of modern life. An educated population makes for a more productive economy, if that’s what the only purpose of education is.

Work With, Instead of Against

Still working on this segment. I wanna talk about how unions can get too powerful, and end up hurting the workers by having unrealistic demands.

Perpetual Poverty

The

Chapter 5: Autocratic Corporatism

The sanctity of the right to private property, and the absolute boundary around this right that disallowed any government interference with it is a centrel tenet of Capitalism. Another is that individuals should be granted maximum ability to exercise their right to free enterprise – the act of using your time to make profit. Ideally, all can exercise this right, and access the free market to sell their labor. In practice, the modern economy requires an advanced skillset or education to earn enough to really survive and save for the future. Often, the tactic in the past would be for the workers to unionize, but most companies in the first world actively root out any notion of unionization. Wal-mart and Amazon are noted for this practice. Another argument may be that “collective bargaining” is not really fair, but without any representation, workers simply must accept what wages they can get or find different employment. This process, however, is not always simple.

I think that this “right to private property and free enterprise” is most prominent in America – Capitalism seems to have been a perfect arguing point for international corporations that sought to maximize profit. It was their right, after all.

In practice, this has resulted in amazing amounts of growth across the planet, thanks to globalization. The effects of this explosion of growth are easy to witness: the development of many agrarian societies into fully-fledged industrial economies has had great effect for quality of life in many countries across the world. Vietnam has come a long way since the destruction of the war with America in the 60’s and 70’s. India, Japan, South Korea, many countries seem to thrive and rapidly develop once they adopt Capitalism. The question is – does that growth come at a cost? Why does the system function flawlessly everywhere?

It appears from some cursory observation, that the answer appear to be yes: the massive explosion in growth that developing countries can see after adopting Capitalism is hardly a painless process. The shift from peasant farmers to industrial workers can be difficult, but it can be made easier with education, training and more gradual development. Unfortunately, it appears that the profit motive becomes an extremely powerful motivator for people trying to survive. Numerous unfortunate realities can make themselves apparent: drug trafficking, prostitution, and child slavery, among many others.

These problems are often very difficult to effectively remedy. Many of them still persist to this day. And most appear to have a common factor: money. The transition from a medieval era economy to a modern industrial one was not as smooth as one might hope.

The data provides a very promising outlook: the rates of poverty are rapidly declining thanks to the implementation of this system across most of the Third World. People are slowly digging their way out of poverty. The exact form of this is not always clear, and may often have some very negative aspects as discussed – most common of which is environmental destruction and pollution, because the population becomes focussed on rapid profit and does not think about how to sustain production. Many forests in South America and Africa were completely logged and never replanted, completely deforesting the area and removing an entire ecosystem.

The root of this problem, I believe, is the rapid introduction of advanced technology into a culture that is unfamiliar with it and unaware of the possible implications of overuse. Education is basically nonexistent in the case of the Third World, and even the services provided to the developing world are often lacking. Without sufficient education, many must find other forms of more labor-oriented employment. Luckily, with the technology and advanced production capabilities supplied to them from the First World through international corporations, they are able to quickly improve their quality of life. But, they seem to be lacking the same strength in institutions that the “First world” mostly enjoys. Corruption and dysfunction are rife in developing nations.

Accelerated vs Sustained Growth

The argument for the introduction of a capitalist democratic system in the developing world is the rapid growth and development that an underdeveloped country (at least when compared to “first world” nations) can experience. The side effects of such an extreme pace of growth by the introduction of modern technology can be disastrous. It is an unfortunate reality of the Colonial era that many native populations of the planet were subverted for the gain of colonists. The effects of this are still observable to this very day, as many current conflicts in Africa and the Middle-East have their roots in tribal strife.

The effects of the Cold War, and the power exerted by the Soviet Union and the United States of America, have left a great deal of destruction in their wake. The Vietnam War notably began as a mission of global alliance keeping – France held the colony, and petitioned America to help keep hold of their regime. America might have supported the country’s independence movement, but France threatened to fall into the Soviet’s orbit if the Americans did not go to Vietnam.

It is unfortunate that so many peoples found themselves caught in a conflict between two world-spanning empires. Most developing nations and cultures were not viewed as emerging independent nations on the world stage, but rather as pawns in a struggle for world dominance between the Soviet Union and United States. By expressing support for Capitalism or Communism, a country could expect to attract attention from the two competing superpowers. For countries that wished to develop their countries beyond a peasant economy, the choice was required in order for support from one of the two sides. Otherwise, neither would lend their aid to an aspiring nation. After it was clear that America would not support Vietnam in their bid for independence, they were forced to turn to the Soviets for aid.

The Cold War has come and gone, and left Capitalism the victor. The system is generally the default across the world, with a few exceptions such as Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba. The legacy of the tension between East and West remained, but after the Soviet Union collapsed, this tension was eased with the promise of trade deals and an optimistic outlook towards a better future. Gorbachev saw the development of the West, and let the Union collapse to bring the war to an end. He wished to see his people have access to the progress of the West – progress they had enjoyed thanks to Capitalism.

After the end of the Union, global trade saw a huge upturn. The Cold War was over, the threat of Communism defeated. No longer did the world need to fear a Communist revolution, or the fulfillment of “mutually assured destruction” at the hands of warring superpowers with nuclear weapons. Even with the Communist nations of the world, trade restrictions were relaxed. The world was open for business.Vietnam in the modern day has enjoyed a great deal of economic growth by allowing private enterprise and international trade.

Any growth this fast will inevitably have growing pains. Across the world, we can see some unfortunate side effects of Capitalism, as discussed before: human trafficking, prostitution, arms trade, drug trafficking, and environmental damage. Introducing the profit motive to a relatively underdeveloped nation, often only at a “stone age” or “bronze age” level of development, has some very undesirable effects in the short term.

The most common problem is corruption of government, and other institutions of power. The introduction of a democratic government into a third world nation is very difficult, and if a select group of people become the point of contact for more advanced nations, this gives them power over the other locals.

A problem that often arises is the rigging of votes, a problem often exacerbated by the lack of active journalism and an uneducated population. A government can easily morph into a tyrannical dictatorship, where the one who controls the army, controls the country. Many times in history, and often with exterior involvement, have Coups been carried out in an attempt to seize power. The generals are slain, and the standing army is defeated. The members of the military either defect to the new rulers, flee, or are executed.

A strange phenomenon of global conflict is the “proxy war”, in which two opposing sides fight over another nation. This generally takes the form of supporting an existing group or leader inside the “third world” country. The Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 is an example, as the United States provided the locals with weaponry, and used military agents to train the local anti-Castro recruits to attack the Cuban communist government with CIA support.

The chaos of the developing world seems to perpetuate itself: conflicts begin, wars rage, and the destruction remains. Families shattered, homes destroyed, and the countryside littered with the evidence. Landmines and unexploded ordinance are a very dangerous reality for those that try to reclaim their lives after the conflict is over. The unseen scars of war are even worse – child soldiers are frequent appearances in these conflicts, and exposing a maturing child to something as extreme as warfare causes lasting damage. Many warlords and war criminals were often pressed into service as child soldiers. War is the only thing they know, and the suffering they’ve had inflicted upon them after years of bloodshed often leaves nothing but malice behind. Very few can escape the cycle of violence.

Providing an effective solution, while avoiding any notion of the colonialist history of Europe, proves to be one of modern history’s most difficult challenges.

Growing Pains

The effect of installing Capitalism into a developing country is very rapid growth. The side effect of that rapid growth, is that some things are unfortunately left behind by the breakneck pace of an industrialized economy, with connections to the global market. The economic growth is beneficial for the population, but the nature of the global market means that the labor cost of developing or impoverished nations is extremely low. The technological and infrastructural development of these areas makes it relatively expensive for international companies to operate there, and regional instability increases the risk.

The quality of life that industrialized society provides to a developing nation is incomparable to any “less advanced” technological level: peasants working in fields to provide food for their families, using animal power to pull their plows have to work extremely hard as it is to produce goods. Working in a factory is something that many of them are gladly willing to do, in exchange for money that they can use to put food on their family’s table. When it functions well, the free market has an enormously positive effect on society, and especially on nations that have an unfortunate history of colonial interference and subjugation, due to the advantages of gunpowder and steel. Industrialization is often the first step to independence for developing nations, and a huge factor in pulling themselves out of relative poverty.

The reality of the situation of the globalized industrial can be quite ugly. The remnants of our colonial history are everywhere – Apartheid in South Africa, Child Labour in India, and Drug Trading in South America, to name just a few complicated situations that have arisen out of this combination of factors. The level of education, and by extension, technological development and infrastructure, is often at a stone or bronze-age level. The interaction of two civilizations with two vastly different technology levels has shown us that such a difference in technology leads to a difference in military force, and is very easily abused. This fact has defined the last two hundred years of human history – Europeans were able to dominate the world with their technology and the will to use it. As stated earlier, the Chinese actually developed the printing press (earliest artifacts are dated to 650-670 AD)^xix and gunpowder^xx before Europe. Gunpowder actually migrated to the West from the East in the hands of the Turks, during the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, by using Dardanell Cannons to fire stone boulders at the walls^xxi.

Swords to Rifles

This event is noted by many historians as the end of the Medieval era, for a few reasons. Constantinople was renowned across Europe for having the strongest walls of the known world. The use of cannons on the walls had shown just how effective the advancement of gunpowder was on permanent emplacements like stone walls. Up to this point, the only available weapons to effectively attack castle walls were catapults, trebuchets, battering rams, and sappers – people that would tunnel beneath the walls to attempt to make them collapse, an extremely dangerous job. The introduction of gunpowder basically rendered most existing walls completely useless: they were not resilient enough to stand up to cannonballs. Advancements in fortifications led to the development of sloped walls, to deflect the incoming cannonball to prevent the energy from being absorbed by the wall, but these were mostly found in the colonial world, to defend against native aggressors. They were most likely more effective because of the lack of avalailable weaponry in the colonies, and would continue to be constructed from the late 16^h to the 18^th century.

Gun emplacements and firing slots became more important as well, centuries later, as the advancements of muskets would allow entire armies to be equipped with them. The renaissance and the printing press was instrumental in the spread of the knowledge of firearms manufacture and use. Gunpowder production spread all across Europe by the mid 14^th century, and cannons were beginning to appear in almost every major country’s arsenal. Even earlier documented uses of gunpowder in Europe have been discovered by historians: the use of cannons by the English in the Battle of Crecy, but they were primarily used in a defensive manner.^xxii

The siege of Constantinople is still significant, because it marks the first time in Europe that a major city would have its fortifications overpowered with the use of gunpowder. Assaulting walls had fundamentally changed, and it would not be long before gunpowder production began to spread across Europe, and by the 14^th century, advancements in safety and storage made the substance much more easy to work with, and the people were more willing to accept the risks in return for the powerful rewards of gunpowder. By the 19^th century, with the introduction of explosive shells, the previous methods of wall construction had largely been rendered obsolete. All countries of the modern world: the Britain, France, the United States, and Russia – had begun to highly explosive artillery shells at the turn of the century.^xxiii The manufacture of these early explosives took many forms depending on the availability of specific chemicals and materials, but the end result was ultimately the same: the creation of long-range weapons that could be fired over hundreds of yards, out of sight of their target, with devastating effect. The construction of large scale fortifications largely ceased, as continued advancements in the technology of war had essentially rendered most fortifications useless – passive defense could no longer be provided by the strength of stone, concrete, or steel. Walls needed guns and men to defend them, now.

The Best Defense

The course of history proved that even those might not be enough, with the introduction of thermonuclear warheads. The first documented is the world famous events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – the entire world witnessed the destruction that nuclear weapons could bring forth.^xxiv The demonstration of the effectiveness of the “nukes” continues to define the scope of military action to this very day. The power of thermonuclear detonation is so powerful, that any conflict waged with such weapons would most likely destroy both sides of the conflict – for which the phrase “mutually-assured destruction” was named.

The events of the Cold War would have a huge effect on the advancement of pre-industrial nations in Asia and Africa. America was directly involved in Vietnam and Korea, and would continue to act discreetly most of the world to oppose the Soviets. The invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was a major factor in the decline of the Soviet Union, as the strain of the war would prove too much for their economy to bear. The Soviets eventually left the country, but the fighting still raged on.^xxv The civil war continued, and the unrest still grips the region at the time of writing. The recent conflict between America and the Taliban appears to be slowly proving an old adage true: “Afghanistan is where empires go to die.” – the “graveyard of empires”.

The global conflict of the Cold War period, especially after the Cuban missile crisis, was fought mostly in foreign countries by supporting proxies with weaponry, training, and supplies. Covert and indirect involvement was the form that most of the conflicts of this period took – Vietnam, El Salvador, Indonesia and many others were all fiercely contested by the United States, in an effort to halt the spread of Communism and keep it from springing up anywhere. The resulting carnage has been etched into history, and the nations still live with the consequences of the actions made in the past. Asia has seemed to recover the fastest from the influence of colonialism and the two contending superpowers of the Cold War – perhaps with the exception of North Korea, which is still held by the tyrannical regime of Kim Il Sung.

Crumbling Pillars

The recent decades of world events have been marked by a pronounced lack of faith in authority figures and institutions like the government, the church, and the media. Even academia isn’t safe – Scientists are routinely accused of allowing their ideologies to interfere with the impartiality of their findings. Where is this coming from? What happened?

The “Post-Truth” or “Post-Facts” Era is something you probably have already heard about. The phenomenon comes as a result of a few factors that combine to create this problem. The first of these is the huge distrust of institutions of all sorts, but especially the mainstream media.

The profession of journalism has been a relatively new practice, in historical terms. It really came to prominence with the widespread adoption of mechanized printing presses, in the Industrial Era after the revolution of factories and the application of the steam engine. Newspapers started to mushroom across the industrialized world of Europe and North America, as well as some colonies and developing independent nations in Asia and Oceania. Impartial journalism became an extremely important part of democracy, because it took the power of information, and brought it to the people. Freedom of Speech was written into the American Constitution to protect this very idea from the power of tyrannical government.

While the founding fathers should be lauded for their efforts at establishing a free, democratic nation, they were still human and had their limitations and imperfections. They did not foresee the massive power of unrestrained free enterprise and the magnitude of international corporations. Even the hypocrisies of their time are difficult to understand: how could they state that “all men were equal” while owning slaves?

iNapier, William. (1851) History of General Sir Charles Napier’s Administration of Scinde, London: Chapman and Hall p. 35

iihttps://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/eisenhower001.asp , Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961, Yale University Avalon Project, Lillian Goldman Law Library.

iiihttps://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/eisenhower001.asp , Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961, page IV, Yale University Avalon Project, Lillian Goldman Law Library.

ivhttps://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/online-documents/farewell-address/1967-06-21-dde-to-kennedy.pdf, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, June 13, 1967 Letter from Professor Theodore R. Kennedy to Dwight D. Eisenhower [DDE’s Post-Presidential Papers, 1967 Principal File, Box 5, BE (Business Economics) (6); NAID #16972245]

vhttps://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/online-documents/farewell-address/1960-10-31-mfr.pdf Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, October 31, 1960 Memorandum for the file regarding the State of the Union 1961 [Ralph E. Williams Papers, Box 1, Chronological (1); NAID #16972132]

viAdams, Gordon. (1981) The Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle, Transaction Publishers, p. 11

viiAdams, Gordon. (1981) The Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle, Transaction Publishers, p. 12

viiiAdams, Gordon. (1981) The Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle, Transaction Publishers, p. 12

ixAdams, Gordon. (1981) The Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle, Transaction Publishers, p. 13

xAdams, Gordon. (1981) The Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle, Transaction Publishers, p. 14

xiAdams, Gordon. (1981) The Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle, Transaction Publishers, p. 15

xiiAdams, Gordon. (1981) The Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle, Transaction Publishers, p. 15

xiiiAdams, Gordon. (1981) The Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle, Transaction Publishers, p. 15

xivAdams, Gordon. (1981) The Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle, Transaction Publishers, p. 15

xvAdams, Gordon. (1981) The Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle, Transaction Publishers, p. 15

xviAdams, Gordon. (1981) The Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle, Transaction Publishers, p. 216

xviiLeopold, Jason (December 29, 2008). “Cheney Admits He ‘Signed Off’ on Waterboarding of Three Guantanamo Prisoners”. Atlantic Free Press. Archived from the original on December 10, 2015. Retrieved July 23, 2018.

xviiiAnderson, Ben “This Is What Winning Looks Like”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI, May 27, 2013. Retrieved September 9, 2019

xixPan, Jixing. “On the Origin of Printing in the Light of New Archaeological Discoveries”, in Chinese Science Bulletin, 1997, Vol. 42, No. 12: 976–981. ISSN 1001-6538. Pages 979–980.

xxLorge, Peter A. (2008), The Asian Military Revolution: from Gunpowder to the Bomb, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-60954-8

xxi“The fall of Constantinople”. The Economist. 23 December 1999. Archived from the original on 18 June 2017. Retrieved on 26 September 2019

xxiiAndrade, Tonio (2016). The Gunpowder Age China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9781400874446.

xxiiiBrown, G.I. (1998) The Big Bang: a History of Explosives Sutton Publishing ISBN 0-7509-1878-0 pp.151-163

xxiv“U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey: The Effects of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, June 19, 1946. President’s Secretary’s File, Truman Papers”. Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. p. 6. Retrieved September 26, 2019.

xxv Borer, Douglas A. (1999). Superpowers defeated: Vietnam and Afghanistan compared. London: Cass. p. 216. ISBN 978-0-7146-4851-4.