What Do Capitalism and Communism Have In Common?
For all their apparent differences, the societies of the United States and the Soviet Union and China, as well as France and Poland and Germany, are alike in one fundamental respect: they are class societies, controlled by privileged elites, who make more or less show of democracy as they manage disenfranchised populations. The members of this world elite have more in common with each other than with the ordinary people of their own societies. These elitesC corporate leaders and politicians and party “experts”C control the economy and direct development. Capitalists and Communists can differ endlessly on whether “the market” or “central planning” is more effective, yet still agree on the essential point: the need to exclude the mass of people from real political power. How could it happen that societies that claim to be so different could be at bottom so similar? The answer to this lies in certain fundamental similarities between Marxist and capitalist ideas. Marx’s goal was to end exp
