Socialism and History
The Lessons of History, Chapter IX
By: Will & Ariel Durant
Overview
Centralized government ownership and/or control of the means of production and redistribution, that is the heart of statism (Socialism, Communism, Fascism), has been tried again and again in history, from the time of the earliest written records to the present. It showed up in Sumeria (2100 BC), Babylonia (1750 BC), Egypt ( 323 BC), China (145 BC & 1068 AD), Rome (301 AD), and Portuguese colonies in America (1620 AD).
Central planning and control to achieve the ends of kings or idealists was not a new idea when Karl Marx popularized it as Communism and gave it a scientific sounding basis.
Highlights
Sumaria & Babylon
The idea of central economic planning by government goes back to the beginning of recorded history.
The Sumarian economy (2100 BC) was organized and controlled by the state, which owned most of the arable land. Workers received their rations from the royal storehouses. A developing hierarchy administered the vast state economy. Trade was all conducted in the name of the central administration. Tens of thousands of clay tablets testify to the extensive record keeping that tracked this vast enterprise.
And the first “New Deal” was four millennia ago when Babylonian law (the code of Hammurabi) (1750 BC) fixed wages for herdsmen and artisans as well as how much physicians could charge for operations.
Egypt
Under the Ptolemies (323 BC to 30 BC) the government owned the land and managed agriculture. The peasant was told what and where to plant, and his harvest was recorded by government officials, threshed on government threshing floors, and stored in the granaries of the king. The government owned or controlled the mines and nationalized the production of oil, salt, papyrus and textiles. Commerce was conducted by state agents. The government monopolized banking. Every person, industry, process, product, sale, and legal document was taxed. A complex system of scribes was maintained to keep track of the taxes.
For a while they had leaders that treated the people fairly and the system flourished. Great engineering enterprises were completed and museums were established. But, like almost all men with supreme power, the pharaohs entered into expensive wars and after 246 BC, only 87 years after the founding of the dynasty, the leaders gave themselves to “… drink and venery, allowing the administration of the state and the economy to fall into the hands of rascals who ground every possible penny out of the poor …” for generations, showing that once again, why mortal men cannot be trusted with great power.
Finally, the people began to rebel. Strikes and violence became common and the government bribed the populous with bounties and spectacles, under the careful watch of a strong military force, as the Romans did later. “Agriculture and industry decayed through lack of incentive; moral disintegration spread; and order was not restored until Octavius brought Egypt under Roman rule (30 BC).”
Rome
Rome resorted to socialism in 301 AD under Diocletian. Facing poor restless masses and the danger of barbarian invasion, he issued a dictum denouncing monopolists for holding back goods from the market to raise prices, and instituting price and wage controls for all important goods and services. “Extensive public works were undertaken to put the unemployed to work, and food was distributed gratis, or at reduced prices, to the poor. The government—which already owned most mines, quarries, and salt deposits—brought nearly all major industries and guilds under detailed control.” The state became the major employer in every large town, “standing head and shoulders above private industrialists, who were in any case crushed by taxation.”
“When businessmen predicted ruin, Diocletian explained that the barbarians were at the gate, and that individual liberty had to be shelved until collective liberty could be made secure.” It was a war economy justified by fear of attack. “Other factors equal, internal liberty varies inversely as (with) external danger.”
Micromanagement of the economic details of society proved unworkable for the expanding, expensive and corrupt bureaucracy. To support it all, taxation rose to heights that destroyed incentive to work or earn. Lawyers sought way to evade taxes as the state tried to prevent evasion. Thousands fled to the frontier, living among the barbarians, seeking refuge from the taxes. Trying to check this exodus, laws were passed “… binding the peasant to his field and the worker to his shop until all his debts and taxes had been paid. In this and other ways medieval serfdom began.”
Ancient China
China tried state socialism in 145 BC, 9 AD, and 1068 AD; when Wang An-shih as Premier undertook to dominate the entire Chinese economy, stating that “The state, should take the entire management of commerce, industry, and agriculture into its own hands, with a view to succoring the working classes and preventing them from being ground into the dust by the rich.” Great engineering projects were created to control floods and reduce unemployment. “Pensions were provided for the aged, the unemployed, and the poor.”
The experiment was undermined by high taxes laid upon everyone to pay for the growing army of government employees, conscription of a male from every household for the army, and corruption in the bureaucracy. “Conservatives,… argued that human corruptibility and incompetence make government control of industry impracticable, and that the best economy is a laissez-faire system that relies on the natural impulses of men.”
Peru
Peru was the longest lasting socialist regime (1438 to 1533), basing its power on the popular belief that the sovereign was the delegate of the Sun God. The state directed all agriculture, labor, and trade; keeping account of materials, individuals, and income. “Every person was an employee of the state and seems to have accepted that condition cheerfully as a promise of security and food.” But there was also terror and human sacrifice, particularly of children. “As many as 4,000 servants, court officials, favorites and concubines were killed upon the death of the Inca Huayna Capac in 1527.” (Wikipedia Inca Empire) The king was “god” and the people his subjects. There was no individual freedom. It ended when Pizarro conquered them in 1533.
20th Century Communism
The communist and socialist experiments in China, Russia, and many other countries during the 20th century are not covered because the Durants’ history ended with the French Revolution, although they likely planned additional volumes that were never completed. But he did write “Tragedy of Russia: Impressions of a Brief Visit” in 1933 in which he excoriated the “slavery, barbarism and desolation,” of what he saw. (See Will Durant Warning about socialism)
Lesson
The central economic planning and control that is the heart of statism and soul of socialism is nothing new. It is as old as history. It has been tried over and over, and has failed to produce the expected results.
It has been said that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” (Sometimes attributed to Albert Einstein) Are the people of world insane, or just ignorant of the facts? In the past they had no way of learning the truth about socialism and the dangers concentrating power in the hands of a small group of powerful leaders who promised security in exchange for freedom.
(See Hope for the Future to learn how this faulty approach, doomed to failure, can be avoided in the future.)