Nature Takes its Course

Nature Takes its Course

1985 5 May 3-5 Nature Takes its Course (834) Persistent problems in implementing the communist ideal of public ownership show that efforts to collectivize what is essentially a private concern amount to more than a fight against a man-made system; they are a fight against nature itself, and such a struggle is doomed to failure.

One of the basic principles of the Communist ideal is that there should be public ownership of all enterprises, and all goods should be free. One of the first departments to come under the influence of this ideal was agriculture. Ever since the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 there have been continual attempts, in Russia and other communist countries, to collectivize agriculture, and bring farming entirely under the control of the state. These efforts, however, have repeatedly met with failure.

The big thrust towards collectivization was initiated in the 1930's by the dictator Josef Stalin (1879-1953). It soon became clear, however, that the transition from private to public ownership would not be smooth. In order to ward off the threat of starvation, the state awarded plots, averaging 0.3 hectares each, to collective farmers. These plots were to be farmed privately, in order to augment the farmers' income and ensure that they were not swamped by the wave of sudden transition from individual to collective farming. This was considered as a “temporary evil”, a concession to necessity, which would be disbanded once the legacy of the previous economic system disappeared.

Far from being a temporary evil, however, such measures proved to be more a permanent part of human nature. It is always painful for man to be torn away from his natural environment, and this was no exception. An estimated 5.5 million people died of hunger and related diseases when they were forced into state and collective farms on Stalin's orders.

But an even more conclusive indictment of the state-owned system of agriculture comes from the fact that, despite massive investments in the public sector, the private sector continues to flourish in the Soviet Union. Thousands of private farmers own small plots of land in Georgia and central Asia. According to a November 1984 article in Questions of Economy, a monthly journal put out by the Academy of Sciences, Moscow, plots and small holdings account for 25% of total agricultural production in the Soviet Union. More than half the nation's potatoes, and roughly a third of its meat, eggs and other vegetables are produced privately. These figures are even more astounding when one compares them to the proportion – just 2.8% – that private plots constitute of all the farm land in the country.

The prices that privately-grown vegetables fetch in Moscow central markets make a mockery of the communist ideal of free food for all. According to a Reuter report from Moscow, dated December 28, 1984, tomatoes from Georgia were fetching 15 roubles a kilo on the Moscow market. Cauliflowers from central Asia were going for 12 roubles apiece. Muscovites complain about the high prices but it is a question of paying them or going without vegetables:

“While Muscovites complain at the swarthy “millionaires” from the South whose big houses and flashy cars are legend, without them fruit and vegetables would be hard to find at all.”

(The Muslim, Islamabad, December 29, 1984)

All this goes to show that the communist state has failed to provide people with their basic needs of life, let alone provide them free of cost. People have had to fall back on the private sector for elementary provisions. The private sector continues to outstrip the public sector, despite the advantages which the latter enjoys under the patronage of the communist state. Even Russian leaders, faced with the reality that, the state alone simply cannot meet the nation’s needs, have admitted the importance of the private sector. State planning chief Nikolai Baibakov told the latest session of Soviet parliament:

“Economic leaders should devote more attention to giving help to collective farm workers in managing their private plots.”

Thus communism has done a complete U-turn since the days of Stalin, when complete collectivization was considered the ideal. Now there is a grudging acceptance of the inevitability of private enterprise, and the need to assist it. It is not very difficult to see why the system of private enterprise should be so resilient in face of encroachment by the state. It is because private enterprise is not a man-made system; it is an integral part of human nature, and efforts to change human nature are doomed to failure.

Furthermore, the state in itself is not separate entity. It exists only as a conglomeration of individuals. The incentive for buying and selling, giving and taking, earning and paying wages, must come from the individual; it cannot come from the state. That is why, however much “the state” may seek to accumulate powers to itself it cannot do so, for eventually the state boils down to the individuals that compose it, and it is inevitably they who will inherit the power, both economic and political, which “the state” apportions to itself.