Advantages and Disadvantages of Communism
Communism is an ideology that believes the means of production in a society should belong to the common public via state/government administration. Its focus is on society with economic equality between the entire common public. With communism, there will be differences between the working class and the rich societies. This concept believes that the way to achieve this is by public ownership of the production control, rather than individual ownership.
The idea of communism is based on the ideas of Karl Marx. Communism contains the ideology of socialism as well.
Following are the Advantages (Pros / Positives / Benefits) and Disadvantages (Cons / Negatives / Drawbacks) of Communism,
Advantages (Pros / Positives / Benefits) of Communism
1. Business Monopolies Prohibited
In nations that follow a communist structure, the Government administrates the entire business. The government decides which businesses should start and the investment to be made. This will prohibit adverse market conditions like monopolies. There will be no single/small group of businesses who dominate the industry and increase the prices as they wish, which negatively effect the common public.
2. Economy of the Nation is Centrally Planned
Communist nations plan the entire economy through a central government administration. This means that the infrastructure development like transportation, roads, and services, can be well planned by this administration to achieve a long-term target. Since everything is planned centrally, the government can think of all the aspects and create a long-term sustainable plan for the entire economy of the nation.
3. Less Differences/Levels in the Society
In a Communism structure, the means of production belong to the common public via state/government administration. Hence there is no/less private ownership of the businesses, which all of the common public individuals are less different without any levels. There are no social working positions like “white collar” or “blue collar”.
4. Everyone Start with the Same Levels
In a democratic or capitalist world, some people will start with good wealth and some people start with no wealth. This brings those individual’s life easy/hard which they have as a gift from their family. Life of the lower wealthy groups would be significantly challenging with the differences they have according to income, property, and wealth. But in Communism, there are no differences as such, and it is based on the concept that everyone should have the same chance to enjoy a good life for themselves.
5. Quality Public Wellbeing
The governments of communist nations consider many things to improve public well-being. They offer free/low-cost services for education, healthcare, and transportation. Even the poorest people can have a life with quality well-being due to these.
Disadvantages (Cons / Negatives / Drawbacks) of Communism
1. Less Financial Freedom for People
Unlike Capitalist or Democratic societies, communist society does not allow private ownership of businesses. All the common public will indeed have the same level of wealth, but it will disallow financial freedom for the people. Skilled people do not have the room to earn more by utilizing their skills to start a new business/innovation.
2. Ignore the Needs of the Consumer
In a communist government, the true needs of the consumer could be ignored. There could be the idea of having the bare minimum level to survive life, which could result in the products not meeting the true needs of the end consumer.
3. Lack of Innovation
Private entrepreneurship is not accepted by Communism. Hence private investment in the nation is limited. For any innovation/research in the world, there should be an initial capital and the result should make a profit to surplus the initial cost. But this kind of new research activity is not commonly happening in communist nations.
4. Could Result in Dictatorship
In communism, all the production in society is centrally administrated by the state/government. This could lead to a dictatorship where the state/government will not act in the best interest of the common public.
5. Government Over Spending
Communism promotes government spending to improve social welfare. If the government spends more without keeping reserves, and if there is a disaster or pandemic, the government could not successfully manage this kind of difficult time.
6. Less Business Operation Motivation – Less Efficiency
Communism does not allow private ownership of businesses. There will be very less business operation motivation. There will be very less motivation to do the business operations successfully from the higher authorities to the down level staff since there will be very less difference in the returns they get.
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