Theory of communism is strictly based on the treaty of altruism which suggests that individuals are morally obliged to benefit others. The earliest theorists of utopian communism used altruism as the major force that will lead towards the success of communism. One of the earliest and major communistic works is ‘Code of Nature, Or, The True Spirit of Laws’ which was written by Morelly which was published in 1755. The book was essentially against property, marriage, state, police, and religion. Morelly described that his communistic utopia is strictly based on the moral principle, “Do good in order to receive good.” While those words may seem harmless but the interpretation of those words by Morelly was highly caustic and anti-human in nature. This work of Morelly proved to be highly influential for the later communist theorist because he not only criticized the concept of private property, but also, he asserted that where no property exists, none of its pernicious consequences could exist…1 .
He suggested that all property should be owned in common and nothing in society will belong to anyone, either as a personal possession or as capital goods, except the things for which the person has immediate use, for his needs, his pleasures, or his daily work. He postulated that every citizen will make his particular contribution to the activities of the community according to his capacity, his talent and his age. The idea was simple, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” However, the actual problem he faced was that if everyone is going to attain an equal share of communal property, irrespective of how much they produce, then the incentive to work is negative. That is, each person will try to work least while he will attain an equal share of the products as will be attained by the most hard-working and skilled member of the community. Morelly believed that man’s true nature is altruistic and his original state is communism. That is, man is naturally inclined to do hard work not for his own benefits but for the benefits of all others. He suggested that private property is the real cause because of which the basic nature of human is destroyed and some become lazy enough to live at the expense of others. Banish property, and crime would disappear. He clearly stated that every citizen of a commune, between the ages of 20 and 25, without exception, will be required to do agricultural work, unless some infirmity renders him unable to do so.
Yet, he realized that the problem of negative incentive for work will be there and to solve it, he suggested a coercive system of police for the commune which will force every individual to work strictly according to his ability. To make it happen, he proposed a coercive police law according to which, the oldest and most skilled workers in every occupation will take the authority for every five days to supervise five or ten of their co-workers, and they will see that everybody completes no less work within the five days than they would demand of themselves. He also suggested that there will be a master or ruler for every ten or twenty workers who will inspect and instruct the job of workers and will report about their work and behavior to the chief of corp. He suggested that each master will remain master for life and all masters will take their turn at being chief of corps. However, he maintained that everyone, including the masters and chief of corps will attain equal amount of produce. Furthermore, he suggested that occupations for each individual should be strictly assigned by the state or commune. Obviously, while trying to renounce the police and state, Morelly suggested a much coercive and strict communal police allowing no freedom for anyone and he supposed that all of this is possible because human is altruistic by nature. Yet, he confirmed that the basic laws that he has suggested in the book Code of Nature should be considered as sacred and inviolable and anyone going against them should be incarcerated in isolation to death. Thus, while considering altruism as the nature of human beings, he wanted to force everyone violently to work for the benefits of others and there was no space for voluntary free decisions in his utopia as everyone was supposed to be a slave of the state, or commune.
The Code of Nature seems to be the actual inspiration of Karl Marx, Lenin, and Stalin as they actually tried to implement similar laws in the U.S.S.R which proved to be a huge failure. The failure of U.S.S.R and communism as whole was well explained by Henry Hazlitt in his book Time will Run Back.
All communists suggest that altruism is the basic nature of human being; however, hardly any communist suggest that human beings should be left free to live voluntarily. If altruism is essentially the natural code of men, then they will agree for working incessantly to produce for others without actually hoping for any incentive through their work. However, that is not the case. Right from the birth, an individual realizes that they have to defend themselves and nobody ever feels the urge of working for the benefits of others without actually asserting proper incentives for himself. Ayn Rand explained altruism in appropriate manner;
The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value2 .
Morelly’s Code of Nature and the communistic laws proposed by him further proves the veracity of definition of altruism as explained by Ayn Rand in her book, Philosophy: Who Needs It. Altruism is strictly based on force against human being because no man can ever be altruistic in the real sense. No act of sharing, helping or sacrificing can be described as truly altruistic because even while sacrificing oneself for the safety and benefit of some other person, the actor certainly receives an intrinsic satisfaction, an emotional personal reward in doing so and this reward certainly seems to be of higher value for the actor. A mother sacrifice herself for the benefits and nurturing of her child, in difficult situations, a mother, father, brother, a close relative, or a friend of a person may lose his or her life for the safety of their loved one. While such acts are sacrificial, but these aren’t altruistic in nature because a sacrifice, by definition, is the act of surrender of something valuable for preserving or for the benefit of something or someone else considered as having a higher value; that is, sacrifice is not altruistic, rather it is an act of giving up a thing of lower value to protect or save or for the benefits of something or someone of higher value.
Despite the failure of communism and the basic flaw of communistic theory, most of the authorities and governments prefer to force communism in our life in one way or other. They enforce destructive policies like Universal Health Care, Education for All, and other similar welfare schemes just to propagate the hoax of altruism. However, these governments and politicians exactly know the myth of altruism and fault of communism and the very basic motive of these politicians who support such laws and welfare policies always prove to be highly irrationally selfish. By introducing such altruistic, communistic welfaristic egalitarian policies, they just try to gather more votes to ascertain their ruling power over common citizens while destroying the resources of the society and forcing the society to abysmal situations of scarcity and poverty.
- Code of Nature, Morelly [↩]
- Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It!;“Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,” Pg 61 [↩]
