Last weekend, I finally finished this excellent and highly informative book, which provides an empirical comparison of the outcomes in capitalist versus communist 1 countries. A friend from Clemson YDSA and Hakim, a YouTuber, had both recommended it to me. Although Austin Murphy, a finance professor at Oakland University, primarily focuses on West Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or FRG) and East Germany (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or DDR), the USSR and the United States are covered, and to a lesser extent other nations. As someone who grew up in the United States (and thus was immersed in its heavy propaganda machine), Austin visited the DDR as part of his graduate research and quickly discovered that the reality of the people there was far different than what had been repeated to him in Western media and culture. His experiences during the summers of 1989 and 1990 led him to further research the complexities of the DDR and other communist countries, which culminated in this work.
1. I would not use the term "communist" if I had written this book. Communism is the final stage of socialism, which entails the "withering away of the state" (Engels, 1877), as well as other important distinctions. Therefore, I believe the term "socialist" is more accurate when describing the DDR, Soviet Union (USSR), and other leftist countries discussed by Murphy. On page 114, Murphy clarifies that the DDR could not be considered communist for these reasons.
Prelude and Introduction
Murphy doesn't hold back in the criticism of his home country. In fact, he goes as far to say in the Prelude that "my country (the USA) is the most evil one on the face of the earth and in the history of mankind." In the Introduction, he hones in on the United States. He first contextualizes the culture of American exceptionalism (and denialism of American wrongdoing) that is heavily cultivated in media, education, and other sectors. In short, the ruling class that ultimately controls these institutions has a vested interest in convincing Americans that "we are the good guys" in order to more easily pacify and control the population, while demonizing countries and people groups that refuse to submit to US capitalist hegemony. Wealthy CEOs and other capitalists in media will by default attempt to justify their position by advocating for capitalism, while opposing socialism. This inevitably means that these powerful actors can exert heavy control over the ideology and coverage of the media. Factual coverage that does not serve ruling class interests is routinely whitewashed, ignored, or censored. Murphy notes the distraction constantly at play in the media: "...the USA media covers politicians' personal lives and sexual behavior so extensively that attention is deflected from terrible atrocities American political leaders have allowed the USA to commit (Foerstel, 2000)." He highlights the alarming concentration of media into fewer and fewer hands, which has only increased since the book's release in 2000. Today, six corporations control 90% of the media Americans consume. Murphy also touches on concepts such as the private influence of government and manufacturing consent, which fellow authors such as Noam Chomsky (Manufacturing Consent, 1988) had previously expounded upon. After this brief discussion, Murphy provides lengthy evidence of USA atrocities.
According to Murphy, over 11 million unarmed civilians have been directly killed by Uncle Sam via "mass extermination campaigns, terrorism, and other atrocities." These deaths begin from America's first days as a nation (the genocide of indigenous Americans) up to the book's release (Iraq and Yugoslavia). On page 22, Murphy provides a table tallying the sum of these deaths. These deaths have undoubtedly expanded in the years since 2000, with conflicts such as the Iraq War and the so-called "War on Terror" scaling up the innocent civilian deaths.
In this section, Murphy focuses on the plight of indigenous Americans. He acknowledges that certain statistics, such as the total and exact number of indigenous Americans, have historically been difficult to estimate because of the lack of priority given to this task during colonial and earlier American eras. Yet, there are still various methods with which we can make reasonable estimates today. Contrary to what we were taught in school, the author presents sound evidence that the deaths of the indigenous population of what now makes up the continental US were not primarily from the natural consequences of disease brought by European colonizers, but rather a state-directed policy of forced removal and genocide, from biological warfare—"the USA frequently resorted to deliberately spreading diseases, such as by having items (like blankets) known to be infected with deadly germs put in or near Indian 2 settlements"— to bounty hunting with "cash rewards" (which was in many cases legalized and encouraged by government authorities). Murphy dispels the notion that disease alone overwhelmingly wiped out the native population in the Americas by comparing how indigenous people fared in their respective colonizer countries. He notes that indigenous people located within Spanish occupied areas, along with other European nations, had far lower death rates than those in the modern-day United States. The differing treatments of the indigenous populations between the colonizers have lasting impacts. In 1993, 90% of Mexico's population was at least part indigenous, compared to just 4% in the US.
2. Indian is the term Murphy uses for sake of clarity, but he acknowledges that this is an inaccurate and offensive term which originated from the voyage of Christopher Columbus. Columbus' crew mistakenly believed they had reached their destination, India, and thus incorrectly referred to indigenous people they first encountered as Indians. I have chosen not to use this term, except in quotes, as I believe this term empowers colonizers of past and present, to the detriment of the agency of indigenous people. Indigenous Americans should be able to refer to themselves how they like, and the least settler states can do today is acknowledge this right to self determination.
The Founding Fathers, who are often heavily revered in American lore—as well as the namesake of countless places, buildings, parks, and so on—were not shy about their explicitly violent and racist attitude towards indigenous people. "The country's first president, George Washington, told his fellow Americans that Indians were to be "hunted like beasts," and the USA hero Thomas Jefferson said that the USA "should pursue [the Indians] into extermination" (Churchill, 1994)." In the American Midwest, it was common for settlers to intentionally hunt bison to extinction in order to eliminate the local indigenous populations' primary food source. The systematic murder of indigenous Americans was ultimately part of a larger policy of 'Manifest Destiny', which sought to make room for white settlers to move west, regardless of the plentiful non-white people who had consistently inhabited those areas for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
For the rest of the Introduction, Murphy details America's killings of innocent unarmed civilians outside its borders. A laundry list of countries affected are detailed: the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Iraq, Indonesia 3, Korea, El Salvador, Chile, Nicaragua, and many more. One point that stood out to me was the alarmingly prevalent idea propagated within Western state circles that communist civilians are somehow less "worthy of life"—a result of decades of "fanatical anticommunism"—which can be used to justify mass killings of these people. Murphy also explains the uniquely horrible treatment of Africans, starting from the horrendous passage on slave ships from Africa to the centuries of chattel slavery that would follow in the United States. Murphy also returns to criticize the honoring of white supremacists. "Perhaps fittingly, the USA continues to honor explicit slaveowners on almost all of its paper money, with even the exception of Abraham Lincoln having once said, "I do not stand pledged for the prohibition of the slave trade between the states. I, as much as any man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the White race (Cosby, 1998)." Despite the overwhelming numbers of innocent civilians deaths perpetrated by the US, Murphy clarifies that his count "does not include the many millions of other people who died in the USA in the past as a result of the capitalist economic system. Besides slavery, this system caused harsh working conditions, unemployment, poor living, conditions, and general poverty." He also acknowledges systemic violence of "the formal police state" that enacts further violence on Americans. Murphy also tallies other countries ranked in the top ten in exterminations of people, including Nazi Germany, Spain, Pakistan, Japan, Turkey, czarist Russia, Nigeria, France, and Britain 4. Notably, all of these countries are capitalist, and again, these figures do not include those who have "died as a result of the cruelty of the capitalist economic system as opposed to being deliberately killed." Finally, Murphy addressed the noticeable lack of any communist nations in the tally. "The widespread belief that communist governments have killed millions is largely a myth that is spread by the capitalist press, which is heavily influenced by the CIA and its fanatical anticommunist allies (Blum, 1995)." The CIA and other state terrorist organizations control hundreds of publications and media organizations worldwide, such as Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe, many without public knowledge. One source erroneously citing an outsized "communist" death toll is the infamous Black Book of Communism by Stéphane Courtois et al. Courtois in particular displayed blatant disregard for balanced empirical evaluation and academic standards. For one, he counted Nazis killed by Soviet soldiers and other irrelevant parties in the death toll. Co-authors have since distanced themselves from the book and Courtois, asserting that he had made it his mission based on personal convictions to exaggerate the communist death toll, attempting to do practically anything to reach an optically significant death toll of 100 million.
3. The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins is an excellent source on American interference and murder in Indonesia.
4. Profound evidence has since come to light that British colonialism in India likely resulted in the excess deaths of 120-165 million from 1880 to 1920, thus warranting an update to the top ten.
Chapter 1-The Documented Facts About Eastern Europe and Communism: A Refutation of Popular Myths about the True Good Guys
The first chapter documents facts about communist Eastern Europe during the communist era. Despite claims from the West that communism collapsed because of "inefficiencies", Murphy illustrates that real economic growth was actually far higher in socialist Eastern Europe than capitalist Western Europe. In fact, if those countries had continued at their trajectory, they would have surpassed capitalist nations in only a few decades. Important economic measures such as GNP were also vastly improved in these countries compared to what they had been prior to communism. For example, Murphy includes that Russia's GNP increased from 10% before communism to 31% of USA's GNP following the October Revolution. Many communist nations started from a significantly lower stage of development compared to Western peers, which was a significant handicap to "competing" with capitalism. Murphy notes that the DDR was set back from the very beginning after being forced by West Germany to unfairly pay the entire amount of reparations for Nazi Germany's atrocities to the USSR. It is also worth noting that the DDR rightfully punished and repressed Nazis, while in West Germany they were absorbed into the government and ruling class, being allowed to roam free and even occupy many positions of power. However, problems in communist Eastern European countries were not limited to economics, as Murphy explains. Many nations, notably the USSR, had battled foreign interference ("The Soviet Union had been invaded militarily by over a dozen countries in the first 25 years of its existence"; spying on behalf of the American state) and violent Nazi collaborators within, many of whom were trying to revive the Russian monarchy and serfdom.
In one section, Murphy discusses the USSR and United State's involvement in the 1980's war in Afghanistan. In short, Uncle Sam (via the CIA's largest covert operation in its history) funded the Mujahideen terrorists, while the USSR, invited by the new communist government to protect the fledgling government, tried to stop them. Contrary to delirious Western projection that the USSR was being "imperialist", the USSR rejected to intervene via vote eight times before reluctantly deciding to play any sort of role in the conflict. And to reiterate, the Soviets were welcome in Afghanistan, unlike invading Americans, because they had been invited by the democratically elected government.
Murphy then discusses the so-called "collapse" of communism. In reality, the system was illegally dissolved from within by a few traitors, who did so against the will of the people. In December 1989, "71% of East Germans were in favor of keeping their socialist system and 73% were in favor of maintaining a separate country. In a 1991 Soviet referendum, 78% of citizens voted to keep communism and their country. The resentment of capitalism and the longing to return to communism continues today in Eastern Europe, despite decades of neoliberal propaganda and temporal separation.
Murphy presents evidence that the quality of life under communism was significantly higher—"communism freed people from unemployment, poverty, crime, major money anxieties, excessive social frictions, and economic inequalities and thereby actually created the opportunity for a higher quality of life." The evidence strongly counters the Western notion that people in communist Eastern Europe were less free. A 1990s survey even indicates that East Germans felt less "government interference" in communist DDR than in the "unified capitalist Germany" (Northoff, 1995).
Another section covers the exaggeration of political repression and killings in these communist nations. Unsurprisingly, these numbers are vastly lower than what we often hear in the United States, even under Joseph Stalin. Many of these executions within the USSR were justified considering that most punished were either themselves Nazis or Nazi collaborators. Murphy even unveils the reality of Soviet gulags. "The death rate in the Soviet prisons, gulags, and labor camps was only 2.5% (Getty, Ritterspoon, and Zemskov, 1993), which is even below that of the average "free citizen in capitalist Russia under the czar in peacetime in 1913 (Wheatcroft, 1993). Also, agents in the USSR such as police, secret agents, and national guard compromised a far lower percentage of the population than capitalist nations like the US.
Compared to the countless invasions and imperialism committed by just the United States alone, there "have been a mere 10 communist invasions of other countries". For a more in depth look at excessive deaths under capitalism, consult Endless Holocausts: Mass Deaths in the History of the United States Empire by David Michael Smith.
In a section titled, "Myths About Communist Economic Inefficiency and Resource Misallocation", Murphy effectively states that the earlier starting point for these communist countries was intimately tied to the outdated mode of production (feudalism) that these state projects had started from. It is still remarkable that in only a few decades and despite Nazi invasions and routine foreign interference, the USSR transitioned from a backwards feudal society to an advanced communist nation that sent the first humans into space, among other space- and technology-related achievements.
Society was far more efficient in communist Eastern Europe. Beyond the more apparent "right to essentials like food, housing, medicine, and clothes", Murphy pointed out something we often do not even think about in the West: "The centralized fixing of prices greatly reduced the amount of time spent on wasteful tasks performed in capitalist countries of price shopping, price negotiation, and attempts to avoid marketing manipulation and fraud (Furlough and Strikwerda, 1999)." During the twilight years of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev's market reforms would reverse many of these safety nets and put individual people, as well as the entire nation, into unprecedented economic precarity, culminating in the illegal dissolution under dictator Boris Yeltsin.
Chapter 2-A Post Mortem Comparison of Communist and Capitalist Societies Using the German Case an an Illustration
Murphy immediately returns to the overarching theme of unfairly disproportionate reparation payments the DDR was forced to pay for Nazi Germany's crimes. While the DDR had little help dealing with this enormous sum, West Germany's modest payments were largely offset by Marshall Plan assistance, which was implemented to maximize American influence and investment for capitalists across the Atlantic. On page 93, Murphy presents a table detailing "the relative advantages of communism and capitalism in Germany". While there are some capitalist benefits (fewer shortages, more travel freedom, etc.), they are outnumbered 15-7 by communist benefits (no unemployment, more rights for women and children, much less crime, simpler tax system, etc.). In the rest of the chapter, these comparative advantages are individually discussed.
Chapter 3-A Detailed Autopsy of the Collapse of the Superior System in Divided Germany
In Chapter 3, Murphy contextualizes the historical events concerning the DDR and other peer nations. This includes the heavy losses the USSR, for example, incurred during World War II. "Approximately 20 million Soviets lost their lives in the fight against Germany", compared to the relatively small American casualties, "counted in the hundreds of thousands". The USSR was far more involved in the war than Western capitalist countries in defeating the fascists, but they paid the price dearly.
Murphy highlights the legitimacy of the DDR political framework compared to its capitalist counterpart—East Germany's constitution was approved by East German voters (Dietz, 1983). The same could not be said for West Germany, whose founding document was crafted under heavy American supervision and without approval of the West German people.
The next section, entitled "Secret Police and Political Repression", refutes bad faith Western claims about excessive Stasi force and other policing-related issues. In fact, "West Germany spent more per citizen than East Germany on overall internal security..." East Germany employed a policy of de-escalation as well: "the Stasi often tried to talk people out of future actions against the state, instead of trying to prove them guilty and send them to prison (Riecker, Schwarz, and Schneider, 1990)." Perhaps as a result of their more caring approach, along with "a general environment of greater social security and equality", East German crime rates were 1/10 of those in West Germany, where "secret police is more geared toward the goal of punishing, imprisoning, or terminating enemies of the state." (Schultz, 1982) West Germany and the modern United States have a lot to learn from DDR policing.
Another section details the Berlin Wall and its surrounding discourse. An attempt to curb illegal black market West German trade was one of the main reasons the wall was erected, and a vast majority of East Germans understood this (Lahann, 1998). And the Western claims of mass migration to "escape" from the communist bloc were overwhelmingly a myth. "Far less than 1% of those East Germans who visited West Germany chose to stay there."
Later on, the chapter captures the "fall" of communism in the DDR, which parallels and overlaps with events in neighboring communist nations like Hungary and the USSR. For more information on the "fall", YouTuber and one third of the esteemed The Deprogram podcast Hakim profiles the events and conditions that led to the USSR's downfall beautifully.
Chapter 4-A Comparative Analysis of East and West German Financial Systems in Light of New Evidence
The sudden introduction of capitalism to Eastern Europe caused immediate and widespread social and economic chaos. "...the IMF (1996) reports that Gross Domestic Product fell by over 40% in Eastern Europe over the interval 1990-95." This is especially impactful coming from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an explicitly neoliberal organization (and effective puppet of the US state) that routinely withholds aid from countries in the Global South until they adopt market-based, neoliberal policies, regardless of the will of the people and the terrible track record of these approaches. Production in the DDR fell by 60% in the 1990-91 period and unemployment skyrocketed to 40% ("if the mass of part-time workers were counted as unemployed"). It would take many years for the new economy to even approach East German levels. Considering this evidence, it is unsurprising that "only a third of the population in eastern Germany felt better off economically than before (Junge Welt, 1991)."
Finance is one of the topics of discussion here; Murphy touches more on the impact of disparate reparations in East Germany, the DDR's state ownership of "all land and businesses with more than ten employees" and expropriation of Nazi/war criminal wealth, and the process of making investments in both East and West Germany. One larger point that stood out to me, accompanied by several specific examples, is the strong motive for individual capitalists and capitalist organizations to hoard resources and capital, even when these actions artificially restrict human needs (housing, food, etc.) and are, more broadly speaking, very inefficient.
For part of the chapter, Murphy ponders potential economic scenarios that could have occurred if East Germany had been treated the same as its western counterpart. Murphy also provides a table demonstrating the far superior economic growth rates in the East. One of the greatest crimes committed against late East Germany and its people is profiled: "In return for limited economic aid, the West German government persuaded the East German government to change the official exchange rate from 1:1 to 3 east German Marks for 1 West German Mark in January 1990 and to eliminate strict import and export controls.", which "effectively reduced East German wealth and income by 2/3 (Murphy, 1992a)". Even myths arguing the superiority of capitalist consumer products were directly challenged: "East German products were frequently demonstrated to be superior in unbiased scientific analysis (like taste tests without brand names)".
Chapter 5-An Applied Investigation Into a Plan for Easing the Transition to Economic Competitiveness Using East Germany as an Example
I will not go into too many details here, but Murphy presents his own comprehensive economic plan that could have greatly eased the transition to capitalism (including the currency conversion dilemma), at the very least. His plan was first published in 1990, right in the middle of the merging of East Germany and West Germany.
Chapter 6-A Detailed Evaluation of Currency Crises and Balance of Payment Problems in the New World Order
Murphy further discusses the currency crisis that all of Eastern Europe experienced during this time frame. Russia was one example, where the "shock therapy" of American neoliberal economist Jeffrey Sachs gutted the Soviet Union and allowed a small group of criminals along with a handful of Western and Russian oligarchs to seize power. One virtually unknown American even ended up with a sizable chunk of the new Russian state. Hyperinflation, massive reductions in domestic production and employment, and widespread poverty abounded in the new capitalist nation. The price of basic necessities ballooned to 250%, leading many Russians to desperately sell their family heirlooms and other personal belongings on the streets of their cities. Life expectancy dropped six years from 1991 to 1994 (the largest life expectancy drop in a context without war), as alcoholism, suicide, crime, and other harmful impacts dramatically increased.
Murphy also proposes "Policy Options to Avoid Currency Crises in the New World Order", which include a "rigid monetary policy, imposing capital controls, increasing relative protectionism, and improving productivity", with explanations of each part of the proposed solution.
Chapter 7-A Summary Political Analysis of USA World Domination
In the final chapter, Murphy explains some of the consequences of "Global Americanization". These include violent military occupation of "more than half the countries of the world (Catalinotto, 1997)", which continue today.
Murphy notes the "hypocrisy in the USA advocating free trade at the same time that itself employs protectionism". The US only supports "free market" policies because it sits on top after accumulating "such a large amount of capital from plundering the world for so long (through both trade and military conquests...)". Perhaps US foreign policy could best be summed up as "Rules for me but not for thee". Murphy briefly acknowledges the then freshly perpetrated war crimes that the North Atlantic Treaty Association (NATO), the United States, and other Western capitalist nations committed against Yugoslavia, complemented by supporting far-right terrorist groups in the region and the "opening of the sex-slave trade in Kosovo under NATO occupation (Feinberg, 2000)".
Murphy also details the consequences of capitalist hegemony back home in the States, including the two party corporate duopoly and the privatization of police and the prison system, while stressing the dangers of the "new capitalist world order".
Murphy has hope for a better world. For one, we can learn from the revolutionary struggle of East Germany, the USSR, and other socialist experiments. We can also organize collectively in our own nations for better working conditions, liberation of oppressed groups, and much more. Murphy provides potential solutions to democratizing the media and unraveling the thick layer of propaganda that Americans have been victim of for decades, which would be a major catalyst for radical change.
Thanks for reading this far. If you are interested in reading the whole book, I may be able to provide you with a copy to borrow; just ask!
Comments