By Andrew L. Jaffee

What happened to Muammar Gaddafi’s jamahiriya, the socialist “state of the masses?” Reality happened. One by one, the socialist/communist states created during the 20th century have either collapsed or co-opted the free enterprise system because… capitalism is dynamically adaptive, while communism is stolid, glacial, and discourages creativity. “Vietnam has embarked on an extensive reform program which aims at developing a market economy…” China’s economy would make Marx and Engels turn in their graves. So it goes that now Libya is engaging in free market reforms:

The Libyan government is to lay off 400,000 people - more than a third of its workforce - to ease public spending and stimulate the private sector.

Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi told parliament the number of civil servants had become excessive.

The main problem with these socialist/communist “reforms:” absolute, centralized state control is maintained, just as Lenin insisted, further making Marx and Engels turn in their graves. The “modern” interpretation of communism conveniently ignores the basic tenet of the utopia ideology, the (democratic) workers’ committees which were supposed to rule society. We must thank Lenin for an inability to trust the common man short-term, because the “ends justify the means” long-term.

So the fall of Libyan socialism not only reinforces the economic clueless-ness of socialism, it ensures that more Soviet-style governments will continue to fall until there are none left. The question of absolute state control will also be addressed eventually, as starting the free market experiment lets the genie out of the bottle, and people whose material needs have been met will inevitably demand that their mental and spiritual needs be met — and the only way to meet those higher needs is with democratic freedoms.

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Related: Arab/Muslim World, Economy, Communism / Socialism, Africa

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