In a conversation over coffee a few weeks back I had the pleasure of hearing from an immigrant from Poland, who many years ago became an American citizen and has raised her family here, proudly. But she too is concerned about the trends she sees in this country, recognizing a number of eerie similarities to growing up in Poland under communism.
Similarities to communist Poland? How can a freedom-loving capitalist nation be compared to a communist one from the Cold War era?
In our lifetime, the great political struggle we have known is the battle between capitalism and communism. It’s what we grew up with in school, what framed our sense of patriotism, and propped up our sense of right and wrong. That juxtaposition allowed us to view capitalism simply as good.
As long as capitalism existed in our minds within the framework of freedom – and communism did not – that was an effective, even if oversimplified, lesson we could all understand and appreciate. Of course neither is inherently about freedom as an economic philosophy unless you extrapolate anticipated reactions of their government and the consequences of those reactions. Both make a case for ultimate freedom. Both make a case for a lack of it.
The big difference is that communism failed miserably to achieve its ultimate goals in the 20th century, while capitalism came out looking much better as the United States flourished. The benefit of the Cold War was that with only two stark choices, the labeling of good and evil was simple.
Fast forward to today, though, and it is less about capitalism and communism and more about the creep of authoritarianism regardless of the philosophy, leaving us in position to scrutinize what we’ve believed to be good all our lives. For some, as long as we aspire to capitalism we remain free. That view becomes more dangerous every day.
During that coffee conversation, what first caught my attention in our discussion of her life experiences growing up in Poland was her education. She was halfway through school when Poland broke away from the communist bloc. She grew up learning one version of her country’s history, then suddenly, within a few years she was learning the true history of Poland, including its struggles and triumphs throughout history. It was no longer the communist-written and approved version of history, but a broader perspective there were many nuances to it. The West wasn’t evil, and Poland had a rich history before the “glories” of more than four decades of communism.
She then talked about how her father owned his own business, but couldn’t really succeed, earn contracts, or escape the scrutiny of party officials without being a party loyalist.
Beyond the economic pressure put on workers and business owners was the reality that she and her family regularly knew or heard about people being arrested, disappearing or being put on trial for crimes that hardly seemed legitimate.
The more she shared, the more I felt like she could be talking about right here, right now.
Republicans right now, while they talk about freedom and liberty out of one side of their mouth, want to define that for us all, and tell us what parts of history we can and can’t talk about. Where the truth is most inconvenient, they simply rewrite it and erase the reality.
The president has instituted the most unapologetic version of pay (me) to play economics we have ever seen. Law firms, media outlets, and institutions of higher education have had to pledge loyalty, millions of dollars, or both to maintain their freedom to operate. Corporations have ultimately gotten on board in hopes of protecting their investments and returning a higher profit.
And every day we watch someone else the president sees as a political threat or opponent indicted on a crime, while a beefed up and heavily armed federal agency snatches hundreds off the streets every day without any guarantee of justice.
We should never think capitalism is somehow immune to authoritarianism. Recognize that it is a thirst for power and control that leads us down this path much more than the simple label of communism or capitalism.
Whether you support universal healthcare or not. No matter what you think of school vouchers, free lunches, or DEI initiatives, don’t sit idly by and allow a single man to become more important than our Constitution or our ability to think differently and voice those opinions.
Featured Image: “AMERICA!” by mdghty is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.