The walls of your room need to be repainted, and large rodents are roaming through your tiny kitchen. You open the fridge to find left over porridge from the day before, and you smoke a cigarette that is filled with pieces of shredded wood. Turning on your analog tv, you watch the military march in celebration of the country leader’s birthday. You commute to your job at the civil service office and get back at 8 P.M to sleep. The same pattern is repeated every day. Of course, the previous scenery doesn’t fit your day-to-day experience at the floral Miami beaches. Instead, it paints a picture of the average day of a malnourished citizen in a dystopia. Dystopian societies have been depicted in several novels and movies, with dull and depressing themes that would persist in poor, isolated societies. However, the economics of dystopian societies prevail in the modern world with different magnitudes, and it backfires in almost every application.
The economics of a dystopia are backed by several beliefs and implementations, including excessive governmental controls, abolishment of international trade, and a highly militant economy. Moreover, the complications of such policies are felt the most by the brainwashed citizens, as isolation from the world economy hinders their socio-economic situation, pushing them into extreme poverty.
The ruler commands, and we, as loyal subjects, heed without delay!
In dystopian societies, the government controls everything. This communist governmental approach abolishes the existence of the private sector, as the government is the sole entity responsible for the production and distribution of consumer goods. This leads to a high loss in efficiency and provides no room for innovation. With a highly inflexible market, the citizens of the dystopia are faced with limited product offerings. For instance, the whole population might drive the same cars (Given they can afford it), smoke the same cigarettes, and eat the same dish every day. Furthermore, excessive government intervention in production leads to high imbalances between supply and demand. Citizens of dystopian will face a daily consumption quota, meaning that they have limited access to food, gasoline, and recreational activities, leading to an artificially poor and malnourished society.
The logic behind excessive intervention leads back to the Marxist societal view suggested by the German economist Karl Marx. Marx believed that to terminate the evils of capitalism and free market economies, the government must prevail as the sovereign producer and owner of goods. In his writings, abolishing social classes and eliminating the class struggle was the only way to stop a potential revolution lead by the working class. Jokes on him, his views were the main blueprint towards building a highly dystopian society as depicted in novels and movies. Funny enough, real world applications of his theories were implemented, and of course, they all failed drastically.
Take the disbanded Soviet Union as an example, a large state consisting of several communist states. In the Soviet Union, poverty rates were extremely high, with whole families having to live in a single flat. Moreover, the government policies implemented by the Soviets hindered mobility of the citizens, with the government forcefully allocating citizens into areas with low rates of urbanization. Even though the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, deeming its economic model as inefficient, dystopian economies still sustain in North Korea. North Korea depicts an extreme dystopia, with the government controlling each and every aspect in the lives of north Koreans. The citizens of North Korea are brainwashed through propaganda and a systemic educational system. Moreover, they are prohibited from accessing information, and have zero knowledge of the outside world.
International trade? Never heard of it!
According to mainstream economics, countries engage in international trade to derive higher levels of economic welfare. When a country trades with another country, they specialize in the production of goods that could be produced more efficiently. This means that it costs them less and consumes less input resources to produce. Specialization has been the cornerstone of the capitalist economic thought, suggested way back by Adam smith and members of the classical school. Since we are talking about communist and highly centralized economies, trade Specialization is a concept that flew over their heads. As the state produces the whole caboodle, it can’t achieve efficient production. The sources of production are limited, this includes labor and machinery, and the government will struggle to allocate those resources as needed. Moreover, without specialization, production costs are likely to be higher. This is due to specific goods needing certain climates, dexterity, and resources.
Adding salt to the wound, Stagnant economic growth is also a symptom that countries who don’t engage in international trade suffer from. Those countries do not enjoy the advantages of large production scales, which helps in cutting production costs. Finally, and most importantly, their deprivation of international markets limits increases poverty rates and leads to lower social welfare.
Get in line!
You know the feeling that eats at you when u know you have done something wrong and are about to get punished for it? That is the fear that citizens of a dystopian society feel every day. The government doesn’t only intervene in production, but also in the personal life of the citizens. Citizens are only allowed to dress in a certain way, think in a certain way, and engage in limited conversations. Government uses fear as a tool to keep citizens in check. You might be subject to scrutiny, random home searches, and social stratification. If your fridge contains Coca-Cola instead of Comrade-Cola, you will most likely be used as a scapegoat, and get hanged in a public street so that people can see your failure in abiding to the state laws.
Citizens also have limited choices when it comes to education, career paths and even personal relationships. Any person deviating from dictated societal norms shall face the severe consequences written down by The Big Brother. Furthermore, dystopian societies are the breeding place of violent crimes. Due to restrictions on education, labor, food, and personal freedom, citizens may find themselves inclined towards committing murder, robbery, arson, and vandalism in order to survive this hell hole they call the motherland.
Conclusion
I would suppose that Marx and his fellow economists meant good when they laid down the foundation to their theories. However, if something works on paper, it isn’t guaranteed to work in real life. Those economists have neglected the consequences that might arise from such a model, as citizens of those countries have their own beliefs, goals, and dreams. So no, treating people as factors of production isn’t the way to a rainbows and butterflies. Thankfully, this model has proved its failure in the real world, and the only potential good that could come out of is a revolution of the hungry and deprived man.