Why does democracy work and communsim fail?

Question

during cold war

Answer 1

Because people want to be free!  When people are left to make their own decisions and chart their own courses they work harder to achieve solvency!  If the government is telling you how much money you will get each month, where you will live, where you will work....you will never move beyond the rut the govt has stuck you in!  Free societies are ALWAYS more succesful, richer, and more advanced.  Communism has NEVER stood the test of time the way democracy has.  The only exception would be China and even there progress is taking its toll on the comunist regime.

Answer 2

One reason is that communism involves centralized planning, universal employment, and in general a tightly regulated system.  While utopian in theory, in practice it does not reflect the irregularities of reality.  

Suppose a drought causes crop yields to be below "plan".

In a democracy, prices adjust to reflect the scarcity, and farmers are free to choose whether to try the same crop next year, or switch to a crop that does better with less water.

Under communism, prices are tightly controlled, which means available supplies vanish immediately, and a "black market" develops.  The farmers do not benefit from higher prices, and are told what to plant, whether or not they think it is a wise decision.  Multiply this sort of behavior across a million farms and factories, and it greatly handicaps communism.

Some maintain that the most successful example of communism was practiced by the American Indian prior to the arrival of the Europeans.  Lookup a fascinating book named "1491".

Answer 3

Well, there is nothing that excludes communism from being a democracy.  In fact, Karl Marx indicates in his communist manifesto that the masses will use democractic means to take state control of property and the means of production in an incremental fashion.  

Free enterprise requires the rule of law not democracy.  Democracy, is the rule of the mob and the law can change at any time.

The simple reason communism always fails is that it is practically impossible for a leader, group of leaders or an entire government bureaucracy to determine what a states millions of individuals actually need or how best to provide it for them.  So failing to be able to provide for all the various wants and needs of the population the only path left for the communist is to force all of the individuals into a rigid conformity of sameness.  

To do this the individual is crushed out of existance by the state and reformed into the cookie cutter version of a citizen.  Those that cannot be remolded are discarded.  Productive output drops to a subsistence level since there is no incentive to produce and shortages increase until the communist state deteriorates into ruin.

Answer 4

A communist government is usually imposed by force.  Therefore it has to be maintained by force. Eventually the oppressed rise against it.

Answer 5

As stated, this question is more a question of why capitalism helps a democracy.  Communism usually has no such fall back economic system.

Capitalism helps democracy succeed.  It's not absolutely necessary, but it helps.