April 2007 Issue
Why the Bunnies? Command Economies and Paradise
Boris Vabson '09North Korea’s leadership recently offered up its solution to that country’s hunger woes. Their remedy hinges on six bunny rabbits, newly imported from Germany, that are of the particularly giant variety. On account of the rabbits’ gargantuan size, the North Koreans claim that the creatures constitute a panacea, if bred in sufficiently large quantities. But do these giant bunny rabbits, in fact, make up the wave of the future?
Unfortunately for North Koreans, these bunnies cannot be so classified, as they demand more in food, per pound of meat extracted, than conventional rabbits. North Korean leaders, however, have not paid notice to this inconvenient truth, nor is there any need for them to. Insulated dictatorial, and therefore in no way beholden to the people, the leadership can afford to be concerned with gigantism rather than with efficiency. The leadership can survive while serving only personal whims, huge bunny rabbits among them, rather than the interests of the people. North Korea thus remains a nation mired in poverty and enveloped by starvation. South Korean citizens and leaders, for better or worse, are plagued by the same strains of self-interest as afflict the leadership of their northern neighbor. How is it, then, that South Koreans came to revel in Western-level prosperity, despite human shortcomings, while these same shortcomings persist in driving North Koreans to starvation? Virtually indistinguishable from one another in 1953, how is it that one of the nations now offers little besides crackpot bunny schemes, while the other manufactures cutting-edge electronics? The difference is partly rooted in the power of the free market system (which South Korea embraced), and particularly in that system’s capacity to harness human shortcomings to society’s benefit. Explanation is provided, furthermore, by the inherent weaknesses of North Korea’s economic system, one of command, the mistaken assumptions upon which it is based, and that system’s tendency to magnify human shortcomings rather than harnessing them.
Though North Korea currently represents a pitiable, hopeless entity, half a century ago, it, along with other socialist nations, was widely hailed as the wave of the future. To many, it represented a potential heaven on Earth, as well as an entity capable of propelling humanity to its utmost potential. Even many conservatives thought the best that could be done was to slow, and not stop, the inevitable socialist advance. A variety of assumptions bred such hopes in socialism, assumptions that history has since revealed as flawed. Among them were attitudes that absolute power need not corrupt absolutely, that a free society is possible without the presence of a free economy, and that governments can gauge citizens’ preferences better than the citizens themselves. Many also thought that the individualism embraced in the West served solely to facilitate greed, and clamored for its overthrow. In individualism’s place, the collective was advocated, which, it was strangely asserted, would foster a society perfect for the individual. Most of all, it was presumed that human nature was not fixed, but malleable, and that individuals could be crafted into more preferable forms. These presumptions were widely embraced, as supporters of socialism strode boldly forth. The phrase, “We are all socialists now,” acquired justifiable use. Backing for socialism, ironically enough, was greatest not among the downtrodden workers, but in the midst of the intellectuals and academic elites. Yet, in one instance after another, extending from Korea, to Europe, to the kibbutzes of Israel, socialism failed to meet expectations. Hells, rather than the anticipated heavens on earth, resulted. They served, in part, as a pronouncement, that those who are smart are not always right. Questions also arose, primarily concerning why increased government economic intervention did not result in greater prosperity and a better life for all. Fault, many would later conclude, lay with the underestimation of human nature’s intransigence.
Human nature did not turn out quite as malleable as hoped. Humans, contrary to Locke’s views, and especially those of socialists, entered into this world not as tabula rasas. To this end, human traits and predilections did not represent mere results of socialization.
Instead, as most modern-day evolutionary psychologists (Steven Pinker among them) would attest, humans arrive outfitted with innate traits, imprinted unto them through gen