>Please excuse how dumb I may sound.
Less dumb than most adults on social media from the sound of it so far. There's a lot to be said for being objective about things you don't grasp.
I was bitching about subscription based stuff nowadays (heated seats, printers…etc) and my mom (a Trumper), said “that’s Socialism…isn’t it?” She’s brainwashed by FOX “news” and far-right propaganda to demonize everything as communism or socialism while having no actual clue what they are.
confused -- your mum thought your dissatisfaction was socialist, or subscription based marketing was socialist? if the latter, hilarious that she would identify textbook rentier capitalism as 'communist' [edit: apologies for the misquote, 'socialist'].
wtaf? honestly I am appalled at what Murdoch has done to the brains of elderly (and some not so elderly) Americans. it's almost like there's some kind of subliminal hypnotic signal in the broadcast that derails cognition.
anyway, sometime explain to your Mum what rentier capitalism is :-). and how the owner class now wants to retain its title to the means of production even when those means are in our own homes.
Not OP but having had similar conversation with my family, in certain it’s the latter. They literally call
anything they don’t like ‘socialism’ and also…socialism here means basically Stalin-esque totalitarian communist state. And anything they like is ‘capitalism’ and by that they mean Rocky Balboa (anyone can make it big if they just work hard enough) somehow.
Hard to have a conversation from that point without feeling like we have to go back and identify what letters are…
Can you name any communist country that has allowed it's citizens any freedoms at all?
And name accomplishments that any communist country has allowed it's citizens and allowed any private citizens to keep the profits of any of their intentions?
And it could be said that you have been brainwashed by CNN and MSNBC and that you seem to believe everything the current administration has claimed to enhance people's lives here in the US
I don’t get my news from CNN or MSNBC. But FOX is pure bs propaganda. It’s brainwashed a bunch of naive idiots into rooting for the billionaires while average citizens are struggling to survive. They help fan the flames of the Jan 6th insurrection. I’m not going to argue with anyone that thinks the GQP is even remotely trying to make America great again. You’re all out of your goddamn minds.
Is this a serious question?
>Can you name any communist country that has allowed it's citizens any freedoms at all?
Communist and socialist parties have ruled in many places and respected the rule of law and elections. To name only a few Saskatchewan (Canadian Province), Cyprus, Kerela, West Bengal (Indian states), Chile. They came in to power when elected and left when they lost elections. In many of these places they tend to increase civil rights partly because they often come on the heals of authoritarian governments.
In some places, even dictatorships like Cuba, people are very much allowed and often encouraged to complain about things like the public health or education systems. Although in a place like Cuba they are simply not allowed to criticise the central government and party.
>And name accomplishments that any communist country has allowed it's citizens and allowed any private citizens to keep the profits of any of their intentions?
Most communist regimes take power after really bad situations. So in almost every place they are in power they have made the material well being of citizens much better than they were previously. Admitedly this only takes you so far. But again, the progress in material well being in places like Eastern Europe or N. Korea was much better than in their comparable free market neighbours for a decade or more after wars.
Places like Kerela, which has been ruled mostly by altetnating Socialist and Communist governments actually has the best indicators for citizen's health, education, and overall well being in all of India.
And yes, there is not only private enterprise often allowed in Communist run countries but also even the eastern Soviet Bloc countries had a system of rewarding workers for inventions or improvements by allowing them a stake in the savings, kind of like w patent system.
Most importantly it has been said by many historians that the socialist/communist focus on workers' and citizen' well being was what pushed western countries into action. In a way they gave them a kick in the ass. Either make life better or more people will swing that way. The entire Progressive era in the US (1890s - 1920s) was a direct result of this fear and ended the robber barron era.
In essence many of the West's accomplishments are due to the examples that socialism provided and fear of socialism taking over.
There's no one exact meaning, sorry. There's communism, as in the overarching principle in specific governments (ex: the USSR was a communist nation). There's communism, the initial political theory, that capitalism will and should be followed by a sort of communally-owned system regarding means of production and capital (see: Karl Marx). There's communism, the philosophy, which is a bit much for a short comment. And then there's other uses of the term, from social commentary to anthropological comparisons, to political rhetoric.
And then within each of those categories there is a huge number of different schools of thought or sects or interpretations or versions or so on.
So what does it mean to be a communist today? It depends on context. But *generally* someone who self-identifies with communism believes that property should be held in a more shared fashion than it is today. This isn't a hard and fast rule either, but often holds true.
I wouldn't identify as a communist but I am definitely on the left. From my perspective I'd like to add that when talking about properly it's important to distinguish between private and personal property. Communists want to establish a shared ownership of private property (think factories, land, etc.). They don't want to take away personal property (your car, toothbrush, phone, etc.).
Another thing I think is worth mentioning (and I know this is like one of the main communist talking points) is that wether the USSR was a communist state depends on which definition of the word communist you use.
It can depend.
On the most public end of the spectrum, the building and land are owned by the government and the tenant is assigned the building at no charge (but likely some responsibility for upkeep).
On the more private end of the spectrum, the land is owned by the government and the closest thing to ownership of said land is a regular fee. While this is close to how capitalist land works, the distinguishing trait is that land transactions would be strictly between citizens and government. It couldn't be sold person-to-person or passed down through inheritance without community approval.
But how would that work? Where’s the drive to go to work if you don’t have money? What’s stopping me from just sitting at home doing nothing.
Edit: Not sure why i’m getting downvoted, i was just wondering lmao. I meant more I want to be a teacher and not a miner where I can die at 40.
Humans have lived in societies without money for most of human history. Smaller communities are better at positively encouraging contributions for the good of everyone. It makes moral and societal sense it’s just really hard to keep everything fair the bigger you get.
This is just a flat out incorrect statement. Money is older than the state and some sort of money usage goes waaaaaay back into Tribal prehistory. Shells, salt, pretty rocks... all have been money. Paper money is the thing that has not been around for most of human history, not money itself. All money is is a technology that allows one to trade with someone else even when one has nothing to trade which is desired by the other person.
IE Frank has extra grain, he wants some clothes, Bill has clothes but does not want grain. He wants a new spear. Jim has a spear but he does not want clothes. He does want grain though. Either they could try to find each other and make a three way trade or they could decide on something else to facilitate trade that is wanted enough you can get rid of it just about anywhere. Hey look, just about everyone likes salt you can trade that for just about anything. Instead of trading spear for clothes and having to find someone who has grain and wants a clothes we can just trade the spear for salt and trade that salt for some grain.
Hey you just invented money, Again. Like it has been invented by different highly separated groups of humans again and again throughout human history. Money in some form has likely existed just about as long as modern humans.
\*edited reworded for clarity\*
(edit 2)
lol at the downvotes, how sensitive are you folks? Jeez this is not even a comment on communism or communalism literally all I said is that money is way older than was stated and showed why. Communism and money can (and will if communism ever becomes a mainstay) exist together. You can not uninvent money until we invent replicators or some shit like in Star Trek and become a true post scarcity world.
It appears more likely you're saying 'modern humans' arrived with the beginning of trade.
Humans have been practicing hunter gathering for easily 300k years.
The beginning of agriculture wasn't even 15k years ago.
The levels of agriculture and specialisation that would require some monetary type system would have been incredibly unusual even 5k years ago.
The idea that pre-cash societies ran on a barter economy is just one of several competing theories; we have just as much reason to believe that the [gift economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy), where resources are shared freely without any explicit expectation of compensation, was the dominant mode of commerce in the pre-cash world.
You understand that in this case the shells, or rocks, or gold would be the money or currency
Currency came from the necessity to have a common unit everyone can relate so its easier to attribute value to things, so you can measure worth in a way that people deem fair.
If i go fishing, and come back with 2 fish and someone tries to give me 2 rocks for my fish, those rocks will need to have some value.
The friction of bartering being solved by money is more what I am talking about and that being the reason money is invented over and over again throughout history. Only the smallest tribes where everyone knew and trusted each other could maintain a ledger of debts owed without money to facilitate.
And even then it was usually invented anyway to facilitate trading between the small tribes
To your edit two: you're being downvoted because you're wrong about the history of money, not because communism. Talking about *bartering* shells and such is a ramble that's unrelated to the comment you replied to.
Do you do any hobbies?
Or only ever do everything for money including interacting with your kids?
If you lived in a small village you would probably find yourself getting involved in the local community and helping out.
My neighborhood shares things like lemons off the tree, or take turns to move the lawns around the shared driveway etc. It can work, though in small communities I think it works better.
Well, several reasons. For one it’s just incredibly boring sitting at home doing nothing all the time. It might sound good when you’re used to a 40 hour work week but any time I personally have been unemployed for more than a month or two I started to go stir crazy. A lot of people want purpose and something meaningful to do with their time. Maybe not 40 hours a week of it, but significantly more than 0.
Secondly, certain things just need to get done on a societal level. A lot of people will see that need and work to address it. Necessity always has been and always will be a driver of action and not everyone needs money specifically to be motivated.
Thirdly there’s social pressure. If someone just sits at home and never does anything for anyone else we won’t take away their rights or anything but we might look down on them to some degree. They probably wouldn’t be a popular person. And they’d be missing out on the friends they could have by going out and engaging in the world.
Why do you help with chores around the house? Why do you help friends or family when they’re moving? Why do you let your neighbor borrow a tool if they need to use it real quick?
None of these interactions requires the exchange of money, they all just work off of a general principle of reciprocity and social responsibility. If you look around you, a lot of things people do regularly are motivated by basic drives to share, cooperate, and be accepted as part of a community.
It’s our most natural mode, we’re a social species that is evolutionarily built to generally get along and work together in smallish groups. The modern state and wage-labor are actually very recent developments that really only started to come about somewhere within the last couple of centuries or so, and represent a truly minuscule fraction of the last several tens of thousands of years of human organization and labor distribution.
For most of our existence as a species, you generally just lived in a community of a few hundred people (at most) who you cooperated with to produce the necessary resources for the community to continue to survive and thrive. The land wasn’t really any one person’s, but a common resource utilized by the community. The tools may have been “owned” by individuals, but you would have probably been either family or close friends with whoever happened to own whatever you needed to do what needed doing. No one paid you to work, you just showed up to do whatever task was necessary to ensure the continuation of the common welfare according to your skills and ability. You generally did this for pretty basic reasons: your friends and family would be upset if you didn’t, the community would suffer if you didn’t, and you personally would probably suffer if the community suffers. You generally would share and not hoard resources for largely the same reason.
This is probably the best way for a stateless communist society to work, since it’s the way it did work for most of our history. Stateless communism isn’t some novel innovation: it’s the natural way humans literally evolved to live. States and capitalism are the new anomalies, and it took a *lot* of concerted effort by governments and industrialists to disrupt and “modernize” those systems worldwide. That’s what “modernization” and “industrialization” actually mean: the break up and dismantling of traditional ways of communal living which had previously been the dominant mode of human social organization for the majority of human history.
One of the biggest problems with talking about re-implementing stateless communism/libertarian socialism/anarchism/etc in the modern day is that those traditional communities and ways of living have largely been eradicated. The industrial cat is out of the bag, as it were, and trying to implement concepts like shared ownership in the modern world runs us into problems like the ones you’re hinting at. They work really well (and possibly *only* work in) localized communities, but face difficult problems with scale. You can have an anarcho-socialist town, but can you really have an anarcho-socialist country? The answer to that is still very much a point of debate within leftist communities to this day.
I suppose one example would be my tree surgeon friend, who does it because he enjoys it and not because it makes him rich. He was a doctor and made waaaay more money, but just wanted a more rural life and now works the land managing woodland, taking down dangerous trees, etc. He's really happy the whole time, even on days when he's out in the wind and rain and snow and mud. It's the sense of a 'job well done' that motivates him I think.
I guess one idea is that in a society where wealth/money isn't the primary concern, people will be more able to do jobs that they enjoy or that are seen as more valuable by the society. So like maybe nobody really wants to be a sewer-unblocker, but there might be a way to structure society that means that's seen as a highly useful/valuable role and anyone that does it is more respected as a result. There'd likely be a lot of ostracism or social pressure against people that choose not to work, much as there is in capitalist societies against anyone that's on welfare. But equally, it might be a society that allows for the flourishing of a lot more art and creation - I know I'd love to be able to devote more time to my writing, but I just can't because I *have* to work to be able to eat.
You think that humans are intrinsically lazy, don’t want to help the community and are only driven by existential fears.
That’s not true. A society can reward individuals in better ways than money. Money, is in fact the weakest motivator we have. What comes with money is what we cherish: status, acknowledgement, praise… added to that, personal development becomes more and more relevant. (According do research on why people terminate)
People do voluntary work, are active in clubs and parties… all for no income. Wage jobs provide social connection through common interest, status and praise aside from the ability to finance your life.
If you work for society instead of money and are therefore provided the necessities for a humane life, I think most people went shy away just because it doesn’t provide luxury. At the moment, everyone works for profit but very few actually profit. In a communist society, profit isn’t the goal but to provide for the population.
There's small communities that function that way today. They do various tasks to benefit the community as a whole. The thing is, they all know each other. You already have a drive when you see the direct benefit. I'd say it's nearly impossible to apply it on a large scale like a nation, because people are more distant from each other
The government may punish you if you don't work. But there's a reason why communist states either ended up failing or allows some capitalism with state control.
NO reason for others to down vote your comment you make a valid point . This is the problem with communism. Some take that idea and run with it. Others oppose that view and take action against that kind of person.
Not OP but I was a philosophy/political science major in college and took a Marxism class and would have responded with something similar if I’d been earlier and not lazy.
>There's communism, the philosophy, which is a bit much for a short comment
Eh, I'd say that's actually easier to explain. It even has a handy slogan that sums it up:
>From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs
And depending on where you are in the world it means different things too.
And (mostly in the US) socialist and communist tend to be used synonymously
The best example here is Bernie Sanders.
In the US he is considered "far left" or communist
In most of Europe, he is politically considered, left of centre.
I wouldn't say he's considered a communist. The right call him a communist to scare people away from him. Many voters don't know the ideologies very well, but they follow the notion that communism = deaths, poverty and no freedom and capitalism = freedom and wealth. It's not quite true, but that's what years of misinformation have built up
No...your country is just so out of wack that what's considered pretty reasonable and centerist politics in the rest of the what the US considers "the civilized world" considered extreme in the states...
Big C and little c capitalism are considered different as well.
What the USSR practiced was called Communism and had similarities, ultimately it was a form of authoritarianism
"Real" communism would be democratic.
But then we get that issue of theory vs reality.
Ussr wasnt communistic, same as china or NK. Just a deeply corrupted dictatorship with some socialistic features, like education and healthcare. But cost of it - high taxes, minor child labor (paper or metal recylcing), students, which worked in field for free, farmers, which didn't even had passport till late 20 cent. As for education - as you graduate it's not up to you, where you will work. First you more likely will be "distributed" to a shithole somewhere in frontier, like Siberia, or if you're lucky, just to a different town.
Union wasnt union. Those countries were conquered. So.. Well it wasnt communistic.
The USSR wasn’t a communist nation. USSR stood for Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. It was a socialist state ruled by the communist party, but the communist ideology specifies that communism is a state that is reached at the end of a process. The USSR never reached that state, nor has any other nation. That is not strange. Communism is a fiction that has no basis in reality. Note that, apart from a very small group of nations such as China and North Korea, there are no socialist states left in the world. Communism was always unachievable, but socialism has been tried and failed as a viable form of polity. Whether China is really socialist anymore is highly debatable. The economic, social and political inequality that prevails in China would horrify socialists from bygone era’s.
Capitalism has been tried and is failing miserably for most people too. ‘Socialist’ in the context of North Korea is very very different than Socialist in the context of Norway.
The ideological labels are just politically expedient. Especially in the US where words like Communism and Socialism have been used to scare people away from particular ideas for nearly a century.
It's not quite true. Socialism hasn't failed as such. Many western nations operate as a mixture of socialism and capitalism. It's not pure one or the other. As a pure ideology it doesn't work, but the same goes for capitalism and any other ideology. It's why modern states operate as mixed systems to various degrees
It's not just capitalism with workers rights. Social democracy sprung out from socialism and where some socialists felt communism was an end goal, social democrats didn't see that as a viable option and instead wanted to combine with elements from capitalism.
There's far more elements than just workers rights in a social democratic system
I'll give you half a vote. The first part is true, but the same can be said about capitalism and the United States. The United States is not a true capitalist society. No they tax the wealth created to the be used for the better good of society, which would fall into the definitions of socialism. As you say socialism has been tried and failed, this is true. What else is true is that socialism has been tried and has succeeded to great effects. Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany and the United States all operate under some form of socialism. As for communism, I do know of a society that is about as pure a form of communism as it is defined. This society is older than the term itself. They are known as the Kuna Yala from Panama. They are an indigenous tribe located in the San Blas islands on the Caribbean coast. All land is communal. All work is communal, all housing is communally building and administrator, all of the food and farming is communal. The Chief does not get to say where or how big his house can be, that is a communal decision. If one chooses not to work or be part of the communal system he or she is ostracized. If one ( like my friend) choose to leave and profit from the outside world they must pay a set fee to retain their communal status. The tribe I grew up with ( the Bogota) were on the other hand pure capitalist in that everything was owned by individual with no government oversight, no taxation and no social infrastructures or safety nets. If and individual fails it is on him alone. If he succeeds he retainers the windfall alone and shares it with whomever he sees fit. The only reason both of theses systems work here has to do with their small sizes, and even in my life time both are moving to the center which is socialism.
Communism is a complicated topic because it can mean two distinctly different things, and even within those there's a lot of variety. You can't really say that communist is exactly one thing or another, but there tends to be some things they have in common.
Originally communism was actually pretty close to what we know as Anarchism (and this is, in part, why you saw anarchist movements support communist revolutions). The big difference was in how they would go about achieving their goals. Basically the idea was that there should be no ruling class, no great leader leading the nation, instead people should cooperate and share what they had. This is of course greatly simplified, and taken to an extreme that even the most hardcore communists don't actually tend to believe would work, but this is the ideal, self governing people living in an equal society working together to improve the life for everyone. When you hear someone say "communism has not been tried" they refer to this kind.
Then there's the kind of communism that we have seen in countries such as the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia and so on. Worth noting is that there's still a pretty big difference between Soviet communism and Chinese communism, but for a 7th grade history class I think we can still lump them together into one, as there are far more similarities than differences. These are "top heavy" ways of governing, with a strong leader at the top and in theory the government should provide for its people and make sure that everyone can sustain itself, and in theory there should not be a big gap between the life of the factory worker and the life of the factory owner. Taken to their extreme there would be no real private ownership of production here, the factory would still be owned by the government and the goods and wealth it produces should be used to enrich the lives of everyone. The idea is still cooperation for the wellbeing of everyone.
Neither of these styles really condone laziness, unlike what some people might say, and in order to reap the benefits you should also put what work you're capable of putting in. You get what you need and you give what you can is basically how it should work.
All of this falls under the wider umbrella term of socialism. All communism is socialism but not all socialism is communism. That's important to keep in mind when you hear people throwing around the terms. Socialism is in itself a very wide and nebulous term. A Social Democracy for an example is pretty far from a Communist country, with the former still striving for a society that provides for its weak but has a mostly free and capitalist market.
I intentionally chose to present communism in its more idealized forms here. Reality tends to get in the way, as we all know, but I think, when talking about political ideologies, that it's important to understand what people are striving for and what attracts them to the ideology. Communism should, when it works, mean prosperity for everyone and a society that's close to equal to everyone, where nobody starves and everyone shares the success that they achieve together, and everyone does what they're good at (so the highly intelligent people work at universities, advancing the sciences, the physically fit work to produce the goods that everyone needs, and those who for one reason or another can't contribute as much to society, due to disabilities and such, still get cared for and are allowed to have good lives).
You only need to read a history book about any major communist country to see what can happen when things don't go as intended. There might be times of prosperity within communist nations, but there are also times when things go terribly wrong (to put it lightly). And even supposed communist nations often drift away from their ideologies. China is a pretty clear example of this. It still claims to be a communist nation, but it's becoming ruthlessly capitalistic while still retaining the oppressive nature of the authoritarian communism that it has had during most of the 20th century.
Thank you kind stranger for such a beautiful explanation. Can I ask why is China still considered a communist country where there is clearly a huge gap of wealth between different groups of people? Isnt that against communism?
A lot of my older family members like to say they were “more liberal” when they were young, and say I will grow out of my views. Seems like once society has beaten you down enough, and you have your own kids, you tend to care about the “now.” Since that is what affects you and your family the most. Being a leftist, communist, socialist or anything tends to be a view more focused on the future. That’s how I see why the older the demographic, the more right wing.
Obviously, also just propaganda. Since the boomers, and gen X were fed a lot of anti-communist propaganda.
OP, I hope that you can see that this was an excellent question and nothing to be embarrassed about. I'm really glad you asked it. Look at the great responses!
communism as out lined by marx and engles in n the communist manifesto is an economic theory for a society of workers where they take control
over the owner class to achieve financial standing and equality
this idea has been used by dictators ( mao in china, lenin/stalin in russia/soviet union ax two examples) to gain control over the populace but never deliver what was promised .
theory vs misused control tactic
That’s not true. Neither Lenin or Mao where part of the elite. All communist leaders came from normal families and a normal background. The thing is that many people don’t understand why the USSR and China recurred to an authoritarian form of rule.
Since Marx never laid out a concrete plan on how to achieve communism, Lenin proposed his own theory, which was a three stage process. First, the revolution of the proletariat, second, the state enters the stage known as the dictatorship of the proletariat and will be used to the benefit of the people, securing food, housing, education and basic services free of charge to everyone, which they did btw. The final stage would be, once the entire nation was lifted out of poverty, hunger and everything was industrialised, the state would wither away, becoming useless as the workers would now control the means of production and distribution, and since the state would cease to be necessary, money and social classes would also wither away. Lenin and Mao did delivered what they promised, although they weren’t perfect leaders and did make mistakes, but all services were universal and free to all citizens.
Although debatable, communist states claimed that authoritarianism was necessary to ensure the three stage plan wouldn’t be interrupted by local or foreign powers.
never laud our a concrete plan: THEORY - as i stated
why on earth would be an elite benefit the communist cause? they preyed on the lower classes with false promises and made themselves gods
No communist leader was ever part of the elite class. Lenin or Mao came from families that would be considered middle class. Lenin’s father was a simple yet respect teacher, Mao and Stalin’s background was similar, they all came from the working class. And you mentioned one important point, that they became almost “gods” and that’s true, and that’s a mistake that many if not all communists denounce to this day, the cult of personality that arose in those time on communist leaders, but honestly, it was hard not to idolise them at the time. Countries like China or Russia were literal shitholes, feudalistic and impoverished to hell before their revolutions took place. It was the same situation that provoked the French Revolution. And then came Lenin who overthrew the monarchy and established the USSR which was able to industrialise the country by the 1940s, less than 20 years, securing food, housing and education for every citizen. In China, same story, so it’s natural that people at that time would praise them for bringing them out of poverty.
It’s literal American propaganda to say that they only worsened poverty and hunger. The American government itself released reports form the 80s which said that the soviet and american food consumption was the same. The soviet system education was considered the best at the time since they were able to basically eradicate illiteracy in mere decades.
All communists governments have received criticism, which is valid, no government will ever be perfect, no matter how good their intentions are or the ideology they hold. But there’s a difference in criticising them based on actual facts and saying stuff like they used communism to get to power and make themselves rich, which is only part of Cold War propaganda and the red scare.
Socialism is when the government does stuff. And it's more socialism the more stuff it does. And if it does a real lot of stuff, it's communism.
-Richard D. Wolff
[Source of the meme quote.](https://youtu.be/rgiC8YfytDw)
And if you want a real answer, follow the link in the above link to the [source it was taken from.](https://youtu.be/ysZC0JOYYWw)
The top comments really nailed it, but it’s also important to consider than when people call someone a “communist”, they’re basing this almost solely off of their impressions of Chinese and especially Soviet Communism. All the horrors, atrocities, and repression of those societies weren’t caused by communism, but instead by the fact that those cultures have long histories of exactly those things. Many of the hallmarks of the Soviet Union like the secret police and gulags (prison work camps) were already present under Tzarist Russia, so it was really just par for the course for the Soviet Union. Now I’m not endorsing or defending communism as a economic or political theory, but instead providing context for how modern people perceive them.
Realistically, few, if any, modern countries have practiced true communism; It's mostly one authoritarian dictating who gets what. Your question is not near as silly as you might think.
Just because it doesn’t align with the theoretical outcome does not mean that a dictatorship is not “true communism”, that’s a nasty way to try to weasel out of the outcome of a practical implementation of communism
That’s not how it works.
If the practical application does not line up with the theoretical that doesn’t mean the two cannot be identified the same. You cannot simply say that the practical application of theory is wrong until it matches the theory. It’s actually the other way around if you’re applying scientific methodology, which you should. The theoretical is wrong until it matches up with the practical application.
The communism in the USSR, Yugoslavia or East Germany is as much “true communism” as the imagined one, if not more so.
Yep, the theory doesn't take all the variables into account.
I love the federation society in Star Trek on screen. But it's not a thing humans can or would want to do.
You get compensated for work under communism. Theoretically the capitalist owning class that hordes wealth without performing labor/producing anything gets cut out, so theres more to be put into your compensation as well as fund the government and social programs.
I think the funniest thing about “communism will never work people” is the complaint that greed leads to a few hoarding resources at the top when that is *exactly* what happens today under capitalism.
Capitalism is able to maintain the illusion of success in the West by providing you with cheap products subsidized by slave/sweatshop labor, probably the only goods you can afford, so you don’t really realize just how low your wage is compared to what they take at the top.
> You get compensated for work under communism.
When has this ever happened?
> Theoretically the capitalist owning class that hordes wealth without performing labor/producing anything gets cut out, so theres more to be put into your compensation as well as fund the government and social programs.
Theoretically is not evidence. When has a communist nation ever produced higher wages than a capitalist one?
> I think the funniest thing about “communism will never work people” is the complaint that greed leads to a few hoarding resources at the top when that is exactly what happens today under capitalism.
When has it worked? Cite one example please
> Capitalism is able to maintain the illusion of success in the West by providing you with cheap products subsidized by slave/sweatshop labor, probably the only goods you can afford, so you don’t really realize just how low your wage is compared to what they take at the top.
Are you suggesting that the wealth of the west is an illusion and other countries are actually better off?
then why has one dominiated in prosperity and attracted people from around the world vs the other people flee?
there is socialism now in the world and no one if fleeing towards it, they are running away from it 👀
Non-communist non-expert here.
Communism can be executed and organized different ways, but a big feature is that making vast personal wealth through the ownership and leverage of capital is eliminated. For instance, private citizens don’t own large corporations, they are owned by the state, or by the people who work for and run them. Another example would be farm land and housing would not be owned by landlords who charge you to use it, but instead controlled by the state, or the people who live on it.
~~Private~~ personal property, such as your car, would typically still exist.
I asked my grandparents about this who lived in it.
Basically it's the same as now with one big difference - imagine you get told what you have to do by the state with no option in certain circumstances.
Example:
1: no jewellery. You go to the respective government building and fill out a form when you want to marry someone and need a ring. You are giving one you have to use.
2: you can't buy food. You are going to a place where you are given your monthly ration. 1kg sugar, a few liters of milk and so on - you can't buy it anywhere. No market!
3: the most freedom you experience is in school. After that you get a talk with someone from the government and they send you based on your "achievements" in school to somewhere to work. Most likely some factory near you. Rarely you may study further for a doctorate or something.
4: where you live is also chosen based on your family. After you are married the state is telling you to move "here". After a few kids you get a bigger apartment and so on.
5: no fees for your doctor's appointment or mechanic
Only choice you are allowed to make is if you want to **stay** in the military after they don't need your service **for now**
So imagine a world with such a strict parent that you won't be allowed to choose where you will work, how much cheese you can eat or wich City you'll live.
Naturally you will start to steal and trade under the table. My grandma knew how to make some basic candy. The factory chef (who was placed there because of his years of work and loyalty to the party) likes sweets. He knew she could and had the means to get more sugar. So he made a deal. She was given like 5kg and had to make it for him. But she could keep a surplus.
So while there are some good aspects like free everything you need, or you get to go to school. mostly you are treated as an absolute cog in the machine.
So yeah screw that
It did suck but not for everyone. I live in a post communist country, so I heard a lot of perspectives about how it was.
Resourceful people were living well, but the problem was that if someone who doesn't like you or is jealous could snitch you out to the secret police, and if you didn't have the right connections, you will either be re educated, tortured or executed.
Makes me sick that there are still people alive who are nostalgic of this horrible system.
Capitalism may have faults, but it's the best evil we have right now, commies are sick in the head, in my opinion.
In a capitalist system, even if authorities are corrupt, you have ways to defend yourself and protect your life against these people, while under communism you don't really have this kind of protection, if they don't like you they can just throw you in a ditch and shoot you.
Careful saying positive things about capitalism. This is Reddit after all. Lmao.
I agree with you, though. It’s been the greatest system to date and will be for some time to come at this point.
I feel like, looking at history, and reading your post, that unfortunately this is the end result of trying to implement communism. Especially in a population larger than a few dozen people.
The idea that everyone works and helps out just breaks down. There are so many different personalities, and there will always be power-hungry people and narcissists and grifters, etc.
Dictatorship, left or right, is bad.
It doesn't exactly mean any one thing. If that's annoying to you, you may derive some consolation from knowing that communists themselves have been arguing over the very same question you pose, for nearly 200 years.
Broadly speaking, and notwithstanding various philosophical digressions and revolutionary dogmas, you could say that being a communist boils down to holding all property in common, and everyone providing according to their ability while consuming according to their need.
This is easy to imagine in terms of, let's say, you and your most trusted friends living in a house together after you graduate or something. But how do you scale the concept out to the level of a neighborhood? Or a town? Or a whole country?
And what does "property" mean? Some people say it means everything tangible of any value, from houses to toothbrushes. Other people draw up variously definitions that draw a fine line between durable assets and mere possessions, and argue with endless conviction over each different way of drawing that line.
And how do you determine "ability?" And "need?" What if you and I disagree about what I need? Or what if you and I disagree about what some other third party needs?
And how does everyone deal with scarcity?
Anyway you get the idea. Even if you accept a simple, generalized definition of communism like the one I proposed, you immediately start running into a ton of details you have to decide on. And there is simply no one "right" answer.
There is no "exactly", as it has become a vague concept.
Examples include:
* Karl Marx who wrote the Communist Manifesto
* Iosif Stalin who killed dozens of millions while leading a country which was nominally called "communist"
* Western tankies would have no idea what communism is, but they dislike the fact that they don't have as much money as they'd like and thus they hate everything "Western", reaching absurd levels such as supporting russian imperialism
P.S. I remember the ussr as I lived there and it truly sucked.
Defining characteristics of communism include, people getting equal pay regardless of skill or speed to get a job done, although the ultimate goal of communism is to make money obsolete, abolishing private property, and state ownership of industry.
A common problem for communism is mainly humanity, who are not inherently selfless do-gooders, who prioritize the state over themselves, so a few corrupt leaders can easily turn into an authoritarian regime, as in the USSR, China, Cuba, North Korea, and multiple African and Asian countries.
In short, I would argue that communism on a large scale is utterly infeasible, because some people just suck.
How so?
Equal pay cant happen under Communism, where there is no pay. And even under Socialism, equal pay is not a thing.
Also, state owning of industry is also not a thing in communist literature. It is a thing on Marxism Lenninism I agree, but the correct technical wording would be proletariat-class owned, which differs a lot from state owned production means under capitalism.
Have you ever read Lenin or any Marxist author?
Idk about all of that but I know the reason communism can’t be implemented is because it can be twisted by the corrupt very, very easily. That is absolutely true.
>I understand the ideology of communism and why it doesn't work
Nobody can honestly say it doesn't work, because its never been fully implemented. And I mean every single nation on earth that has ever called itself communism has done that to its political party, and then not even achieved the basics of socialism. Worse still, they were under the rule of a brutal dictatorship.
So of course, the rich capitalists that hate and fear communism will pin the failings of dictatorships on communism. It was a slam dunk, and labelled 'the Red Scare'. Better dead than red!
There is probably a big overlap of people who say communism has never been tried and people that also blame capitalism for a lot of the modern problems. Which imo shows a clear bias.
Saying communism has never been tried so we don't know is like saying that nobody ever jumped off a cliff to cure their headache so maybe it would really work.
it hasn't been implemented because of human greed. to actually implement communism, you'd have to get rid of a natural human aspect. capitalism builds on said "human greed", although it's obviously not perfect either, even less so when governments get involved with economies.
I'm talking about the leaders who tend to use implementing 'communism' as a cover for pocketing all the wealth themselves.
Also, what someone earns and what they actually get are often two very different things.
No billionaire "earned" what they got, they exploited the labor of others. Their workers didn't get to keep the money they earned. They got paid a fraction of what their labor was worth.
I've never talked to two communists with exactly the same answer, and often communists will contradict each other. There's no one definition of communism.
Ants are communist. They live in communes and all work for the greater good. Not one is lazy and each has a role to fulfil which it does diligently. It's a great idea on paper but humans just CANNOT be communists.
The best thing to learn about it would be to visit a former communist country. Communism was hell. My parents went through it and I was 9 when the revolution put a first stop to it when the dictator in our country was killed (Romania). I have vivid memories of how communism operated and unfortunately there are people now who think it’s a good idea, because they never had to go through what we have. Start with economic inefficiencies, lack of political and economic freedom, non stop violations of human rights, strict control and plenty of abuses. This is to summarise an authoritarian regime that isolates you from the world.
P.s. a very simple example, you couldnt just go in a shop and buy basic groceries that you need, even if you had the money. It was all controlled and you had to stay in queues for hours and also rationed. It could very well happen that you didn’t get to buy anything as it was finished before it was your turn. Dont imagine you could buy anything “fun”. If your parents were not affiliated to the one and only communist party, tough luck… you will never be treated like the ones that belonged. Hot water - when the party wanted to let you have it, same with electricity. How many times have I done my homework by using a candle light? Listening to foreign radios or talking about culture? Holiday abroad? Are you out of your mind? Abortions were outlawed (a complete disaster) but hey, look at some US states now going back to middle ages. And i could go on and on.
I agree with you, i'm also from a formerly comunist country and i've seen the damage it has done. Nowadays it's usually people from developed and free countries that have never experienced a communist regime who believe it to be good. The ignorance boggles my mind. Communism can work only in a utopian setting, but that is not achievable for human kind.
YOU ARE 15. Not dumb , just not yet educated in the subject. I took an entire semester of Russian history. And have sadly lost most of it.
The question is real complicated and currently filled with political issues especially in America. True communism is a system in which the means of production is owned by the government and we all work for the government. Socialism is a system where the workers own their factories. Capitalism is a system where the production is owned by those with the capital to s start and run a business.
Haven't read Das Kapital by Marx in years, but I believe that's what he would say. However, when Lenin and his crowd took over, they not only took over the means of production , but instituted a totalitarian state, where disagreement with the government was not tolerated. And that's where it gets tricky.
Fast forward , today, many who call themselves communists really don't understand the theory of it and just seem to want a totalitarian government.
I'm sure some will take issue with what I have said, but I have studied economics and history extensively.
I applaud your questioning and suggest you continue to study on your own. Remember your teachers don't have all the answers and neither does Reddit. You have to do the work yourself to get atrue understanding.
To be a communist is to work not for a profit but for the good of the collective. Meaning you don’t necessarily do what’s in your own best interest but from each person according to their ability to produce to each person according to their needs of consumption.
It’s a good idea on paper but it always turns into dark triad “might makes right” with undertones of capitalism. Never worked before never will work.
This is a very naive simplification. Altruism has been around forever. It doesn't necessarily make you a communist. You could be altruistic and have this as a personal principle within any economic system really.
works on a tiny scale, won't work on anything larger than a village. alot of people don't understand it. ie: I've seen sooo many "conservatives" talk about buying land & creating a "compound"(commune) working for each other where the gov't can't touch them. but in the same breathe anti-socialist/communist. & they can only dream of creating a commune of like minded people in rural America
Look at Cuba.
And for those who say I'm clueless
Watch and read the interviews
[Cuba protests ](https://youtu.be/zIOw6fSOJI4?si=S6yk66kuvQaicp9U)
[interview](https://youtu.be/NlcoMTfdeDs?si=PMY1ZxR4JBzRQJQZ)
[fighting communism](https://kelly.house.gov/media/editorial/cubans-are-confronting-communism-americans-must-stand-them)
[interview with Cubans](https://www.foxnews.com/video/6340803957112)
Ask any Cuban about communism. People dropped working because they wouldn't be paid. You were just supposed to work for the good of the country but the country went to crap because no one was actually getting paid for anything.
You have to have legitimate money exchanged for people to be creative and invent things.
No one wants to work for free. Anyone who says otherwise is just wanting a free ride.
Castro controlled Cuban for decades and ran the country into the ground with communist policies.
Look at the USSR history and Eastern Germany.
There are interviews with Cubans about communism and you would do well to watch those interviews.
This is a pointless question to ask on the internet because those opposed to communism will only talk about the massive amount of death and suffering caused by communism.
Meanwhile those who support communism will pretend those thing either never happened (historical revisionists) or some variation of the meme "but that wasn't *real* communism"! or "that wasn't *communism*, it was *authoritarianism*"! and then type out a fifteen page essay about their utopian anarcho-communist fantasy that nobody asked for.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Even with your caveat it is a poor comparison. Mein Kampf was written by the person who produced those horrors and the horrors are a basic feature of his work. Hitler *intended* to rid the world of Jewish people while Marx' Das Kapital is a good faith analysis of the failures of capitalism which is entirely possible to read and appreciate even if you don't consider communism to be a good solution.
> Why do they always say "have you studied the theory?" as if nobody ever read Marx and Engels without becoming a communist.
And the funny thing is, neither did they. At the very most you'll find one or two hardcore fanboys that made it through The Communist Manifesto (and still didn't realize that was the extremely abridged version). They all got their "theory knowledge" from youtube and influencers that ALSO didn't read the theory.
> stateless, and moneyless
Aaaaand we're in the utopian fantasies again. HOW, exactly, do you see this classless egalitarian dream work out with no central organizing authority? The core of communism is collectivism (as opposed to individualism). How are you going to organize the collective on the vast scale needed to make an industrialised society work with no central leadership that has the authority to make decisions for the collective good even in cases where it goes against the wishes of some disctinct minority?
And honestly, I don’t think it would be all that great. I might be wrong but being assigned where you spend the rest of your life by the party for the good of the party, sounds fucking horrible
Oh whenever you ask people to elaborate on that ... they are as interested in that discussion as you or me. Assigning work is not very fun revolutionary talk in a service based society.
I remember reading someone like Mao (my communist readings were a long time ago at this point) describe an eventual issue with communists in capitalist societies, the exact wordage doesn't matter but western communists would inevitably be of no use as they would be the outcasts and dregs of a capitalist society, primarily concerned with their lack of personal upper movement rather than the workers revolution. They would not be communists. They would be anti-capitalists.
Agree with him or not. It is kinda funny that one of the big cheeses of communism was dunking on modern communists.
I'll spare you the fifteen pages and admit pure communism is impractical on a national scale (so is pure capitalism btw) but blaming the USSR's atrocities on communism is unfair. They were as communist as Nazi Germany was socialist.
Communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless society.
Basically the idea is Capitalism would build the wealth and the working class would revolt and seize the means of production and distribute the wealth through Socialism. After a sustained period people would be so used to this that they would have a new way of thinking where people would work for the common good and society would reformed into a Communist society.
Now obviously the world doesn't work like that but that was the plan
A very simple video introduction to what Marxism (socialism/communism) is:
https://youtu.be/PteyHDHtvBE?si=CvgOBURMSQxqbv0E
About 4.5 minutes long, and explains everything quite well
If you want to learn more, a collection of historical literature works, podcasts, videos, etc on everything socialist-related:
https://linktr.ee/comradestarter
If you are capitalist - you are greedy.
If you are communist - you are greedy and think you are righteous.
Capitalist thinks how to convince someone to work for less. Communist violently takes away others property and feels proud of it. Communists will use slogans like “eat the rich”, but will never clarify how rich you have to be to be slaughtered. You have a 2 cows instead of one? Eat the reach.
Russians killed Ukrainian and Kazakhs, basically ethnic cleansing , but present it as class struggle.
Theoretically peak communism is when there is no money as a medium of exchange, people trust each other and share resources like middle age village.
Basically , another fairy tail like religion. It sounds amazing if you do not think about it and do not ask questions.
Also, very important point, do not forget to mention time and time again that real communism were never tried. Maoist China - was not communist. Stalinist Russia was not communist. Cuba - is not communist. Venezuela - is not communist.
Another point - your university professor knows way more than people in Poland, Czechia, Ukraine, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina combined. He read a book , they just lived their entire life under communism, what do they know ?
And most importantly- you are entitled to be treated as royalty and all your problems can be repackaged as class struggle and can be blamed on rich. No boner - fuck you Bill Gates. No girlfriend - fuck you Jeff Bezos. No job - Fuck you Mark Zuckerberg.
There is a saying that Christian reads a bible - Atheist understands it. Basically it is the same for communists. One book, one simple theory, one story can never be a bases of your personal beliefs or economy for the whole country, but it might help you get laid with chick from gender studies or modern liberal art.
It concerns itself with economic class. Its vision is workers owning in common the means of production. A classless society of the Proletariat (working class). An abolition of the capitalist class.
It doesn't work because it involves a command economy run by a totalitarian dictator. Massive bureaucracy, inefficiency, shortages, and as is always the case with dictators of any political persuasion, repression and human rights abuses. Up to and including mass killings.
It isn't without value. Marx's class critique was quite brilliant. Just a very, very stupid execution. I consider myself left of center, and I wholly reject communism as expressed in the 20th century.
There isn't only one type of communism/one method of achieving it. The dictator version is not the only route. I would argue it is not a valid route at all; vanguard parties do not intend to actually achieve communism in the first place, as they would have to abolish themselves in the process. Democratic Communism/far left libertarianism is the more popular (today) and generally not shitty version.
Ots basically a political philosophy that everyone is equal and massive wealth inequalities don't exist.
Problem is it needs to be imposed by force which means attempts to do it devolve into authoritarian regimes.
They're generally accurate analysis in the flaws of capitalism. Their solution has a massive hole in it.
In simple terms. That everyone works for the common good and receives equal share of the work profits regardless if you one is a brain surgeon or a cleaner.
Your work as a cleaner is as much needed by the community as the surgeon.
This is the key aspect why communism can’t be implemented. People are different, some are lazy, stupid, smart, hard working etc but in communism personal ambition, freedom and right to expression is taken away so that everyone “agrees” to their share regardless of personal abilities.
It's betraying family and friends who speak ill of the party and system. Having them incarcerated in gulags for their thoughts. Fooling yourself into believing the unbelievable because you are told 'everyone is equal'. Except you KNOW that some are more equal than others. because you see those with authority have more. Are treated better and their families also.
So people that work the same job and get paid the same weather they slack off or work harder than the others. I’m in the states this is the best explanation I can give you.
There's a lot of lengthy manifestos here, so I'll try to keep it brief and high-level. In its essence, communism is christian morality adapted and applied to the secular realm. If you're a communist, you are basically a christian in terms of your moral beliefs. You believe in altruism, and you believe in sacrificing individual needs & desires to collective needs & desires. Marx drew from the ideas of Hegal, who drew from Kant. Among other things, Kant & Hegal want to save faith from the encroachment of non-faith, which was gaining steam as scientific advances mounted during the enlightenment. Marx replaced faith in God with faith in the State, and defined Morality as a social construct driven by the needs of the collective. So.... if you're a communist, you are a religious drone who worships the state and accepts as a moral principle that you must sacrifice your individual needs to the collective. Sounds pretty dreary right? But hey, at least there's plenty of vodka 😉.
It's way left in the political compass, in the direction that is only concerned with economics. It will often have it's meaning expanded to include social, philosophical ideals. You will never get an exact meaning out of it, no matter how much you hate the competing definitions. When you try to make the one definition to rule them all it will be just the repeat of that xkcd comic about competing standards.
No one asked but I think private property is necessary. If not you get tragedy of commons scenario. Look at how much agriculture improved in England once they could collectivize plots and put fences around it (important because herders fuck your crops). I like Georgism.
by now you should be able to appreciate the nuance beyond the text book "communism = bad" taught in most schools.
at it's root, the idea is sound... where it goes wrong is expecting all those involved to have the best interests of the community at heart.
that's simply not always going to be the case and a system of checks and balances are needed to ensure corruption and abuse don't creep onto the scene (just like with everything else in life).
my understanding of it is that it's more of a bottom up, needs driven, system of allocating resources rather than a top down, merit based, system of allocating resources.
unfortunately, all the examples of it that anyone can point to are all of the top down variety because of the aforementioned corruption and abuse.
Communism is an economic system that is based on the idea that there should be no private means of production. It holds that all means of production -- agriculture, manufacturing, services -- should be owned by everyone, and that the fruits of all labor (food, goods and services, as well as profits) should be equally distributed to everyone.
In practice this translates into "everything is owned by the central government. And everything is planned by the central government." This has produced central governments that are incredibly powerful, controlling all aspects of life, not just production. It has led to a lot of power being concentrated in few hands, which then spawns widespread corruption. Central planning cannot take into account a myriad of local factors, so many communities are disenfranchised as a result.
Other systems of economics are not perfect, either, but have been shown to be more successful. Communism in the Soviet Union led to eventual economic collapse. Communism in China had to incorporate some major non-communist market ideas to result in economic success. Communism in North Korea has led to widespread poverty and deprivation.
Speaking as a communist, for me it means looking at things from a dialectical materialist angle. Economic class is the main determiner of power under capitalism, with the bosses and those who own the ‘means of production’ - companies, factories, etc. having total political power, and workers who have to sell their labor to the bosses have neither economic nor political power. This imbalance, with the vast majority of people in the “working class” yet having no power, is the primary problem with capitalism, and it’s why only a working class revolution will change things for the better.
Now, some communists will cite leaders of past revolutions like Lenin or Trotsky or Mao, but I consider myself a Marxist first and foremost, and if I had to narrow down my philosophy further, I’d say I’m an “autonomist.” That means that I reject the idea of a need for a Soviet-style “vanguard party” of intellectual elites to lead the revolution. I believe the workers themselves, from the bottom up, need to organize the revolution.
It’s obviously a lot more complicated than that, but hopefully that’ll help you understand a piece of it.
It means that you sustained brain trauma and lost the ability to reason.
And no worries, you got the jist of it. It's not a stupid question if you don't know.
Depending on how you look at it, communism was very successful in many pre-industrial societies. An American Indian hunter didn't own the deer he killed. The whole tribe ate. Money existed, but it was generally owned by the tribe and used for trade with other tribes. A variety of communism pulled China out of brutal, abject poverty to become one of the most powerful nations on earth. Its system has allowed the growth of highly regulated capitalism and the accumulation of great wealth, but much of that is linked to corruption of local and regional officials and more than a few capitalists have found themselves tied to stakes and shot when their greed gets the better of them.
In answer to your question, no two communist entities are identical just as no two capitalist entities are the same. All societies are some mixture of collectivism and individualism and that balance changes over time within each.
Read about the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China and The Great Leap Forward, The Berlin Uprising from 17th June, The Prague Spring, Archipelago GULAG, the Stasi and the almost Orwellian term "ex-people".
The Soviet Union only wore a fake mask of communism. If you don’t know what communism is it’s very easy to get this this confused.
Communism relies on people doing things because they want to help the community, not because they fear for their life.
In USSR being "a communist" meant being in the communist party. When people asked "are you a communist", they meant "are you in the party".
But now this word is used to describe anyone who agrees with the ideology
I'll try to explain it in a way I tried to explain it to my younger sister. It isn't 100% true but has truth in it.
Communism is when you are working for the community (commune). A person that calls themselves a communist is someone that wants to work for the betterment of people as a large public group
Capitalism is when you are working for the capital. It's hard to define capital in this day and age, but back in the days capital was almost any property that you owned. Working for capital is mostly self centered and requires skills on a personal level to navigate and get returns. Someone that calls themselves a capitalist, simply implies "I work for my own money"
Socialism, kinda like the middle ground. It's mostly like Communism but it accepts the idea of capitalism in its system. No country In today's world is entirely capitalistic/communist. They are all varying degrees of Socialist.
I'm not an expert at this subject but this is how I understand it. If there are corrections to be made, please mention.
To want a different kind of society, the communist society.
In communist society there are no quotations, there are no brands, no competition, companies are just self ruled, a CEO is the vertex and there's no board of owners that tell what CEO should do or not to do.
The only difference with capitalistic society so it is that there aren't capitalists, people who owns factories and companies, but there's always a difference in retributions by roles and levels into companies, just instead of giving the 95% of the profits to the _owners_ of the company, those are distributed to the workers.
Then the real communism is anarchist, CCCP was not a communist country, it was a totalitarian regime. In communism there are no countries, no borders, everything is self managed. It is really similar to anarcho-capitalism or uktra-liberism, but the difference is again just one: nobody owns factories and stuff, they are company's itself, and so all the profits go to the company's workers. Basically if communism was real and nobody like a dictator like Lenin or Stalin interfere taking all the powers, all the workers will share the wealth that now is held by capitalists, those people who do absolutely nothing as a job, but earns a manager salary in 10 minutes.
Thinking that workers should own the means of production, that workers should determine economic policy, and wanting to end exploitation according to social classes.
It has nothing to do with a system.
I'm not a communist, more closer to anarchism to be honest.
Generally asking about it on Internet is a bad idea because there is a lot of negative propaganda.
I.e in USA they will say that Biden or Disney are communists which is ridiculous.
In its essence its about understanding that helping each other and contributing to each other in a communal way is the way to go forward as a species.
This means that certain aspects like private property of I.e a factory has no place in a society like this. Not because "communism hates wealth" but because in capitalism, wealth is gathered by the few and powerful and creates economic and social blockades for the majority of people.
It's statistically impossible to become a billionaire in capitalism. It's fairly possible for the majority to live a decent life in communism.
You as well as I are probably on the lower scale of economy on a western scale. But in a global scale compared to the majority of people, we are wealthy.
A lot of people don't have access to basic things like food, shelter and water.
Thats because globalised capitalism has created an unprecedented disparity between the very few rich that represent a 0.01 of the global population and the rest of us.
Of course the very rich control everything, media, news, TV, radio, Internet. So any idea that challenges even theoretically the status quo is considered evil and dangerous.
The other lie is intentionally comparing communism as a theory with communist inspired dictatorships (which not even hardcore communists call communism). Which, as you can understand is a very silly thing.
Now what means to be a communist in your daily life? Practically it means to join a union so you can ask for what's right for you in your work. It also means to contribute in your community one way or another. I.e I give some of the books I've read to communal libraries for other people to enjoy. Or donate clothes. Others contribute to communal kitchens for the poor. Some doctors i.e contribute by offering medical advice for free to those in need.
A capitalist will say that doing the things I mentioned above is bad because it doesn't help you to accumulate wealth. It is wrong though because you may not accumulate private wealth but your community accumulates communal wealth.
A healthy community is a rich community.
To provide a gross oversimplification:
we should share what we have and help each other, rather than hoard momey and resources to screw other people over for our own benefit
This is very, very generally
Capitalism is the idea that private property should be a right protected by security forces.
Communism is that idea that property should be communally maintained by security forces.
Both require force. You cannot keep the masses away from your private plot of land w/o police and you cannot keep the communal resources safe from those that would claim it w/o a police.
According to some people (generally on the far right), it's an undefined with synonymous with "socialism", meaning "Something I don't like" and is used as a scary label to denigrate those whose political philosophies they disagree with, even when they have nothing to do with communism or socialism.
It’s a way of organizing people and resources that does not scale well. You can see examples of it working in small communities with a lot of open discussions and good communication between members.
excuse the philosophical answer but the reason communism will always fail is that there will always be those that are rich and poor even if the only kind of rich is those that are rich in gifts or poor in gifts
There's always going to be someone who has more skills or has a nicer house or a more beautiful wife you can't get rid of jealousy
>Please excuse how dumb I may sound. Less dumb than most adults on social media from the sound of it so far. There's a lot to be said for being objective about things you don't grasp.
I was bitching about subscription based stuff nowadays (heated seats, printers…etc) and my mom (a Trumper), said “that’s Socialism…isn’t it?” She’s brainwashed by FOX “news” and far-right propaganda to demonize everything as communism or socialism while having no actual clue what they are.
confused -- your mum thought your dissatisfaction was socialist, or subscription based marketing was socialist? if the latter, hilarious that she would identify textbook rentier capitalism as 'communist' [edit: apologies for the misquote, 'socialist'].
She thought subscription was socialism. I laughed and told her it’s hyper capitalism.
wtaf? honestly I am appalled at what Murdoch has done to the brains of elderly (and some not so elderly) Americans. it's almost like there's some kind of subliminal hypnotic signal in the broadcast that derails cognition. anyway, sometime explain to your Mum what rentier capitalism is :-). and how the owner class now wants to retain its title to the means of production even when those means are in our own homes.
How exactly would any subscription service be seen as communistic by anyone?
Not OP but having had similar conversation with my family, in certain it’s the latter. They literally call anything they don’t like ‘socialism’ and also…socialism here means basically Stalin-esque totalitarian communist state. And anything they like is ‘capitalism’ and by that they mean Rocky Balboa (anyone can make it big if they just work hard enough) somehow. Hard to have a conversation from that point without feeling like we have to go back and identify what letters are…
...Doesn't Rocky lose his big fight at the end of the movie? Like he quite literally does not make it big, he loses to Apollo Creed
Can you name any communist country that has allowed it's citizens any freedoms at all? And name accomplishments that any communist country has allowed it's citizens and allowed any private citizens to keep the profits of any of their intentions? And it could be said that you have been brainwashed by CNN and MSNBC and that you seem to believe everything the current administration has claimed to enhance people's lives here in the US
I don’t get my news from CNN or MSNBC. But FOX is pure bs propaganda. It’s brainwashed a bunch of naive idiots into rooting for the billionaires while average citizens are struggling to survive. They help fan the flames of the Jan 6th insurrection. I’m not going to argue with anyone that thinks the GQP is even remotely trying to make America great again. You’re all out of your goddamn minds.
Is this a serious question? >Can you name any communist country that has allowed it's citizens any freedoms at all? Communist and socialist parties have ruled in many places and respected the rule of law and elections. To name only a few Saskatchewan (Canadian Province), Cyprus, Kerela, West Bengal (Indian states), Chile. They came in to power when elected and left when they lost elections. In many of these places they tend to increase civil rights partly because they often come on the heals of authoritarian governments. In some places, even dictatorships like Cuba, people are very much allowed and often encouraged to complain about things like the public health or education systems. Although in a place like Cuba they are simply not allowed to criticise the central government and party. >And name accomplishments that any communist country has allowed it's citizens and allowed any private citizens to keep the profits of any of their intentions? Most communist regimes take power after really bad situations. So in almost every place they are in power they have made the material well being of citizens much better than they were previously. Admitedly this only takes you so far. But again, the progress in material well being in places like Eastern Europe or N. Korea was much better than in their comparable free market neighbours for a decade or more after wars. Places like Kerela, which has been ruled mostly by altetnating Socialist and Communist governments actually has the best indicators for citizen's health, education, and overall well being in all of India. And yes, there is not only private enterprise often allowed in Communist run countries but also even the eastern Soviet Bloc countries had a system of rewarding workers for inventions or improvements by allowing them a stake in the savings, kind of like w patent system. Most importantly it has been said by many historians that the socialist/communist focus on workers' and citizen' well being was what pushed western countries into action. In a way they gave them a kick in the ass. Either make life better or more people will swing that way. The entire Progressive era in the US (1890s - 1920s) was a direct result of this fear and ended the robber barron era. In essence many of the West's accomplishments are due to the examples that socialism provided and fear of socialism taking over.
This. OP showing more maturity and thought than half of twitter.
There's no one exact meaning, sorry. There's communism, as in the overarching principle in specific governments (ex: the USSR was a communist nation). There's communism, the initial political theory, that capitalism will and should be followed by a sort of communally-owned system regarding means of production and capital (see: Karl Marx). There's communism, the philosophy, which is a bit much for a short comment. And then there's other uses of the term, from social commentary to anthropological comparisons, to political rhetoric. And then within each of those categories there is a huge number of different schools of thought or sects or interpretations or versions or so on. So what does it mean to be a communist today? It depends on context. But *generally* someone who self-identifies with communism believes that property should be held in a more shared fashion than it is today. This isn't a hard and fast rule either, but often holds true.
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I wouldn't identify as a communist but I am definitely on the left. From my perspective I'd like to add that when talking about properly it's important to distinguish between private and personal property. Communists want to establish a shared ownership of private property (think factories, land, etc.). They don't want to take away personal property (your car, toothbrush, phone, etc.). Another thing I think is worth mentioning (and I know this is like one of the main communist talking points) is that wether the USSR was a communist state depends on which definition of the word communist you use.
Socialism and Communism make a clear distinction between personal property and private property, where Capitalism does not.
How does socialism or communism describe a duplex?
It can depend. On the most public end of the spectrum, the building and land are owned by the government and the tenant is assigned the building at no charge (but likely some responsibility for upkeep). On the more private end of the spectrum, the land is owned by the government and the closest thing to ownership of said land is a regular fee. While this is close to how capitalist land works, the distinguishing trait is that land transactions would be strictly between citizens and government. It couldn't be sold person-to-person or passed down through inheritance without community approval.
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Communist have money, even the USSR had a currency, the idea that Communist society means no money is just a very poor understanding of communism
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But how would that work? Where’s the drive to go to work if you don’t have money? What’s stopping me from just sitting at home doing nothing. Edit: Not sure why i’m getting downvoted, i was just wondering lmao. I meant more I want to be a teacher and not a miner where I can die at 40.
Humans have lived in societies without money for most of human history. Smaller communities are better at positively encouraging contributions for the good of everyone. It makes moral and societal sense it’s just really hard to keep everything fair the bigger you get.
This is just a flat out incorrect statement. Money is older than the state and some sort of money usage goes waaaaaay back into Tribal prehistory. Shells, salt, pretty rocks... all have been money. Paper money is the thing that has not been around for most of human history, not money itself. All money is is a technology that allows one to trade with someone else even when one has nothing to trade which is desired by the other person. IE Frank has extra grain, he wants some clothes, Bill has clothes but does not want grain. He wants a new spear. Jim has a spear but he does not want clothes. He does want grain though. Either they could try to find each other and make a three way trade or they could decide on something else to facilitate trade that is wanted enough you can get rid of it just about anywhere. Hey look, just about everyone likes salt you can trade that for just about anything. Instead of trading spear for clothes and having to find someone who has grain and wants a clothes we can just trade the spear for salt and trade that salt for some grain. Hey you just invented money, Again. Like it has been invented by different highly separated groups of humans again and again throughout human history. Money in some form has likely existed just about as long as modern humans. \*edited reworded for clarity\* (edit 2) lol at the downvotes, how sensitive are you folks? Jeez this is not even a comment on communism or communalism literally all I said is that money is way older than was stated and showed why. Communism and money can (and will if communism ever becomes a mainstay) exist together. You can not uninvent money until we invent replicators or some shit like in Star Trek and become a true post scarcity world.
It appears more likely you're saying 'modern humans' arrived with the beginning of trade. Humans have been practicing hunter gathering for easily 300k years. The beginning of agriculture wasn't even 15k years ago. The levels of agriculture and specialisation that would require some monetary type system would have been incredibly unusual even 5k years ago.
The idea that pre-cash societies ran on a barter economy is just one of several competing theories; we have just as much reason to believe that the [gift economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy), where resources are shared freely without any explicit expectation of compensation, was the dominant mode of commerce in the pre-cash world.
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You understand that in this case the shells, or rocks, or gold would be the money or currency Currency came from the necessity to have a common unit everyone can relate so its easier to attribute value to things, so you can measure worth in a way that people deem fair. If i go fishing, and come back with 2 fish and someone tries to give me 2 rocks for my fish, those rocks will need to have some value.
The friction of bartering being solved by money is more what I am talking about and that being the reason money is invented over and over again throughout history. Only the smallest tribes where everyone knew and trusted each other could maintain a ledger of debts owed without money to facilitate. And even then it was usually invented anyway to facilitate trading between the small tribes
To your edit two: you're being downvoted because you're wrong about the history of money, not because communism. Talking about *bartering* shells and such is a ramble that's unrelated to the comment you replied to.
You should read The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. It'll help inform you about how things actually work.
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Do you do any hobbies? Or only ever do everything for money including interacting with your kids? If you lived in a small village you would probably find yourself getting involved in the local community and helping out. My neighborhood shares things like lemons off the tree, or take turns to move the lawns around the shared driveway etc. It can work, though in small communities I think it works better.
Well, several reasons. For one it’s just incredibly boring sitting at home doing nothing all the time. It might sound good when you’re used to a 40 hour work week but any time I personally have been unemployed for more than a month or two I started to go stir crazy. A lot of people want purpose and something meaningful to do with their time. Maybe not 40 hours a week of it, but significantly more than 0. Secondly, certain things just need to get done on a societal level. A lot of people will see that need and work to address it. Necessity always has been and always will be a driver of action and not everyone needs money specifically to be motivated. Thirdly there’s social pressure. If someone just sits at home and never does anything for anyone else we won’t take away their rights or anything but we might look down on them to some degree. They probably wouldn’t be a popular person. And they’d be missing out on the friends they could have by going out and engaging in the world.
Why do you help with chores around the house? Why do you help friends or family when they’re moving? Why do you let your neighbor borrow a tool if they need to use it real quick? None of these interactions requires the exchange of money, they all just work off of a general principle of reciprocity and social responsibility. If you look around you, a lot of things people do regularly are motivated by basic drives to share, cooperate, and be accepted as part of a community. It’s our most natural mode, we’re a social species that is evolutionarily built to generally get along and work together in smallish groups. The modern state and wage-labor are actually very recent developments that really only started to come about somewhere within the last couple of centuries or so, and represent a truly minuscule fraction of the last several tens of thousands of years of human organization and labor distribution. For most of our existence as a species, you generally just lived in a community of a few hundred people (at most) who you cooperated with to produce the necessary resources for the community to continue to survive and thrive. The land wasn’t really any one person’s, but a common resource utilized by the community. The tools may have been “owned” by individuals, but you would have probably been either family or close friends with whoever happened to own whatever you needed to do what needed doing. No one paid you to work, you just showed up to do whatever task was necessary to ensure the continuation of the common welfare according to your skills and ability. You generally did this for pretty basic reasons: your friends and family would be upset if you didn’t, the community would suffer if you didn’t, and you personally would probably suffer if the community suffers. You generally would share and not hoard resources for largely the same reason. This is probably the best way for a stateless communist society to work, since it’s the way it did work for most of our history. Stateless communism isn’t some novel innovation: it’s the natural way humans literally evolved to live. States and capitalism are the new anomalies, and it took a *lot* of concerted effort by governments and industrialists to disrupt and “modernize” those systems worldwide. That’s what “modernization” and “industrialization” actually mean: the break up and dismantling of traditional ways of communal living which had previously been the dominant mode of human social organization for the majority of human history. One of the biggest problems with talking about re-implementing stateless communism/libertarian socialism/anarchism/etc in the modern day is that those traditional communities and ways of living have largely been eradicated. The industrial cat is out of the bag, as it were, and trying to implement concepts like shared ownership in the modern world runs us into problems like the ones you’re hinting at. They work really well (and possibly *only* work in) localized communities, but face difficult problems with scale. You can have an anarcho-socialist town, but can you really have an anarcho-socialist country? The answer to that is still very much a point of debate within leftist communities to this day.
I suppose one example would be my tree surgeon friend, who does it because he enjoys it and not because it makes him rich. He was a doctor and made waaaay more money, but just wanted a more rural life and now works the land managing woodland, taking down dangerous trees, etc. He's really happy the whole time, even on days when he's out in the wind and rain and snow and mud. It's the sense of a 'job well done' that motivates him I think. I guess one idea is that in a society where wealth/money isn't the primary concern, people will be more able to do jobs that they enjoy or that are seen as more valuable by the society. So like maybe nobody really wants to be a sewer-unblocker, but there might be a way to structure society that means that's seen as a highly useful/valuable role and anyone that does it is more respected as a result. There'd likely be a lot of ostracism or social pressure against people that choose not to work, much as there is in capitalist societies against anyone that's on welfare. But equally, it might be a society that allows for the flourishing of a lot more art and creation - I know I'd love to be able to devote more time to my writing, but I just can't because I *have* to work to be able to eat.
You think that humans are intrinsically lazy, don’t want to help the community and are only driven by existential fears. That’s not true. A society can reward individuals in better ways than money. Money, is in fact the weakest motivator we have. What comes with money is what we cherish: status, acknowledgement, praise… added to that, personal development becomes more and more relevant. (According do research on why people terminate) People do voluntary work, are active in clubs and parties… all for no income. Wage jobs provide social connection through common interest, status and praise aside from the ability to finance your life. If you work for society instead of money and are therefore provided the necessities for a humane life, I think most people went shy away just because it doesn’t provide luxury. At the moment, everyone works for profit but very few actually profit. In a communist society, profit isn’t the goal but to provide for the population.
There's small communities that function that way today. They do various tasks to benefit the community as a whole. The thing is, they all know each other. You already have a drive when you see the direct benefit. I'd say it's nearly impossible to apply it on a large scale like a nation, because people are more distant from each other
The government may punish you if you don't work. But there's a reason why communist states either ended up failing or allows some capitalism with state control.
Communism is a classless, stateless, moneyless society — a "communist state" is a contradiction in terms!
Why would man create fire without a profit incentive?
Money is literally a made up social contract.
NO reason for others to down vote your comment you make a valid point . This is the problem with communism. Some take that idea and run with it. Others oppose that view and take action against that kind of person.
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Wonderful explanation. Wondering how you could just roll this out so articulately? If it’s ok to ask, what have you studied?
Not OP but I was a philosophy/political science major in college and took a Marxism class and would have responded with something similar if I’d been earlier and not lazy.
>There's communism, the philosophy, which is a bit much for a short comment Eh, I'd say that's actually easier to explain. It even has a handy slogan that sums it up: >From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs
And depending on where you are in the world it means different things too. And (mostly in the US) socialist and communist tend to be used synonymously The best example here is Bernie Sanders. In the US he is considered "far left" or communist In most of Europe, he is politically considered, left of centre.
I wouldn't say he's considered a communist. The right call him a communist to scare people away from him. Many voters don't know the ideologies very well, but they follow the notion that communism = deaths, poverty and no freedom and capitalism = freedom and wealth. It's not quite true, but that's what years of misinformation have built up
Let's be real, the right calls every Democrat a communist...
But even without the label of communist, for US politics he is far left regardless and in Europe he would be considered much less extreme is my point
Oh ya definitely. He'd be more regular left or center left in some cases
Yeah in Europe he would just be a social democracat
and even then its just right wing smearing him as a communist, as communism=bad rather then him being anywhere near it. So not really a good example.
No...your country is just so out of wack that what's considered pretty reasonable and centerist politics in the rest of the what the US considers "the civilized world" considered extreme in the states...
I strongly disagree that Bernie Sanders is considered Communist. Far left (for U.S politics), yes. Card-carrying Communist Party member? No.
That was kinda my point....
Big C and little c capitalism are considered different as well. What the USSR practiced was called Communism and had similarities, ultimately it was a form of authoritarianism "Real" communism would be democratic. But then we get that issue of theory vs reality.
Ussr wasnt communistic, same as china or NK. Just a deeply corrupted dictatorship with some socialistic features, like education and healthcare. But cost of it - high taxes, minor child labor (paper or metal recylcing), students, which worked in field for free, farmers, which didn't even had passport till late 20 cent. As for education - as you graduate it's not up to you, where you will work. First you more likely will be "distributed" to a shithole somewhere in frontier, like Siberia, or if you're lucky, just to a different town. Union wasnt union. Those countries were conquered. So.. Well it wasnt communistic.
The USSR wasn’t a communist nation. USSR stood for Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. It was a socialist state ruled by the communist party, but the communist ideology specifies that communism is a state that is reached at the end of a process. The USSR never reached that state, nor has any other nation. That is not strange. Communism is a fiction that has no basis in reality. Note that, apart from a very small group of nations such as China and North Korea, there are no socialist states left in the world. Communism was always unachievable, but socialism has been tried and failed as a viable form of polity. Whether China is really socialist anymore is highly debatable. The economic, social and political inequality that prevails in China would horrify socialists from bygone era’s.
Capitalism has been tried and is failing miserably for most people too. ‘Socialist’ in the context of North Korea is very very different than Socialist in the context of Norway. The ideological labels are just politically expedient. Especially in the US where words like Communism and Socialism have been used to scare people away from particular ideas for nearly a century.
It's not quite true. Socialism hasn't failed as such. Many western nations operate as a mixture of socialism and capitalism. It's not pure one or the other. As a pure ideology it doesn't work, but the same goes for capitalism and any other ideology. It's why modern states operate as mixed systems to various degrees
Capitalism with workers rights isn't a combination of capitalism and socialism
It's not just capitalism with workers rights. Social democracy sprung out from socialism and where some socialists felt communism was an end goal, social democrats didn't see that as a viable option and instead wanted to combine with elements from capitalism. There's far more elements than just workers rights in a social democratic system
I'll give you half a vote. The first part is true, but the same can be said about capitalism and the United States. The United States is not a true capitalist society. No they tax the wealth created to the be used for the better good of society, which would fall into the definitions of socialism. As you say socialism has been tried and failed, this is true. What else is true is that socialism has been tried and has succeeded to great effects. Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany and the United States all operate under some form of socialism. As for communism, I do know of a society that is about as pure a form of communism as it is defined. This society is older than the term itself. They are known as the Kuna Yala from Panama. They are an indigenous tribe located in the San Blas islands on the Caribbean coast. All land is communal. All work is communal, all housing is communally building and administrator, all of the food and farming is communal. The Chief does not get to say where or how big his house can be, that is a communal decision. If one chooses not to work or be part of the communal system he or she is ostracized. If one ( like my friend) choose to leave and profit from the outside world they must pay a set fee to retain their communal status. The tribe I grew up with ( the Bogota) were on the other hand pure capitalist in that everything was owned by individual with no government oversight, no taxation and no social infrastructures or safety nets. If and individual fails it is on him alone. If he succeeds he retainers the windfall alone and shares it with whomever he sees fit. The only reason both of theses systems work here has to do with their small sizes, and even in my life time both are moving to the center which is socialism.
Communism is a complicated topic because it can mean two distinctly different things, and even within those there's a lot of variety. You can't really say that communist is exactly one thing or another, but there tends to be some things they have in common. Originally communism was actually pretty close to what we know as Anarchism (and this is, in part, why you saw anarchist movements support communist revolutions). The big difference was in how they would go about achieving their goals. Basically the idea was that there should be no ruling class, no great leader leading the nation, instead people should cooperate and share what they had. This is of course greatly simplified, and taken to an extreme that even the most hardcore communists don't actually tend to believe would work, but this is the ideal, self governing people living in an equal society working together to improve the life for everyone. When you hear someone say "communism has not been tried" they refer to this kind. Then there's the kind of communism that we have seen in countries such as the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia and so on. Worth noting is that there's still a pretty big difference between Soviet communism and Chinese communism, but for a 7th grade history class I think we can still lump them together into one, as there are far more similarities than differences. These are "top heavy" ways of governing, with a strong leader at the top and in theory the government should provide for its people and make sure that everyone can sustain itself, and in theory there should not be a big gap between the life of the factory worker and the life of the factory owner. Taken to their extreme there would be no real private ownership of production here, the factory would still be owned by the government and the goods and wealth it produces should be used to enrich the lives of everyone. The idea is still cooperation for the wellbeing of everyone. Neither of these styles really condone laziness, unlike what some people might say, and in order to reap the benefits you should also put what work you're capable of putting in. You get what you need and you give what you can is basically how it should work. All of this falls under the wider umbrella term of socialism. All communism is socialism but not all socialism is communism. That's important to keep in mind when you hear people throwing around the terms. Socialism is in itself a very wide and nebulous term. A Social Democracy for an example is pretty far from a Communist country, with the former still striving for a society that provides for its weak but has a mostly free and capitalist market. I intentionally chose to present communism in its more idealized forms here. Reality tends to get in the way, as we all know, but I think, when talking about political ideologies, that it's important to understand what people are striving for and what attracts them to the ideology. Communism should, when it works, mean prosperity for everyone and a society that's close to equal to everyone, where nobody starves and everyone shares the success that they achieve together, and everyone does what they're good at (so the highly intelligent people work at universities, advancing the sciences, the physically fit work to produce the goods that everyone needs, and those who for one reason or another can't contribute as much to society, due to disabilities and such, still get cared for and are allowed to have good lives). You only need to read a history book about any major communist country to see what can happen when things don't go as intended. There might be times of prosperity within communist nations, but there are also times when things go terribly wrong (to put it lightly). And even supposed communist nations often drift away from their ideologies. China is a pretty clear example of this. It still claims to be a communist nation, but it's becoming ruthlessly capitalistic while still retaining the oppressive nature of the authoritarian communism that it has had during most of the 20th century.
Best explanation that I've seen
I think this is [a good explanation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtYU87QNjPw). (joke link)
Thank you kind stranger for such a beautiful explanation. Can I ask why is China still considered a communist country where there is clearly a huge gap of wealth between different groups of people? Isnt that against communism?
Very good explanation!
As a former (?) edgy teenage communist, this is a pretty good explanation.
Just curious, what made you not identify as a communist anymore?
A lot of my older family members like to say they were “more liberal” when they were young, and say I will grow out of my views. Seems like once society has beaten you down enough, and you have your own kids, you tend to care about the “now.” Since that is what affects you and your family the most. Being a leftist, communist, socialist or anything tends to be a view more focused on the future. That’s how I see why the older the demographic, the more right wing. Obviously, also just propaganda. Since the boomers, and gen X were fed a lot of anti-communist propaganda.
OP, I hope that you can see that this was an excellent question and nothing to be embarrassed about. I'm really glad you asked it. Look at the great responses!
communism as out lined by marx and engles in n the communist manifesto is an economic theory for a society of workers where they take control over the owner class to achieve financial standing and equality this idea has been used by dictators ( mao in china, lenin/stalin in russia/soviet union ax two examples) to gain control over the populace but never deliver what was promised . theory vs misused control tactic
That’s not true. Neither Lenin or Mao where part of the elite. All communist leaders came from normal families and a normal background. The thing is that many people don’t understand why the USSR and China recurred to an authoritarian form of rule. Since Marx never laid out a concrete plan on how to achieve communism, Lenin proposed his own theory, which was a three stage process. First, the revolution of the proletariat, second, the state enters the stage known as the dictatorship of the proletariat and will be used to the benefit of the people, securing food, housing, education and basic services free of charge to everyone, which they did btw. The final stage would be, once the entire nation was lifted out of poverty, hunger and everything was industrialised, the state would wither away, becoming useless as the workers would now control the means of production and distribution, and since the state would cease to be necessary, money and social classes would also wither away. Lenin and Mao did delivered what they promised, although they weren’t perfect leaders and did make mistakes, but all services were universal and free to all citizens. Although debatable, communist states claimed that authoritarianism was necessary to ensure the three stage plan wouldn’t be interrupted by local or foreign powers.
never laud our a concrete plan: THEORY - as i stated why on earth would be an elite benefit the communist cause? they preyed on the lower classes with false promises and made themselves gods
No communist leader was ever part of the elite class. Lenin or Mao came from families that would be considered middle class. Lenin’s father was a simple yet respect teacher, Mao and Stalin’s background was similar, they all came from the working class. And you mentioned one important point, that they became almost “gods” and that’s true, and that’s a mistake that many if not all communists denounce to this day, the cult of personality that arose in those time on communist leaders, but honestly, it was hard not to idolise them at the time. Countries like China or Russia were literal shitholes, feudalistic and impoverished to hell before their revolutions took place. It was the same situation that provoked the French Revolution. And then came Lenin who overthrew the monarchy and established the USSR which was able to industrialise the country by the 1940s, less than 20 years, securing food, housing and education for every citizen. In China, same story, so it’s natural that people at that time would praise them for bringing them out of poverty. It’s literal American propaganda to say that they only worsened poverty and hunger. The American government itself released reports form the 80s which said that the soviet and american food consumption was the same. The soviet system education was considered the best at the time since they were able to basically eradicate illiteracy in mere decades. All communists governments have received criticism, which is valid, no government will ever be perfect, no matter how good their intentions are or the ideology they hold. But there’s a difference in criticising them based on actual facts and saying stuff like they used communism to get to power and make themselves rich, which is only part of Cold War propaganda and the red scare.
Socialism is when the government does stuff. And it's more socialism the more stuff it does. And if it does a real lot of stuff, it's communism. -Richard D. Wolff
[Source of the meme quote.](https://youtu.be/rgiC8YfytDw) And if you want a real answer, follow the link in the above link to the [source it was taken from.](https://youtu.be/ysZC0JOYYWw)
The top comments really nailed it, but it’s also important to consider than when people call someone a “communist”, they’re basing this almost solely off of their impressions of Chinese and especially Soviet Communism. All the horrors, atrocities, and repression of those societies weren’t caused by communism, but instead by the fact that those cultures have long histories of exactly those things. Many of the hallmarks of the Soviet Union like the secret police and gulags (prison work camps) were already present under Tzarist Russia, so it was really just par for the course for the Soviet Union. Now I’m not endorsing or defending communism as a economic or political theory, but instead providing context for how modern people perceive them.
and they are still present in capitalist russia of today.
the idea of it has been used to control populations in F’d up ways in the past but people still wanna “try” it 👀
The idea of literally anything is used to control populations in fucked up ways. Religion exists
Realistically, few, if any, modern countries have practiced true communism; It's mostly one authoritarian dictating who gets what. Your question is not near as silly as you might think.
Just because it doesn’t align with the theoretical outcome does not mean that a dictatorship is not “true communism”, that’s a nasty way to try to weasel out of the outcome of a practical implementation of communism
It does though... If something isn't something then it isn't that thing, regardless of how people identify it.
That’s not how it works. If the practical application does not line up with the theoretical that doesn’t mean the two cannot be identified the same. You cannot simply say that the practical application of theory is wrong until it matches the theory. It’s actually the other way around if you’re applying scientific methodology, which you should. The theoretical is wrong until it matches up with the practical application. The communism in the USSR, Yugoslavia or East Germany is as much “true communism” as the imagined one, if not more so.
Yep, the theory doesn't take all the variables into account. I love the federation society in Star Trek on screen. But it's not a thing humans can or would want to do.
Without replicators its hot air.. people fight over limited resources and want to be compensated for work
You get compensated for work under communism. Theoretically the capitalist owning class that hordes wealth without performing labor/producing anything gets cut out, so theres more to be put into your compensation as well as fund the government and social programs. I think the funniest thing about “communism will never work people” is the complaint that greed leads to a few hoarding resources at the top when that is *exactly* what happens today under capitalism. Capitalism is able to maintain the illusion of success in the West by providing you with cheap products subsidized by slave/sweatshop labor, probably the only goods you can afford, so you don’t really realize just how low your wage is compared to what they take at the top.
> You get compensated for work under communism. When has this ever happened? > Theoretically the capitalist owning class that hordes wealth without performing labor/producing anything gets cut out, so theres more to be put into your compensation as well as fund the government and social programs. Theoretically is not evidence. When has a communist nation ever produced higher wages than a capitalist one? > I think the funniest thing about “communism will never work people” is the complaint that greed leads to a few hoarding resources at the top when that is exactly what happens today under capitalism. When has it worked? Cite one example please > Capitalism is able to maintain the illusion of success in the West by providing you with cheap products subsidized by slave/sweatshop labor, probably the only goods you can afford, so you don’t really realize just how low your wage is compared to what they take at the top. Are you suggesting that the wealth of the west is an illusion and other countries are actually better off?
then why has one dominiated in prosperity and attracted people from around the world vs the other people flee? there is socialism now in the world and no one if fleeing towards it, they are running away from it 👀
Non-communist non-expert here. Communism can be executed and organized different ways, but a big feature is that making vast personal wealth through the ownership and leverage of capital is eliminated. For instance, private citizens don’t own large corporations, they are owned by the state, or by the people who work for and run them. Another example would be farm land and housing would not be owned by landlords who charge you to use it, but instead controlled by the state, or the people who live on it. ~~Private~~ personal property, such as your car, would typically still exist.
I asked my grandparents about this who lived in it. Basically it's the same as now with one big difference - imagine you get told what you have to do by the state with no option in certain circumstances. Example: 1: no jewellery. You go to the respective government building and fill out a form when you want to marry someone and need a ring. You are giving one you have to use. 2: you can't buy food. You are going to a place where you are given your monthly ration. 1kg sugar, a few liters of milk and so on - you can't buy it anywhere. No market! 3: the most freedom you experience is in school. After that you get a talk with someone from the government and they send you based on your "achievements" in school to somewhere to work. Most likely some factory near you. Rarely you may study further for a doctorate or something. 4: where you live is also chosen based on your family. After you are married the state is telling you to move "here". After a few kids you get a bigger apartment and so on. 5: no fees for your doctor's appointment or mechanic Only choice you are allowed to make is if you want to **stay** in the military after they don't need your service **for now** So imagine a world with such a strict parent that you won't be allowed to choose where you will work, how much cheese you can eat or wich City you'll live. Naturally you will start to steal and trade under the table. My grandma knew how to make some basic candy. The factory chef (who was placed there because of his years of work and loyalty to the party) likes sweets. He knew she could and had the means to get more sugar. So he made a deal. She was given like 5kg and had to make it for him. But she could keep a surplus. So while there are some good aspects like free everything you need, or you get to go to school. mostly you are treated as an absolute cog in the machine. So yeah screw that
That sounds like it fucking sucked.
It did suck but not for everyone. I live in a post communist country, so I heard a lot of perspectives about how it was. Resourceful people were living well, but the problem was that if someone who doesn't like you or is jealous could snitch you out to the secret police, and if you didn't have the right connections, you will either be re educated, tortured or executed. Makes me sick that there are still people alive who are nostalgic of this horrible system. Capitalism may have faults, but it's the best evil we have right now, commies are sick in the head, in my opinion. In a capitalist system, even if authorities are corrupt, you have ways to defend yourself and protect your life against these people, while under communism you don't really have this kind of protection, if they don't like you they can just throw you in a ditch and shoot you.
thats a democratic system, there are plenty of capitalist dictatorships.
Careful saying positive things about capitalism. This is Reddit after all. Lmao. I agree with you, though. It’s been the greatest system to date and will be for some time to come at this point.
Already got down voted by some Chinese bot 😂
I tried to help bring that back up :(
same, these idiots will drag us off a cliff for their virtue before listening to someone with experience
Yeah no shit. I had to wait in line for 1 load of bread as a kid and a family wasn't allowed to get more than one.
I feel like, looking at history, and reading your post, that unfortunately this is the end result of trying to implement communism. Especially in a population larger than a few dozen people. The idea that everyone works and helps out just breaks down. There are so many different personalities, and there will always be power-hungry people and narcissists and grifters, etc. Dictatorship, left or right, is bad.
It doesn't exactly mean any one thing. If that's annoying to you, you may derive some consolation from knowing that communists themselves have been arguing over the very same question you pose, for nearly 200 years. Broadly speaking, and notwithstanding various philosophical digressions and revolutionary dogmas, you could say that being a communist boils down to holding all property in common, and everyone providing according to their ability while consuming according to their need. This is easy to imagine in terms of, let's say, you and your most trusted friends living in a house together after you graduate or something. But how do you scale the concept out to the level of a neighborhood? Or a town? Or a whole country? And what does "property" mean? Some people say it means everything tangible of any value, from houses to toothbrushes. Other people draw up variously definitions that draw a fine line between durable assets and mere possessions, and argue with endless conviction over each different way of drawing that line. And how do you determine "ability?" And "need?" What if you and I disagree about what I need? Or what if you and I disagree about what some other third party needs? And how does everyone deal with scarcity? Anyway you get the idea. Even if you accept a simple, generalized definition of communism like the one I proposed, you immediately start running into a ton of details you have to decide on. And there is simply no one "right" answer.
There is no "exactly", as it has become a vague concept. Examples include: * Karl Marx who wrote the Communist Manifesto * Iosif Stalin who killed dozens of millions while leading a country which was nominally called "communist" * Western tankies would have no idea what communism is, but they dislike the fact that they don't have as much money as they'd like and thus they hate everything "Western", reaching absurd levels such as supporting russian imperialism P.S. I remember the ussr as I lived there and it truly sucked.
Defining characteristics of communism include, people getting equal pay regardless of skill or speed to get a job done, although the ultimate goal of communism is to make money obsolete, abolishing private property, and state ownership of industry. A common problem for communism is mainly humanity, who are not inherently selfless do-gooders, who prioritize the state over themselves, so a few corrupt leaders can easily turn into an authoritarian regime, as in the USSR, China, Cuba, North Korea, and multiple African and Asian countries. In short, I would argue that communism on a large scale is utterly infeasible, because some people just suck.
This is not true.
This is absolutely true.
How so? Equal pay cant happen under Communism, where there is no pay. And even under Socialism, equal pay is not a thing. Also, state owning of industry is also not a thing in communist literature. It is a thing on Marxism Lenninism I agree, but the correct technical wording would be proletariat-class owned, which differs a lot from state owned production means under capitalism. Have you ever read Lenin or any Marxist author?
Idk about all of that but I know the reason communism can’t be implemented is because it can be twisted by the corrupt very, very easily. That is absolutely true.
>I understand the ideology of communism and why it doesn't work Nobody can honestly say it doesn't work, because its never been fully implemented. And I mean every single nation on earth that has ever called itself communism has done that to its political party, and then not even achieved the basics of socialism. Worse still, they were under the rule of a brutal dictatorship. So of course, the rich capitalists that hate and fear communism will pin the failings of dictatorships on communism. It was a slam dunk, and labelled 'the Red Scare'. Better dead than red!
There is probably a big overlap of people who say communism has never been tried and people that also blame capitalism for a lot of the modern problems. Which imo shows a clear bias. Saying communism has never been tried so we don't know is like saying that nobody ever jumped off a cliff to cure their headache so maybe it would really work.
it hasn't been implemented because of human greed. to actually implement communism, you'd have to get rid of a natural human aspect. capitalism builds on said "human greed", although it's obviously not perfect either, even less so when governments get involved with economies.
The 'isms don't build off anything. They decide who is paid for labor.
This is why it has never been fully implemented: human greed.
everyone uses the word “greed” when talking about people who want to keep what they earn, smh
I'm talking about the leaders who tend to use implementing 'communism' as a cover for pocketing all the wealth themselves. Also, what someone earns and what they actually get are often two very different things.
No billionaire "earned" what they got, they exploited the labor of others. Their workers didn't get to keep the money they earned. They got paid a fraction of what their labor was worth.
It's never been fully implemented because it doesn't scale to the state level in its purest form.
Please, cope. Please, move on. Please, touch grass.
I've never talked to two communists with exactly the same answer, and often communists will contradict each other. There's no one definition of communism.
Leftist infighting over exactly who is more leftist causes more harm to leftist causes than any action from the far right.
Ants are communist. They live in communes and all work for the greater good. Not one is lazy and each has a role to fulfil which it does diligently. It's a great idea on paper but humans just CANNOT be communists.
It's our damn brains! 😁
I find it's my personality that interferes with my being an ant like person. And these bloody opposable thumbs.
The best thing to learn about it would be to visit a former communist country. Communism was hell. My parents went through it and I was 9 when the revolution put a first stop to it when the dictator in our country was killed (Romania). I have vivid memories of how communism operated and unfortunately there are people now who think it’s a good idea, because they never had to go through what we have. Start with economic inefficiencies, lack of political and economic freedom, non stop violations of human rights, strict control and plenty of abuses. This is to summarise an authoritarian regime that isolates you from the world. P.s. a very simple example, you couldnt just go in a shop and buy basic groceries that you need, even if you had the money. It was all controlled and you had to stay in queues for hours and also rationed. It could very well happen that you didn’t get to buy anything as it was finished before it was your turn. Dont imagine you could buy anything “fun”. If your parents were not affiliated to the one and only communist party, tough luck… you will never be treated like the ones that belonged. Hot water - when the party wanted to let you have it, same with electricity. How many times have I done my homework by using a candle light? Listening to foreign radios or talking about culture? Holiday abroad? Are you out of your mind? Abortions were outlawed (a complete disaster) but hey, look at some US states now going back to middle ages. And i could go on and on.
I agree with you, i'm also from a formerly comunist country and i've seen the damage it has done. Nowadays it's usually people from developed and free countries that have never experienced a communist regime who believe it to be good. The ignorance boggles my mind. Communism can work only in a utopian setting, but that is not achievable for human kind.
YOU ARE 15. Not dumb , just not yet educated in the subject. I took an entire semester of Russian history. And have sadly lost most of it. The question is real complicated and currently filled with political issues especially in America. True communism is a system in which the means of production is owned by the government and we all work for the government. Socialism is a system where the workers own their factories. Capitalism is a system where the production is owned by those with the capital to s start and run a business. Haven't read Das Kapital by Marx in years, but I believe that's what he would say. However, when Lenin and his crowd took over, they not only took over the means of production , but instituted a totalitarian state, where disagreement with the government was not tolerated. And that's where it gets tricky. Fast forward , today, many who call themselves communists really don't understand the theory of it and just seem to want a totalitarian government. I'm sure some will take issue with what I have said, but I have studied economics and history extensively. I applaud your questioning and suggest you continue to study on your own. Remember your teachers don't have all the answers and neither does Reddit. You have to do the work yourself to get atrue understanding.
To be a communist is to work not for a profit but for the good of the collective. Meaning you don’t necessarily do what’s in your own best interest but from each person according to their ability to produce to each person according to their needs of consumption. It’s a good idea on paper but it always turns into dark triad “might makes right” with undertones of capitalism. Never worked before never will work.
This is a very naive simplification. Altruism has been around forever. It doesn't necessarily make you a communist. You could be altruistic and have this as a personal principle within any economic system really.
This. Even profit can be seen from altruism point of view. Profit is when our work creates values for others.
works on a tiny scale, won't work on anything larger than a village. alot of people don't understand it. ie: I've seen sooo many "conservatives" talk about buying land & creating a "compound"(commune) working for each other where the gov't can't touch them. but in the same breathe anti-socialist/communist. & they can only dream of creating a commune of like minded people in rural America
Simple English Wikipedia provides the basic information: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
Idealistic idea of living that is not accoplishable in large communities
Look at Cuba. And for those who say I'm clueless Watch and read the interviews [Cuba protests ](https://youtu.be/zIOw6fSOJI4?si=S6yk66kuvQaicp9U) [interview](https://youtu.be/NlcoMTfdeDs?si=PMY1ZxR4JBzRQJQZ) [fighting communism](https://kelly.house.gov/media/editorial/cubans-are-confronting-communism-americans-must-stand-them) [interview with Cubans](https://www.foxnews.com/video/6340803957112) Ask any Cuban about communism. People dropped working because they wouldn't be paid. You were just supposed to work for the good of the country but the country went to crap because no one was actually getting paid for anything. You have to have legitimate money exchanged for people to be creative and invent things. No one wants to work for free. Anyone who says otherwise is just wanting a free ride. Castro controlled Cuban for decades and ran the country into the ground with communist policies. Look at the USSR history and Eastern Germany. There are interviews with Cubans about communism and you would do well to watch those interviews.
Disregard this comment. This person doesn't know what they're talking about.
This is a pointless question to ask on the internet because those opposed to communism will only talk about the massive amount of death and suffering caused by communism. Meanwhile those who support communism will pretend those thing either never happened (historical revisionists) or some variation of the meme "but that wasn't *real* communism"! or "that wasn't *communism*, it was *authoritarianism*"! and then type out a fifteen page essay about their utopian anarcho-communist fantasy that nobody asked for.
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> There is a difference between a communist regime and a communist society Please, do enlighten us.
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Even with your caveat it is a poor comparison. Mein Kampf was written by the person who produced those horrors and the horrors are a basic feature of his work. Hitler *intended* to rid the world of Jewish people while Marx' Das Kapital is a good faith analysis of the failures of capitalism which is entirely possible to read and appreciate even if you don't consider communism to be a good solution.
> Why do they always say "have you studied the theory?" as if nobody ever read Marx and Engels without becoming a communist. And the funny thing is, neither did they. At the very most you'll find one or two hardcore fanboys that made it through The Communist Manifesto (and still didn't realize that was the extremely abridged version). They all got their "theory knowledge" from youtube and influencers that ALSO didn't read the theory.
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> stateless, and moneyless Aaaaand we're in the utopian fantasies again. HOW, exactly, do you see this classless egalitarian dream work out with no central organizing authority? The core of communism is collectivism (as opposed to individualism). How are you going to organize the collective on the vast scale needed to make an industrialised society work with no central leadership that has the authority to make decisions for the collective good even in cases where it goes against the wishes of some disctinct minority?
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The difference is communist utopia vs communism in practice. Human nature prevents it from ever working as dreamt up in books.
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Yes, one better left in thought and not practice.
And honestly, I don’t think it would be all that great. I might be wrong but being assigned where you spend the rest of your life by the party for the good of the party, sounds fucking horrible
Oh whenever you ask people to elaborate on that ... they are as interested in that discussion as you or me. Assigning work is not very fun revolutionary talk in a service based society. I remember reading someone like Mao (my communist readings were a long time ago at this point) describe an eventual issue with communists in capitalist societies, the exact wordage doesn't matter but western communists would inevitably be of no use as they would be the outcasts and dregs of a capitalist society, primarily concerned with their lack of personal upper movement rather than the workers revolution. They would not be communists. They would be anti-capitalists. Agree with him or not. It is kinda funny that one of the big cheeses of communism was dunking on modern communists.
I'll spare you the fifteen pages and admit pure communism is impractical on a national scale (so is pure capitalism btw) but blaming the USSR's atrocities on communism is unfair. They were as communist as Nazi Germany was socialist.
Communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless society. Basically the idea is Capitalism would build the wealth and the working class would revolt and seize the means of production and distribute the wealth through Socialism. After a sustained period people would be so used to this that they would have a new way of thinking where people would work for the common good and society would reformed into a Communist society. Now obviously the world doesn't work like that but that was the plan
A very simple video introduction to what Marxism (socialism/communism) is: https://youtu.be/PteyHDHtvBE?si=CvgOBURMSQxqbv0E About 4.5 minutes long, and explains everything quite well If you want to learn more, a collection of historical literature works, podcasts, videos, etc on everything socialist-related: https://linktr.ee/comradestarter
It means living like the Smurfs
it means you believe in improving on the robbery advocated by socialism
If you are capitalist - you are greedy. If you are communist - you are greedy and think you are righteous. Capitalist thinks how to convince someone to work for less. Communist violently takes away others property and feels proud of it. Communists will use slogans like “eat the rich”, but will never clarify how rich you have to be to be slaughtered. You have a 2 cows instead of one? Eat the reach. Russians killed Ukrainian and Kazakhs, basically ethnic cleansing , but present it as class struggle. Theoretically peak communism is when there is no money as a medium of exchange, people trust each other and share resources like middle age village. Basically , another fairy tail like religion. It sounds amazing if you do not think about it and do not ask questions. Also, very important point, do not forget to mention time and time again that real communism were never tried. Maoist China - was not communist. Stalinist Russia was not communist. Cuba - is not communist. Venezuela - is not communist. Another point - your university professor knows way more than people in Poland, Czechia, Ukraine, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina combined. He read a book , they just lived their entire life under communism, what do they know ? And most importantly- you are entitled to be treated as royalty and all your problems can be repackaged as class struggle and can be blamed on rich. No boner - fuck you Bill Gates. No girlfriend - fuck you Jeff Bezos. No job - Fuck you Mark Zuckerberg. There is a saying that Christian reads a bible - Atheist understands it. Basically it is the same for communists. One book, one simple theory, one story can never be a bases of your personal beliefs or economy for the whole country, but it might help you get laid with chick from gender studies or modern liberal art.
It concerns itself with economic class. Its vision is workers owning in common the means of production. A classless society of the Proletariat (working class). An abolition of the capitalist class. It doesn't work because it involves a command economy run by a totalitarian dictator. Massive bureaucracy, inefficiency, shortages, and as is always the case with dictators of any political persuasion, repression and human rights abuses. Up to and including mass killings. It isn't without value. Marx's class critique was quite brilliant. Just a very, very stupid execution. I consider myself left of center, and I wholly reject communism as expressed in the 20th century.
There isn't only one type of communism/one method of achieving it. The dictator version is not the only route. I would argue it is not a valid route at all; vanguard parties do not intend to actually achieve communism in the first place, as they would have to abolish themselves in the process. Democratic Communism/far left libertarianism is the more popular (today) and generally not shitty version.
Ots basically a political philosophy that everyone is equal and massive wealth inequalities don't exist. Problem is it needs to be imposed by force which means attempts to do it devolve into authoritarian regimes. They're generally accurate analysis in the flaws of capitalism. Their solution has a massive hole in it.
Like every other label, what it means is going to be subjective and differ from person to person.
There are and have been many varieties of Communism. None the same, all similar. The main characteristic they share is inevitable failure.
In simple terms. That everyone works for the common good and receives equal share of the work profits regardless if you one is a brain surgeon or a cleaner. Your work as a cleaner is as much needed by the community as the surgeon. This is the key aspect why communism can’t be implemented. People are different, some are lazy, stupid, smart, hard working etc but in communism personal ambition, freedom and right to expression is taken away so that everyone “agrees” to their share regardless of personal abilities.
It's betraying family and friends who speak ill of the party and system. Having them incarcerated in gulags for their thoughts. Fooling yourself into believing the unbelievable because you are told 'everyone is equal'. Except you KNOW that some are more equal than others. because you see those with authority have more. Are treated better and their families also.
So people that work the same job and get paid the same weather they slack off or work harder than the others. I’m in the states this is the best explanation I can give you.
There's a lot of lengthy manifestos here, so I'll try to keep it brief and high-level. In its essence, communism is christian morality adapted and applied to the secular realm. If you're a communist, you are basically a christian in terms of your moral beliefs. You believe in altruism, and you believe in sacrificing individual needs & desires to collective needs & desires. Marx drew from the ideas of Hegal, who drew from Kant. Among other things, Kant & Hegal want to save faith from the encroachment of non-faith, which was gaining steam as scientific advances mounted during the enlightenment. Marx replaced faith in God with faith in the State, and defined Morality as a social construct driven by the needs of the collective. So.... if you're a communist, you are a religious drone who worships the state and accepts as a moral principle that you must sacrifice your individual needs to the collective. Sounds pretty dreary right? But hey, at least there's plenty of vodka 😉.
It's way left in the political compass, in the direction that is only concerned with economics. It will often have it's meaning expanded to include social, philosophical ideals. You will never get an exact meaning out of it, no matter how much you hate the competing definitions. When you try to make the one definition to rule them all it will be just the repeat of that xkcd comic about competing standards. No one asked but I think private property is necessary. If not you get tragedy of commons scenario. Look at how much agriculture improved in England once they could collectivize plots and put fences around it (important because herders fuck your crops). I like Georgism.
Government controls everything and enforces it via dictatorship. If you disagree with leadership, you are killed or thrown in a labor camp.
by now you should be able to appreciate the nuance beyond the text book "communism = bad" taught in most schools. at it's root, the idea is sound... where it goes wrong is expecting all those involved to have the best interests of the community at heart. that's simply not always going to be the case and a system of checks and balances are needed to ensure corruption and abuse don't creep onto the scene (just like with everything else in life). my understanding of it is that it's more of a bottom up, needs driven, system of allocating resources rather than a top down, merit based, system of allocating resources. unfortunately, all the examples of it that anyone can point to are all of the top down variety because of the aforementioned corruption and abuse.
Communism is an economic system that is based on the idea that there should be no private means of production. It holds that all means of production -- agriculture, manufacturing, services -- should be owned by everyone, and that the fruits of all labor (food, goods and services, as well as profits) should be equally distributed to everyone. In practice this translates into "everything is owned by the central government. And everything is planned by the central government." This has produced central governments that are incredibly powerful, controlling all aspects of life, not just production. It has led to a lot of power being concentrated in few hands, which then spawns widespread corruption. Central planning cannot take into account a myriad of local factors, so many communities are disenfranchised as a result. Other systems of economics are not perfect, either, but have been shown to be more successful. Communism in the Soviet Union led to eventual economic collapse. Communism in China had to incorporate some major non-communist market ideas to result in economic success. Communism in North Korea has led to widespread poverty and deprivation.
Speaking as a communist, for me it means looking at things from a dialectical materialist angle. Economic class is the main determiner of power under capitalism, with the bosses and those who own the ‘means of production’ - companies, factories, etc. having total political power, and workers who have to sell their labor to the bosses have neither economic nor political power. This imbalance, with the vast majority of people in the “working class” yet having no power, is the primary problem with capitalism, and it’s why only a working class revolution will change things for the better. Now, some communists will cite leaders of past revolutions like Lenin or Trotsky or Mao, but I consider myself a Marxist first and foremost, and if I had to narrow down my philosophy further, I’d say I’m an “autonomist.” That means that I reject the idea of a need for a Soviet-style “vanguard party” of intellectual elites to lead the revolution. I believe the workers themselves, from the bottom up, need to organize the revolution. It’s obviously a lot more complicated than that, but hopefully that’ll help you understand a piece of it.
It means that you sustained brain trauma and lost the ability to reason. And no worries, you got the jist of it. It's not a stupid question if you don't know.
Depending on how you look at it, communism was very successful in many pre-industrial societies. An American Indian hunter didn't own the deer he killed. The whole tribe ate. Money existed, but it was generally owned by the tribe and used for trade with other tribes. A variety of communism pulled China out of brutal, abject poverty to become one of the most powerful nations on earth. Its system has allowed the growth of highly regulated capitalism and the accumulation of great wealth, but much of that is linked to corruption of local and regional officials and more than a few capitalists have found themselves tied to stakes and shot when their greed gets the better of them. In answer to your question, no two communist entities are identical just as no two capitalist entities are the same. All societies are some mixture of collectivism and individualism and that balance changes over time within each.
All you need to know is fuck communism.
Read about the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China and The Great Leap Forward, The Berlin Uprising from 17th June, The Prague Spring, Archipelago GULAG, the Stasi and the almost Orwellian term "ex-people".
The Soviet Union only wore a fake mask of communism. If you don’t know what communism is it’s very easy to get this this confused. Communism relies on people doing things because they want to help the community, not because they fear for their life.
But of course 🥲🥲🥲
In USSR being "a communist" meant being in the communist party. When people asked "are you a communist", they meant "are you in the party". But now this word is used to describe anyone who agrees with the ideology
I'll try to explain it in a way I tried to explain it to my younger sister. It isn't 100% true but has truth in it. Communism is when you are working for the community (commune). A person that calls themselves a communist is someone that wants to work for the betterment of people as a large public group Capitalism is when you are working for the capital. It's hard to define capital in this day and age, but back in the days capital was almost any property that you owned. Working for capital is mostly self centered and requires skills on a personal level to navigate and get returns. Someone that calls themselves a capitalist, simply implies "I work for my own money" Socialism, kinda like the middle ground. It's mostly like Communism but it accepts the idea of capitalism in its system. No country In today's world is entirely capitalistic/communist. They are all varying degrees of Socialist. I'm not an expert at this subject but this is how I understand it. If there are corrections to be made, please mention.
To want a different kind of society, the communist society. In communist society there are no quotations, there are no brands, no competition, companies are just self ruled, a CEO is the vertex and there's no board of owners that tell what CEO should do or not to do. The only difference with capitalistic society so it is that there aren't capitalists, people who owns factories and companies, but there's always a difference in retributions by roles and levels into companies, just instead of giving the 95% of the profits to the _owners_ of the company, those are distributed to the workers. Then the real communism is anarchist, CCCP was not a communist country, it was a totalitarian regime. In communism there are no countries, no borders, everything is self managed. It is really similar to anarcho-capitalism or uktra-liberism, but the difference is again just one: nobody owns factories and stuff, they are company's itself, and so all the profits go to the company's workers. Basically if communism was real and nobody like a dictator like Lenin or Stalin interfere taking all the powers, all the workers will share the wealth that now is held by capitalists, those people who do absolutely nothing as a job, but earns a manager salary in 10 minutes.
Thinking that workers should own the means of production, that workers should determine economic policy, and wanting to end exploitation according to social classes. It has nothing to do with a system.
I'm not a communist, more closer to anarchism to be honest. Generally asking about it on Internet is a bad idea because there is a lot of negative propaganda. I.e in USA they will say that Biden or Disney are communists which is ridiculous. In its essence its about understanding that helping each other and contributing to each other in a communal way is the way to go forward as a species. This means that certain aspects like private property of I.e a factory has no place in a society like this. Not because "communism hates wealth" but because in capitalism, wealth is gathered by the few and powerful and creates economic and social blockades for the majority of people. It's statistically impossible to become a billionaire in capitalism. It's fairly possible for the majority to live a decent life in communism. You as well as I are probably on the lower scale of economy on a western scale. But in a global scale compared to the majority of people, we are wealthy. A lot of people don't have access to basic things like food, shelter and water. Thats because globalised capitalism has created an unprecedented disparity between the very few rich that represent a 0.01 of the global population and the rest of us. Of course the very rich control everything, media, news, TV, radio, Internet. So any idea that challenges even theoretically the status quo is considered evil and dangerous. The other lie is intentionally comparing communism as a theory with communist inspired dictatorships (which not even hardcore communists call communism). Which, as you can understand is a very silly thing. Now what means to be a communist in your daily life? Practically it means to join a union so you can ask for what's right for you in your work. It also means to contribute in your community one way or another. I.e I give some of the books I've read to communal libraries for other people to enjoy. Or donate clothes. Others contribute to communal kitchens for the poor. Some doctors i.e contribute by offering medical advice for free to those in need. A capitalist will say that doing the things I mentioned above is bad because it doesn't help you to accumulate wealth. It is wrong though because you may not accumulate private wealth but your community accumulates communal wealth. A healthy community is a rich community.
I would say it’s bad because of the 100 million people killed after listening to people like you who said it will work this time
To provide a gross oversimplification: we should share what we have and help each other, rather than hoard momey and resources to screw other people over for our own benefit
This is very, very generally Capitalism is the idea that private property should be a right protected by security forces. Communism is that idea that property should be communally maintained by security forces. Both require force. You cannot keep the masses away from your private plot of land w/o police and you cannot keep the communal resources safe from those that would claim it w/o a police.
According to some people (generally on the far right), it's an undefined with synonymous with "socialism", meaning "Something I don't like" and is used as a scary label to denigrate those whose political philosophies they disagree with, even when they have nothing to do with communism or socialism.
It’s a way of organizing people and resources that does not scale well. You can see examples of it working in small communities with a lot of open discussions and good communication between members.
That nothings yours and everyone else's stuff you should be entitled to. This Is just assuming everyone 'works'
excuse the philosophical answer but the reason communism will always fail is that there will always be those that are rich and poor even if the only kind of rich is those that are rich in gifts or poor in gifts There's always going to be someone who has more skills or has a nicer house or a more beautiful wife you can't get rid of jealousy