I hate being that person but communism has essentially been exclusively used as a campaign promise by corrupt/evil groups attempting to seize power from the population.
Broadly speaking, people don’t understand communism and assume it just means “you own nothing and share everything. And starve.”
Just like people argue that crony capitalism isn’t capitalism, totalitarian communism isn’t communism. Corruption is the real problem.
Communism is self-contradictory, which makes it easy to think anything is diametrically opposed to it. I’ll explain:
Starting with socialism, it’s a system in which the means of production are held in common. To handle the means of production in common, systems have to be set in place to decide who controls what, and who answers to who, and what rules and regulations they need to follow. This system is the state. You might not have called it a state, and it may not have even been a state, but the process I just described is a form of state governance. Socialism is a call for state control of the means of production.
Communism is a stateless, moneyless, and classless society, with the means of production held in common. Meaning, it’s a stateless state with the means of production handled by the state.
This is why it seems diametrically opposed to you: Communism claims to call for both anarchy and socialism, but THOSE two things are diametrically opposed. Stalin wasn’t a communist because he was totalitarian, and anarchist England wasn’t communist because it was the opposite of totalitarian. Despite naming two extremes, I don’t see anywhere in between that communism would fit. Nothing is communist, because nothing can be communist by virtue of what it is
Yeah, communism is a nice ideal, but it’s diametrically opposed to human nature. It can only work in small communities where everyone knows everyone else.
Strongly disagree. There are common trends and themes all throughout human history. This does not mean that every individual human behaves a certain way, it means that large enough groups of humans do.
There is no single behaviour or set of behaviour that applies to all humans everywhere at once.
We smile when we’re happy, we frown when we’re sad. We come out the womb crying before anyone teaches us what that is. We naturally learn how to drink milk, with little prodding to do so. Crawling happens naturally, walking happens naturally. Talking too, although it is learned through observation so I can see your point there, but also, it’s natural to learn through observation
We all show pain when we stub our toes. We all look for water when we’re thirsty. There’s also behaviors that are natural that don’t show up in everyone. I don’t see why they have to be that consistent across the board, right? Some people will naturally show more anger, while others - for no discernible reason - just don’t.
And I’m not denying learned behaviors don’t happen either. We can clearly see how both can happen if we just observe human interactions and their cause and effect honestly.
The idea that human nature is a myth was perpetuated by Marx out of a desire to reform human behavior through the state. He used the assumption that humans aren’t natural agents to justify exerting full control over how people behave. This isn’t my opinion by the way, I’m telling you what Marx said. He also did little work to justify the assumption, with no scientific or philosophical basis beyond his assertion that it’s true
Communism would not have a state as a monopoly on violence. It would have a government as controlled by the people.
State: “a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government.” You’re making a painfully semantic argument. We’re talking about identical things, you’re just claiming I’m wrong and choosing different phrasing.
Stalin was a Communist because he sought to achieve Communism.
I agree, my point was that, in theory, it’s easy to argue otherwise and confuse the point. Communism includes anarchy, while Stalin, as a genuine socialist, increased the scope of the state. Increasing the state is anti-communist because Communism involves no state, but it’s pro socialist, which is a communist thing, so it’s also pro communist. I wasn’t trying to argue that Stalin wasn’t a communist, I was demonstrating the inconsistency in the theory itself. I have no interest in the semantic debate about what label fits him best
The USSR wasn’t Communist because it was a State Capitalist economy
“Capitalist” doesn’t mean “participates in the market”. It means the private ownership of the means of production. It means a person or private unit (family) owns and controls business. That’s what it means, by its definition and from all historical context around it. “State capitalist” is an oxymoron, what people mean when they say it is a market economy run by the state, but that’s distinctly not a capitalist thing. If the state is controlling the market, then it’s not privately controlled, and therefor isn’t capitalist.
You have exactly no understanding of Marxism, or what MLs advocate for. I’m not even an ML, nor do I even like Stalin, but actually reading theory can help you to not make these horribly ignorant takes.
Please engage more politely. I have genuinely read heaps on this topic and it’s getting really boring to only get replies telling me I haven’t read shit I’ve read. What a lazy way to argue
You’re picking apart Marx’s usage of the term state to dismantle Communism semantically, rather than logically.
Please direct me to where I used semantics instead of logic. You’re just going “no u” right now because I said you were being semantic.
Increasing government or even state is not anti-Communist action. In fact, centralization is part of the Marxist process, before the state whithers away and government remains.
You’re literally talking to the guy who described how Communism promotes totalitarianism by expanding the state. I’ve agreed with you in very explicit terms that increasing the state in actually very typical of communists. So we agreed that an expansion of the state is not anti-communist right? We agree here, so I can explain the point you missed?
Okay so the point I was making, is that Communism contradicts itself in theory. Communism is described as stateless. It’s an advertised feature of Communism. Communists frequently talk about anarchy as a communist thing. There’s anarcho communists in opposition to tankies because Communism says, over and over, through Marx and other literature, that Communism IS STATELESS. It’s embedded in the theory, despite the fact that in practice, and we both agree, it’s about an expansion of the state.
Here’s Marx saying it should be stateless: “The withering away of the state is the ultimate goal of a truly classless society. As the means of production become collectively owned and the class distinctions erode, the need for a separate governing body to enforce the interests of one class over another will diminish. The state, which originally emerged to protect the interests of the ruling class, will lose its significance and gradually fade into obscurity, allowing for a stateless society where individuals can govern themselves.”
I did not say Capitalism means participation in a market
You said Stalin’s government participated in state capitalism. Stalin’s government implemented Enterprises, which basically were companies working under the umbrella and direct influence of Stalin and his political party. He collectivized agriculture, and he had state level ownership over almost every factory and enterprise. Private ownership was effectively eliminated, it was all owned by the state. Stalin’s Russia had full control over the market. To call that state capitalism, means you think the participating in the market can be called capitalism. No, you didn’t say that’s what it meant, but you used it in a way that shows that’s what you think it means.
If you are against State Capitalism as a concept, you haven’t read Lenin.
Is it not pretty telling that you think reading Lenin means you agree with it? No wonder you assume I haven’t read it. Get that mentality out of your head, people can read your favorite writings and still disagree with them. I’m getting seriously bored of people jumping to that accusation when they have nothing else to say.
That’s where your argument breaks down. A socialist system does not requite state ownership to exist. It can simply mean the workers of a company are the shareholders of a company.
Literally that’s all that has change to get us from a capitalist system to a socialist system. Instead of a capitalist investor class controlling the companies, making the decisions and reaping the profit, its the actual workers who make decisions and reap profit.
One of the ways capitalists try to scare people away from socialism is by making seem like it would change every aspect of society and make everything different (which works because people are scared of change) but it would actually be a pretty small change.
It can simply mean the workers of a company are the shareholders of a company.
But this doesn’t just happen right? Consider the game of soccer, there are rules in place that say we have nets, and the nets sit opposite side of the fields, and we have a ball, and we kick the ball, and we don’t use our hands, etc… those are the rules of soccer. Get rid of the rules, we get rid of soccer. The same is true for any system that requires cooperation. Rules are required or it doesn’t exist. So yes, people have to follow rules for socialism to exist, and rules have to be enforced or they aren’t rules. People have to enforce the rules, or the rules don’t exist. You may not call it a state, but the more we go through the process of describing how to achieve socialism, the more we’re simply describing statehood with socialist rules.
One of the ways capitalists try to scare people away from socialism is by making seem like it would change every aspect of society and make everything different (which works because people are scared of change) but it would actually be a pretty small change.
Well, this certainly isn’t what I’m doing. I think we’re already more socialist than capitalist where I live, and it’s already damn near impossible for an individual to start a small business. Private businesses are disappearing and being replaced by cut-and-paste corporate stores given tax breaks by our shady government for political support
Yes it does happen. Wtf does “soccer” have to do with anything. The only “rule” in socialism is that the workers own the means of production, and as I said before that doesn’t not requite a state. You could make the same argument that a capitalist company is actually a kingdom and it would be just as valid as what you’re saying.
And then the second paragraph, I really don’t think you live anywhere that is actually that socialist and the grievances you’re describing are regulation, not anything to do with socialism.
The only “rule” in socialism is that the workers own the means of production, and as I said before that doesn’t not requite a state
This is an incredibly general idea and makes no suggestion as to how this is achieved. You’ve made no effort to show me how to achieve this without rule of law, you just keep saying it’ll work. Come on, think it through. Engage your brain. I’m sure the answer is there, I’m sure you know tons that I don’t about how to structure socialism without rule of law, but you’re just not saying any of it. Help me out here, give me some of your sacred knowledge please.
And then the second paragraph, I really don’t think you live anywhere that is actually that socialist and the grievances you’re describing are regulation
This is a great way to develop tunnel vision. Your only reason to suggest that what I said isn’t true is that it contradicts your perception of the world. I don’t care how smart you are, this mentality will completely break your ability to evaluate what’s going on in the world.
Communism is a stateless, moneyless, and classless society, with the means of production held in common. Meaning, it’s a stateless state with the means of production handled by the state.
You know, states are not the only way of organising people or production or anything.
We’ve had states longer than we’ve had history. The father of history, Herodotus, gave us the history of the states of Greece and Persia. “State” doesn’t mean “a US state”
Yes, I am aware. I never said they’re the same, I said it was a state, which contradicts your assertion that states are a recent thing. If you want to keep talking about this I would suggest you stop lashing out first. I don’t deserve the vitriol, and you deserve the opportunity to string your thoughts together without them being clouded by an unnecessary rage
It’s like a shitty cake recipe that looks good on TikTok, you can tell me how great the cake looks all day, but I saw you add a cup of salt to the batter
First up, just because it hasn’t worked, there’s no reason it can’t work - or is there? I’m all ears. You missed that bit.
Beyond that, the most common issue is the fact that communism is typically achieved abruptly, with little to no pre-work. If you don’t address the centralisation of wealth (and by extension, political influence), of course power is going to collapse back into authoritarian hellishness.
Transition via social democracy, taxing away the inequality, getting the populace on board with world-class social services, providing more services over time, as you transition from worker representation on boards and equity stakes to full worker ownership and workplace democracy over time.
Taking the benefits of the people fuelling the economy - workers, and handing it to wealthy shareholders that contribute nothing as they consolidate into monopolies, creating market failure in an economy fundamentally built on markets makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There’s a better way - it just takes a bit of work.
The idea is to minimise the power imbalance to prevent individuals from being able to act on their own interests to the detriment of others, while changing incentive structures to minimise the benefit of doing so.
The government can intervene (and has done so historically) to crack up monopolies. By failing to do so in an economic system where economic power is tantamount to political power, we’re signing the execution order for democracy. Look at the political influence that the likes of Musk, Bezos, and Gates already hold. It spits on the face of democracy - a concept that I happen to value. This is a problem with a simple set of solutions.
The path we’re on only leads to worse lives for all of us - lower wages (they’ll only avoid slavery as long as the government stops them - look at Western companies operations in developing countries), less competition, higher prices, less social mobility, the elimination of the concept of meritocracy, escalating tragedy of the commons… We can and should do better.
The greatest predictor of corruption, as with most crime, is inequality. Removing massive inequality eliminates the means to fund corruption, while a fairer allocation of resources disincentives it (though I’d also support strong penalties for engaging in it).
Western companies operate overseas because they’re financially incentivised to do so - this is largely due to cheap labour with minimal protections (slaves more frequently than there should be), but also due to factors like proximity to raw materials. The fact that they would move to America in a heartbeat isn’t exactly a selling point - it’s just more evidence of the harm done by capitalism, and an argument for worker enfranchisement. The long, well documented history of the CIA overthrowing governments to install regimes more favourable to US commercial interests doesn’t exactly help this point either.
The free market doesn’t self regulate - it naturally collapses into monopolies, and all the associated suffering, graft, and market failure. The corruption is an example of the failure of these companies to self regulate as they work to bypass existing regulation. Regulators regulate companies chase profit - no matter what… We should empower the regulators to stop the worst tendencies of companies operating under the profit motive. Again, look to western countries operating in the developing world for all the evidence you need of this - nestle is a great, though far from unique case study - abhorrent labour practices, environmental vandalism, political fuckery, and predatory marketing in particular.
This brings me to ask - why would you cheer for our political democracy to be choked out by a lack of economic democracy? Why would you not want democracy in your workplace rather than having the fruits of your labour leeched away by unaccountable, unproductive, uninformed owners?
You are correct, but that is because no one has ever applied communism IRL as it should be. It has always come along with a dictatorship type of leadership sadly.
Me and the boys looking for a single communist country that wasn’t a totalitarian hellhole:
Me, looking for a single communist country.
I hate being that person but communism has essentially been exclusively used as a campaign promise by corrupt/evil groups attempting to seize power from the population.
Broadly speaking, people don’t understand communism and assume it just means “you own nothing and share everything. And starve.”
Just like people argue that crony capitalism isn’t capitalism, totalitarian communism isn’t communism. Corruption is the real problem.
The problem isn’t really “corruption”, but systens which allow and even encourage corrupt actions.
That’s why these countries turned into totalitarian hell holes, the system was set up for a small group of people to rule over everyone else.
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It is
Which is diametrically opposed to what communism is supposed to be. They just stole the name.
Communism is self-contradictory, which makes it easy to think anything is diametrically opposed to it. I’ll explain:
Starting with socialism, it’s a system in which the means of production are held in common. To handle the means of production in common, systems have to be set in place to decide who controls what, and who answers to who, and what rules and regulations they need to follow. This system is the state. You might not have called it a state, and it may not have even been a state, but the process I just described is a form of state governance. Socialism is a call for state control of the means of production.
Communism is a stateless, moneyless, and classless society, with the means of production held in common. Meaning, it’s a stateless state with the means of production handled by the state.
This is why it seems diametrically opposed to you: Communism claims to call for both anarchy and socialism, but THOSE two things are diametrically opposed. Stalin wasn’t a communist because he was totalitarian, and anarchist England wasn’t communist because it was the opposite of totalitarian. Despite naming two extremes, I don’t see anywhere in between that communism would fit. Nothing is communist, because nothing can be communist by virtue of what it is
Yeah, communism is a nice ideal, but it’s diametrically opposed to human nature. It can only work in small communities where everyone knows everyone else.
Human nature is an essentialist myth.
There is no single behaviour or set of behaviour that applies to all humans everywhere at once.
There is only the way we are specialised and how the systems we live in shape us think and act.
Strongly disagree. There are common trends and themes all throughout human history. This does not mean that every individual human behaves a certain way, it means that large enough groups of humans do.
We smile when we’re happy, we frown when we’re sad. We come out the womb crying before anyone teaches us what that is. We naturally learn how to drink milk, with little prodding to do so. Crawling happens naturally, walking happens naturally. Talking too, although it is learned through observation so I can see your point there, but also, it’s natural to learn through observation
We all show pain when we stub our toes. We all look for water when we’re thirsty. There’s also behaviors that are natural that don’t show up in everyone. I don’t see why they have to be that consistent across the board, right? Some people will naturally show more anger, while others - for no discernible reason - just don’t.
And I’m not denying learned behaviors don’t happen either. We can clearly see how both can happen if we just observe human interactions and their cause and effect honestly.
The idea that human nature is a myth was perpetuated by Marx out of a desire to reform human behavior through the state. He used the assumption that humans aren’t natural agents to justify exerting full control over how people behave. This isn’t my opinion by the way, I’m telling you what Marx said. He also did little work to justify the assumption, with no scientific or philosophical basis beyond his assertion that it’s true
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State: “a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government.” You’re making a painfully semantic argument. We’re talking about identical things, you’re just claiming I’m wrong and choosing different phrasing.
I agree, my point was that, in theory, it’s easy to argue otherwise and confuse the point. Communism includes anarchy, while Stalin, as a genuine socialist, increased the scope of the state. Increasing the state is anti-communist because Communism involves no state, but it’s pro socialist, which is a communist thing, so it’s also pro communist. I wasn’t trying to argue that Stalin wasn’t a communist, I was demonstrating the inconsistency in the theory itself. I have no interest in the semantic debate about what label fits him best
“Capitalist” doesn’t mean “participates in the market”. It means the private ownership of the means of production. It means a person or private unit (family) owns and controls business. That’s what it means, by its definition and from all historical context around it. “State capitalist” is an oxymoron, what people mean when they say it is a market economy run by the state, but that’s distinctly not a capitalist thing. If the state is controlling the market, then it’s not privately controlled, and therefor isn’t capitalist.
Please engage more politely. I have genuinely read heaps on this topic and it’s getting really boring to only get replies telling me I haven’t read shit I’ve read. What a lazy way to argue
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Please direct me to where I used semantics instead of logic. You’re just going “no u” right now because I said you were being semantic.
You’re literally talking to the guy who described how Communism promotes totalitarianism by expanding the state. I’ve agreed with you in very explicit terms that increasing the state in actually very typical of communists. So we agreed that an expansion of the state is not anti-communist right? We agree here, so I can explain the point you missed?
Okay so the point I was making, is that Communism contradicts itself in theory. Communism is described as stateless. It’s an advertised feature of Communism. Communists frequently talk about anarchy as a communist thing. There’s anarcho communists in opposition to tankies because Communism says, over and over, through Marx and other literature, that Communism IS STATELESS. It’s embedded in the theory, despite the fact that in practice, and we both agree, it’s about an expansion of the state.
Here’s Marx saying it should be stateless: “The withering away of the state is the ultimate goal of a truly classless society. As the means of production become collectively owned and the class distinctions erode, the need for a separate governing body to enforce the interests of one class over another will diminish. The state, which originally emerged to protect the interests of the ruling class, will lose its significance and gradually fade into obscurity, allowing for a stateless society where individuals can govern themselves.”
You said Stalin’s government participated in state capitalism. Stalin’s government implemented Enterprises, which basically were companies working under the umbrella and direct influence of Stalin and his political party. He collectivized agriculture, and he had state level ownership over almost every factory and enterprise. Private ownership was effectively eliminated, it was all owned by the state. Stalin’s Russia had full control over the market. To call that state capitalism, means you think the participating in the market can be called capitalism. No, you didn’t say that’s what it meant, but you used it in a way that shows that’s what you think it means.
Is it not pretty telling that you think reading Lenin means you agree with it? No wonder you assume I haven’t read it. Get that mentality out of your head, people can read your favorite writings and still disagree with them. I’m getting seriously bored of people jumping to that accusation when they have nothing else to say.
That’s where your argument breaks down. A socialist system does not requite state ownership to exist. It can simply mean the workers of a company are the shareholders of a company.
Literally that’s all that has change to get us from a capitalist system to a socialist system. Instead of a capitalist investor class controlling the companies, making the decisions and reaping the profit, its the actual workers who make decisions and reap profit.
One of the ways capitalists try to scare people away from socialism is by making seem like it would change every aspect of society and make everything different (which works because people are scared of change) but it would actually be a pretty small change.
But this doesn’t just happen right? Consider the game of soccer, there are rules in place that say we have nets, and the nets sit opposite side of the fields, and we have a ball, and we kick the ball, and we don’t use our hands, etc… those are the rules of soccer. Get rid of the rules, we get rid of soccer. The same is true for any system that requires cooperation. Rules are required or it doesn’t exist. So yes, people have to follow rules for socialism to exist, and rules have to be enforced or they aren’t rules. People have to enforce the rules, or the rules don’t exist. You may not call it a state, but the more we go through the process of describing how to achieve socialism, the more we’re simply describing statehood with socialist rules.
Well, this certainly isn’t what I’m doing. I think we’re already more socialist than capitalist where I live, and it’s already damn near impossible for an individual to start a small business. Private businesses are disappearing and being replaced by cut-and-paste corporate stores given tax breaks by our shady government for political support
That whole first paragraph makes 0 sense to me?
Yes it does happen. Wtf does “soccer” have to do with anything. The only “rule” in socialism is that the workers own the means of production, and as I said before that doesn’t not requite a state. You could make the same argument that a capitalist company is actually a kingdom and it would be just as valid as what you’re saying.
And then the second paragraph, I really don’t think you live anywhere that is actually that socialist and the grievances you’re describing are regulation, not anything to do with socialism.
This is an incredibly general idea and makes no suggestion as to how this is achieved. You’ve made no effort to show me how to achieve this without rule of law, you just keep saying it’ll work. Come on, think it through. Engage your brain. I’m sure the answer is there, I’m sure you know tons that I don’t about how to structure socialism without rule of law, but you’re just not saying any of it. Help me out here, give me some of your sacred knowledge please.
This is a great way to develop tunnel vision. Your only reason to suggest that what I said isn’t true is that it contradicts your perception of the world. I don’t care how smart you are, this mentality will completely break your ability to evaluate what’s going on in the world.
You know, states are not the only way of organising people or production or anything.
We didn’t have states until very recently.
We’ve had states longer than we’ve had history. The father of history, Herodotus, gave us the history of the states of Greece and Persia. “State” doesn’t mean “a US state”
A modern state is not at all the same form of government as in the fucking ancient Greece, are you aware of that.
Yes, I am aware. I never said they’re the same, I said it was a state, which contradicts your assertion that states are a recent thing. If you want to keep talking about this I would suggest you stop lashing out first. I don’t deserve the vitriol, and you deserve the opportunity to string your thoughts together without them being clouded by an unnecessary rage
Corruption is the real problem and all systems must develop a tolerance of it to some degree.
It seems to me, when looking at the history of communism, that it has a particularly low tolerance for corruption and that things go to shit quick.
It’s not that true communism hasn’t existed, it’s that it simply cannot exist.
It’s like a shitty cake recipe that looks good on TikTok, you can tell me how great the cake looks all day, but I saw you add a cup of salt to the batter
Here I go fixing communism again…
First up, just because it hasn’t worked, there’s no reason it can’t work - or is there? I’m all ears. You missed that bit.
Beyond that, the most common issue is the fact that communism is typically achieved abruptly, with little to no pre-work. If you don’t address the centralisation of wealth (and by extension, political influence), of course power is going to collapse back into authoritarian hellishness.
Transition via social democracy, taxing away the inequality, getting the populace on board with world-class social services, providing more services over time, as you transition from worker representation on boards and equity stakes to full worker ownership and workplace democracy over time.
Taking the benefits of the people fuelling the economy - workers, and handing it to wealthy shareholders that contribute nothing as they consolidate into monopolies, creating market failure in an economy fundamentally built on markets makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There’s a better way - it just takes a bit of work.
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The idea is to minimise the power imbalance to prevent individuals from being able to act on their own interests to the detriment of others, while changing incentive structures to minimise the benefit of doing so.
The government can intervene (and has done so historically) to crack up monopolies. By failing to do so in an economic system where economic power is tantamount to political power, we’re signing the execution order for democracy. Look at the political influence that the likes of Musk, Bezos, and Gates already hold. It spits on the face of democracy - a concept that I happen to value. This is a problem with a simple set of solutions.
The path we’re on only leads to worse lives for all of us - lower wages (they’ll only avoid slavery as long as the government stops them - look at Western companies operations in developing countries), less competition, higher prices, less social mobility, the elimination of the concept of meritocracy, escalating tragedy of the commons… We can and should do better.
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The greatest predictor of corruption, as with most crime, is inequality. Removing massive inequality eliminates the means to fund corruption, while a fairer allocation of resources disincentives it (though I’d also support strong penalties for engaging in it).
Western companies operate overseas because they’re financially incentivised to do so - this is largely due to cheap labour with minimal protections (slaves more frequently than there should be), but also due to factors like proximity to raw materials. The fact that they would move to America in a heartbeat isn’t exactly a selling point - it’s just more evidence of the harm done by capitalism, and an argument for worker enfranchisement. The long, well documented history of the CIA overthrowing governments to install regimes more favourable to US commercial interests doesn’t exactly help this point either.
The free market doesn’t self regulate - it naturally collapses into monopolies, and all the associated suffering, graft, and market failure. The corruption is an example of the failure of these companies to self regulate as they work to bypass existing regulation. Regulators regulate companies chase profit - no matter what… We should empower the regulators to stop the worst tendencies of companies operating under the profit motive. Again, look to western countries operating in the developing world for all the evidence you need of this - nestle is a great, though far from unique case study - abhorrent labour practices, environmental vandalism, political fuckery, and predatory marketing in particular.
This brings me to ask - why would you cheer for our political democracy to be choked out by a lack of economic democracy? Why would you not want democracy in your workplace rather than having the fruits of your labour leeched away by unaccountable, unproductive, uninformed owners?
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You are correct, but that is because no one has ever applied communism IRL as it should be. It has always come along with a dictatorship type of leadership sadly.
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