Modern Communists, who are gaining more and more traction, visibility and power, are constantly repeating the mantra that Communism is about giving the power back to the working class. The working class owns everything equally, and makes all the decisions, and the government exists solely to coordinate this power and enact these decisions.
This is a complete lie (like so many other things about the Communist ideology).
We have a perfect example of Communism in real life, from a very recent past: The Soviet Union.
Soviet Russia, for as long as it existed, implemented full-on Communism. It was not the kind of half-baked Communism like eg. in China, but full-on 100% pure Communism, from top to bottom.
I have for quite long been thinking about making a really long blog post describing in detail the economic and social system of the Communist Soviet Russia, but I have never got around of doing it. I will describe some relevant key points about it here, as it pertains to this.
The unemployment rate in the Soviet Union was essentially zero. Homelessness was practically zero (barring some people who might have fallen through the cracks, perhaps because of their own deliberate choices). In a manner of speaking there was no poverty per se (at least if we define "poverty" as someone owning and earning significantly less than the average citizen). At least on paper everybody owned everything, in other words, everything was shared property.
I'm not making that up. This all sounds great, doesn't it? A perfect utopia?
Except it wasn't. It was a totalitarian nightmare.
The "working class" was in practice more like a slave class. In the Soviet Union the government assigned you a job, whether you wanted it or not, and mandated you to do that job, whether you wanted or not, lest you be thrown in jail. Only government-assigned jobs were permitted; independent entrepreneurship was banned. Earning money in any other way than by doing your government-assigned job was forbidden (and if they caught you doing that, you would get a visit from the state police).
You were not paid a salary for doing your job per se. You were paid, essentially, an allowance. Everybody got paid the same allowance. I will describe the economy of the Soviet Union in more detail in that future article, but the short of it was that the price of every item in the store was government-mandated and fixed, and every "worker" was given what essentially amounted to an "allowance" for him to use to get his fair share of what was available in the store. Stealing was a crime in the Soviet Union, which might sound odd, given that (at least on paper) everybody owned everything. However, stealing was not a crime because you were taking away someone else's property (because there was no private property), but because you were illegally exceeding your allowance.
This was in no way, shape or form the "working class" having any kind of power. The working class, the workers, did not make decisions, and they did not own anything. The government mandated them what kind of job they would make, and forced them to do that job, whether they wanted it or not. This was not optional. The workers had no power to decide their own salaries, instead this "salary" being fully mandated by the government. The government assigned the workers their place of living, so there was not much choice here either.
Communism does not give the power to the working class. It's in fact the exact opposite: Communism takes away power, all the power, from the working class, and essentially makes it a slave class. There are no elections, no labor unions, no salary negotiations, no independent entrepreneurship, no options. You do what you are told, whether you like it or not, or you are thrown in jail.
Communism can only work via totalitarian oppression. No sane person would willingly want to live in this kind of system, so the only way is to force them by creating an oppressive regime.
This is a complete lie (like so many other things about the Communist ideology).
We have a perfect example of Communism in real life, from a very recent past: The Soviet Union.
Soviet Russia, for as long as it existed, implemented full-on Communism. It was not the kind of half-baked Communism like eg. in China, but full-on 100% pure Communism, from top to bottom.
I have for quite long been thinking about making a really long blog post describing in detail the economic and social system of the Communist Soviet Russia, but I have never got around of doing it. I will describe some relevant key points about it here, as it pertains to this.
The unemployment rate in the Soviet Union was essentially zero. Homelessness was practically zero (barring some people who might have fallen through the cracks, perhaps because of their own deliberate choices). In a manner of speaking there was no poverty per se (at least if we define "poverty" as someone owning and earning significantly less than the average citizen). At least on paper everybody owned everything, in other words, everything was shared property.
I'm not making that up. This all sounds great, doesn't it? A perfect utopia?
Except it wasn't. It was a totalitarian nightmare.
The "working class" was in practice more like a slave class. In the Soviet Union the government assigned you a job, whether you wanted it or not, and mandated you to do that job, whether you wanted or not, lest you be thrown in jail. Only government-assigned jobs were permitted; independent entrepreneurship was banned. Earning money in any other way than by doing your government-assigned job was forbidden (and if they caught you doing that, you would get a visit from the state police).
You were not paid a salary for doing your job per se. You were paid, essentially, an allowance. Everybody got paid the same allowance. I will describe the economy of the Soviet Union in more detail in that future article, but the short of it was that the price of every item in the store was government-mandated and fixed, and every "worker" was given what essentially amounted to an "allowance" for him to use to get his fair share of what was available in the store. Stealing was a crime in the Soviet Union, which might sound odd, given that (at least on paper) everybody owned everything. However, stealing was not a crime because you were taking away someone else's property (because there was no private property), but because you were illegally exceeding your allowance.
This was in no way, shape or form the "working class" having any kind of power. The working class, the workers, did not make decisions, and they did not own anything. The government mandated them what kind of job they would make, and forced them to do that job, whether they wanted it or not. This was not optional. The workers had no power to decide their own salaries, instead this "salary" being fully mandated by the government. The government assigned the workers their place of living, so there was not much choice here either.
Communism does not give the power to the working class. It's in fact the exact opposite: Communism takes away power, all the power, from the working class, and essentially makes it a slave class. There are no elections, no labor unions, no salary negotiations, no independent entrepreneurship, no options. You do what you are told, whether you like it or not, or you are thrown in jail.
Communism can only work via totalitarian oppression. No sane person would willingly want to live in this kind of system, so the only way is to force them by creating an oppressive regime.
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