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Comment by djsumdog | Hacker News Reader

When you buy a beer for your friends at a bar and maybe next week they buy a round, that's communism. Communism is a central part of western society.

China, the USSA and Cuba were never communism. They varied between heavy socialism (also a pinical of all high income countries: roads, trains, parks, police, fire, airports) and fascism.

A lot of people who just go on about communists, today, in 2016, seemed to have not learned that much of what we learned about the communists was mostly propaganda; same way the US creates enemies out of "terrorists" today.

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> When you buy a beer for your friends at a bar and maybe next week they buy a round, that's communism. Communism is a central part of western society.

Communism is when you and your friends go to a bar and there is no beer, because there was not enough grain produced on command of the central planning committee 4 years ago. Now you and your friends are upset and complain about it, so you get arrested and locked up without trial because you are betraying communist ideals.

Sure, communism might be a bad idea, but why is it so unforgivable? specially when is not your country?

And it's not like nobody got locked up in the 50s without a hint of a trial just for the suspicion of being 'communist' and betraying the capitalistic ideals.

This is a good joke, but unfortunately, is not an accurate description of communism. As the parent comment suggests, there were no real communism nation on earth ever.

""" In political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis, "common, universal")[1][2] is a social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money,[3][4] and the state.[5][6] """ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

That's like saying that there are no capitalist societies by claiming that capitalism is some higher, perfect ideal which has just not been implemented yet perfectly. Or calling the outcome of christian rule in the middle ages "not really christian" by comparing it to a biblical description of heaven.

If there are people who call themselves communists and they create societies, then "communism" should be judged on that.

> If there are people who call themselves communists and they create societies, then "communism" should be judged on that.

That's not how it works; some terrorists may call themselves muslims and even form "Islamic" societies, but I hope you'll agree that muslims and Islam shouldn't be judged on their actions. The same goes for Christianity.

I think christianity should be judged on having overcome those terrible crimes of the past. Islam should be judged on whether it can overcome islamism. And communism should be judged on having failed to deliver a society worth living in.

This thread is going to get hot enough on politics alone. Perhaps we can try to leave religion out of it?

That sounds more like socialism from what I understand. Communism is more like you and your friends work on a farm, live off what you produce, all do some work, but you are not paid different or receive more or less food/accommodation/luxuries than each other. You are all equal.

Now if one of you gets ill, or decides to slack off then that person will still be supported. If everyone slacks off then the society is f'd.

Yep. Communism fails because people arent equal. same reason socialism introduces inefficiency

It's more like everything is owned by society, people do what they can based on their ability & all their needs are met.

The initial concept is very theoretical, there are many gaps left.

I'd recommend reading the communist manifesto to understand the issue better.

Buying beer and sharing with friends week after week is a good example of capitalism, as the bar owner is profiting so much from you and your friends buying all this beer.

Communism (of the Marxist variety) would be you and your friends being allocated the same amount of beer by the state, which owns the beer (along with all goods), and deals out the same amount of beer to everyone, regardless of what they do (i.e. what would have corresponded to their class).

I suppose there is another kind of communism where you and your friends live on a commune and some grow hops and some grow barley and some are in charge of fermentation vats and all just relax and drink their beer after a long day. That is, until the tax man cometh...

Communism proposes to collectivize the means of production; there's still _some_ individual ownership.

No, for Marx, there is no individual ownership, as the first, post-capital phase has removed private ownership of the means of production. There is social ownership only. There is individual participation as part of the social whole, but individual ownership and private property of any sort is abolished.

Private property does not include personal property, as Marxists understand it. The Marxian definition of private property is essentially capital.

I'd recommend reading far more than The Communist Manifesto to understand the issue better. You're not describing Marx's conception and predictions of communism at all. And you seem to have misunderstood the Manifesto as the definition of communism. That was not its purpose. Its goal is to wake the consciousness of the working class to their condition, explain why this is important in simple terms, and suggest an immediate course of action for helping move society away from capitalism and toward communism. But the Manifesto was not a description of communism itself. For that, you must set the Manifesto aside and dig into Marx's other works. There is no state doling out equal portions of anything to anyone under communism—because, most critically, there is no state.

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