Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Question: What the **** is communism anyway? And why is it bad?

  I once came up with this description:

  The basic idea of communism is that everyone should have the same wealth
as everyone else. That is: nothing.

  The idea of communism may sound good on paper, but in practice it doesn't
work very well because in order for communism to be upheld, people's freedom
and rights must be limited.

  Another reason why communism doesn't work is because it discourages
success: When you don't own anything, there's no point in earning more
or improving what you have. Why improve what you have when you don't
actually own it, and you could lose it at any time? This causes people
to simply do what they are forced to do in order to survive and not get
into problems, but nothing more. There's no point in doing anything more
because success is inconsequential.

  Capitalism may sound "bad" on paper (at least if you believe the hype),
but in practice it just works. It encourages people to succeed, which in
turn improves the whole society. Yes, it causes large gaps between rich
and poor, but if the government works right, even the poor will have at
least as good living conditions as even in the best of communist countries.
(Yes, this isn't true for many capitalist countries, but that's because
their government is not perfect. It's not really because of capitalism
itself.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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