by James Johnson

Created on: September 20, 2008

Communism is defined on the website "www.answers.com" as "a theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members." One could probably leave off the theoretical part and just state that Communism is an economic system with all members working at their optimum ability to contribute to the success of the group. With governments and societies, this can really happen easily as people may all have different goals and compete with each other. Can and should communism work on a family level? Isn't that really what most families are actually about?

Communism in the family has always been seen, especially in olden times and more agrarian societies. The family owned the farm and everybody did their best to make it work and turn a profit. The farmer and sons frequently plowed the fields raised the animals. The women would help with the house, cook the meals and mend the cloths. Everybody worked for the good of the cause! The money earned was then shared amongst the family to benefit everybody.

As this example shows, collective ownership of property in a family is normal. Most families basically own and use the house, cars and such together, even though may legally be listed in the names of the parents. Fathers and mothers are the primary income generators, but they then use the monies generated for the rest of the family. Monies obtained from the use of the property all go to support all members of the family, is that not what a shared economic system means? Each person in a family should work and help the others; yes families are communistic.

By watching families was probably how Karl Marx got the idea for communism and it is not a bad idea, just impractical on a large scale. The more people that get involved, the less that they know or care about each other, the less likely they are to work for a common good. Unfortunately you will also get people that take advantage of power. This can even be seen in large families where a son or daughter lives off of the labor of the others. The bigger the group the greater the number of freeloaders and the more troubles arise.

So families should be communistic. A good family will share things, work together for the common good of the family and divide labor into equal shares. And that is what communism is really all about!

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