by John Devera

Created on: January 10, 2009

The problem with Communism is that it does not exist outside the very small and vervently homogenous examples of small communities. Socialism is the prevalent political system that attempts to work from communist theory, but that is a far cry from communism.

Communism is a social system in which all people in a group share the value of their property and work equally. Communism in a commune is pretty workable, or in a kibbutz, to a lesser extent, but these examples are fraught with problems. In any small group the chances of petty rivalries, jealousies, envy and resentment are bound to take hold. "George isn't working as hard as I am." "Fred's poetry should not count as his labor." Who took what amount out of the shared pot of food can become a real cause for division in a situation where resources are tight.

The only situation of pure communism, although completely anecdotal and informal, that worked adequately was the first century chuch, in which Luke tells us that all the people owned all that they had in common. Church leaders administered the property to the benefit of all. Even here, though, as the case of Annanais and Saphira, there were still problems with some people who didn't want to give up there personal ownership.

And there is the fundamental problem with the practical aspects of communism. Sharing all property in common, and dispersing all value from their work to each according to their needs is fine in theory. But human beings are naturally lazy and acquisitiveness. What that means is that there is no natural impulse for someone to do their best if there is no simple incentive, and humans do not normally want to share what they have without recompense.

As for Socialism, or political communism, in which the government owns everything and gives to each person the value of their work, the system is flawed at its basic levels. Karl Marx, in his works such as The Communist Manifesto, predicted the following would occur in a capitalist society:

1. The middle class would disappear, the upper classes would get smaller and the lower classes would get larger. In capitalist societies, in fact, the more capitalist, the more it is true, the opposite is fundamentally true. In the United States, the middle class has consistently expanded in terms of real spending and in terms of personal wealth owned, and in terms of purchasing power and living standards, for the last 150 years. The lower classes, or those living below the poverty level, has remained pretty near

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