(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Communism 101 Q&A Open Thread – Anti-Capitalism Meetup [1] ['A Pagan In Arizona', 'Sabrina Haake', 'Kelli Anne Busey'] Date: 2026-07-05 This is a short diary in reaction to my comments on a recent story on Trump’s insatiable need to grift with all roadblocks seemingly unable to stop him I wrote the following. I have included replies as noted. This started me thinking it was time for “the discussion”. Communism, and what it actually is vs what it is generally accepted as being: ME: We can fix this, and most all of society’s problems, by eliminating capitalism, completely removing the monetary system (no barter!), elimination private business (all publicly owned), and change to a decentralized government that has no central power base. Not easy, but nothing worth doing is ever easy. Take their money!! Make it worth zilch, take over businesses, and watch housing, food, healthcare and more become non-issues. SOLIDARITY!! RESPONSE: Why would there be businesses if there was no money? Why would people grow food or provide healthcare? ME: To have shelter, food, healthcare and products they need and want. EXACTLY like people work today, except we eliminate: * Copyrights, so everyone can build the best technology has to offer * Over 20% of our current workforce who spend 100% of their time dealing with money exclusively, including bankers, CPAs, all involved with stocks, bonds, funds, IRS, cashiers… lots more on that list * Most theft, as everyone has enough. * Hoarding, because it is stupid. * Lots of costs of equipment you own, like cars, lawnmowers, pressure washers, etc… as these are put to best use by being in use all of the time instead of stored most of the time. * Hunger. * Houselessness. * Begging. * Horrible consequences of not having needed healthcare. * And the list goes on and on. Downsides? You also eliminate the ability to accumulate wealth, so no silver spoon fed useless humans. No greedy people. Oh, wait… I said downsides. Well, I don’t know what they would be. The climate change disaster would be slowed and more easily addressed as greed is no longer part of the equation. Hope this helps to address your concerns. And for those who would discount it as “utopian”, why don’t you deserve utopia, or as close as we can get? What is wrong with that as our end goal? RESPONSE: I think that patents and copyrights have a legitimate purpose, but that purpose has to include what is best for our whole society along with just compensation for originators. The benefits of such laws have been WAY warped toward serving big money. ME: Of course any improvements / breakthroughs / patents should be noted as to the inventor / innovator. I do agree with awarding those who can think outside the box and help humanity better able to take care of itself. We just need to take the money and greed out of the equation. Will innovation cease without capitalism? Just the opposite. People are more free to work on things they like to do, have an aptitude for, and finding a way to save 1.3% on electricity consumption on a widgetron is rewarding by itself. Being told to make improvements to a widgetron under threat of pay or of your kin is just the wrong type of environment for invention, not that it is the standard or the only way things currently are, but money ruins everything! ME (from original post – specifically): Not easy, but nothing worth doing is ever easy. RESPONSE: Lots of things worth doing are easy. And there’s nothing wrong with money when it’s understood for what it is: a generic unit of energy. I expend energy to earn money, I spend money to conserve energy. Interest is the problem, which is why charging it is a sin. And I tried sharing my power washer with society and society destroyed it by leaving it full of water (ergo ice) in their unheated garage. I suppose if we established a Ministry of Power Washers and Power Washer Accessories I could report Steve (a member of society) to it, which would be pretty satisfying. ME: But that is the problem money – when really understood for what it is: a generic unit of energy which enables accumulation of wealth. Does it really make any sense at all for a few to have billions of these units, especially when not worked for nor represent any energy (except maybe yours working for them)? People, including your neighbors, don’t have enough to eat. Is that OK with you, while some have hundreds of billions of these units of wealth – more than they could ever use? Money makes that possible, and unfortunately we have all been duped into believing that force-fed meal: “hard work pays off. Hard work will make you independent.” No, hard work will likely make others more accumulated wealth, both from your labor and your use of these units of energy. You pay for things you don’t need because they are advertised in such a glorified manner. “Snake-oil salesmen” never went away. They still sell diet pills, home massagers, energy drinks, super-duper smart water they steal from our public water, bottle in environmentally hazardous plastic, and sell it to you as “healthy”. Really?!? You stick my water in plastic and sell it to me for a dollar a bottle? THAT is how money is a deterrent to society and the environment, but somebody is making huge numbers of these units of energy you sacrificed your time for. That makes absolutely no since or reason, at least to me. Where have we arrived at this point in our human experience, in our evolution? Looks more like chaos to me, where nobody give a crap about others. Me, me, ME is how the American dream has evolved. All for me and get out of my way! CHAOS. RESPONSE TO ORIGINAL POST: 1) Vision Statement [we are here] 2) Messy details 3) Prosperity and Justice! Hey, it’s a start. Godspeed! ================================================= This thread was the catalyst for today’s lay persons’ discussion of communism. Honestly, I am not sure if that last response was sarcastic or not. It reminds me of the “Underpants Gnomes” episode of the “South Park” animated series. They steal underpants, then something they don’t know about happens, then profit! No, they unknown thing isn’t actually happening, it is just an idea the gnomes have. 1) Steal underpants 2) messy details 3) PROFIT! That’s fine. It is how my book, A Revolutionary Solution, has the ideas – the Vision Statement (with a look at the end result of change), but does not deal with the messy details of how we get from here to there. Yes, that is the hard part, and escaping capitalism’s grip on our way of thinking is no easy thing. Of note, my book was written to find solutions to today’s societal problems. I didn’t write a pro-communism book, but after publishing I had a few people tell me I had written a book on communism. I did NOT realize that until after I was done. That led me down the path I am on today. People have a really, really hard time grasping a society where money is not needed. The responses to suggestions of a better, more communal, society are typically met with either complete misunderstanding or complete denial of the possibility. The former often just have no way to grasp a society where people aren’t constantly trying to get ahead of others – by not working but receiving, by taking more than their share, or by building secret power centers. The later just complain that it’s been tried and it fails because it ends up becoming an authoritarian government. Today I want to dwell not on the “messy details” parts of the transition from here to their, but instead on the misconceptions of what communism actually is. We start with a definition which aligns with my understanding of the term: COMMUNISM: https://www.britannica.com/question/What-is-communism Communism is a political and economic system that seeks to create a classless society in which the major means of production, such as mines and factories, are owned and controlled by the public. There is no government or private property or currency, and the wealth is divided among citizens equally or according to individual need. To paraphrase, they are saying communism is a system where there is: no government (no centralized government) no private property no currency socialism (i.e. the wealth is divided among citizens equally or according to individual need) Wikipedia defines communism in this manner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism Unfortunately the bastardization of the term has come a long way. Although the definition seems correct, Mirriam Webster wrongly labels a number of countries as “communist”: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/communism What exactly is communism? When it was first used in the mid-19th century, communism referred to an economic and political theory that advocated the elimination of private property and the common sharing of all resources among a group of people; in this use, it was often used interchangeably with the word socialism. Today, the word communism usually refers to the political and economic ideologies originating from Karl Marx’s theory of revolutionary socialism, which advocates a proletariat overthrow of capitalist structures within a society; societal and communal ownership and governance of the means of production; and the eventual establishment of a classless society. What countries are communist? The countries of China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and North Korea are the existing countries typically identified as being communist. Well, I can’t agree with that characterization. All of these countries are authoritarian, which precludes them from the term “communist”, as it requires a decentralized state. This use is what is known as a “generally accepted use” but is, at the same time, “not generally correct.” In fact, there has, to my knowledge, never been a truly communist government in existence. There is a story today where the author, talking about Trump’s Mt Rushmore speech, writes: Later in his remarks, Trump predicted that if the Republican majority in Congress would only eliminate the filibuster and pass his euphemistically titled Save America Act, which has bipartisan opposition in both Houses of Congress, the Republican Party wouldn’t lose another election for the next hundred years. Sounds a bit like a communist dictatorship– one party rule and all. It appears to me the author has let the Republicans define communism for them. So, what is your understanding of the terms communism or communist? Do you view it as the “generally accepted use” as it has been for the past 70+ years? We have been told about the “red scare”, and Sen. Joe McCarthy’s list: It was on Feb. 9, 1950, that McCarthy — who had dubbed himself “Tailgunner Joe” for acts of World War II bravery he did not in fact commit — told a crowd of 275 at the Ohio County Republican Women’s Club that the U.S. State Department was “thoroughly infested with communists” and brandished papers he claimed were a list of 57 such subversives. No such list quite existed, but as Janes says in the podcast, that didn’t matter “since the seeds were sown, in ground that was made fertile by serious and possibly justified concerns about the growing influence and power of communism on the world stage and possibly at home as well.” Although Joe McCarthy and Kevin McCarthy aren’t directly related, it appears they both lie with the same voracity! The Republican party has spent decades portraying “communism” as a “godless state” with “authoritarian rule” – an “infestation”. It appears to me Donald Trump more resembles these threats than communism actually does. To me, communism equates to peace (there is no need to fight over “X” because it belongs to us all), happiness (life is so much less complicated without the stresses of money in our day-to-day life, and without the constant political harassment of our souls), cooperation, and a significantly better society without the cost of money (it consumes over 20% of our workforce and causes most of society’s problems today). Since there is no monetary reward for destroying out planet, communism helps us to address instead of ignore climate change. But that is me. Please use today’s Anti-Capitalism Meetup to help us all get a better understanding of what communism means to you. 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