I made a comment about how the oppression of the people is built into communism. I want to clarify.

I wasn’t making a comment about ‘government power’ per say, even though I do think giving the government all the power over people’s lives isn’t a good thing.

While it’s true that the path to widespread communism requires a consolidation of power by the government, with the ideal being the government holds power until it can transition to ‘true communism’ and then dissolves and lets society take over, that isn’t what I’m talking about.

Communism requires a boot on the neck of everyone under it because communism is so delicate that a contamination in its ecosystem can destroy it. In a communist society there are always going to be people who want more, who are willing to work harder, who want to stand above others. Be it food, material goods, etc, there will always be supply and demand (until we get limitless resources, ie Star Trek).

In a communist system, someone wanting to start a business, put in the effort and then own that business has to be stopped. Someone cannot stockpile something they make and then ‘sell’ it for other items, as that will eventually create an inequality as the stockpiled items start translating into more valuable items overall.

Once one capitalist enterpriser gets started it begins throwing the entire system off. Eventually, the ‘supplier’ is able to accrue enough ‘wealth’ in the form of things, service, etc, through barter. Someone will always want more and work (in one way or form) to get it and ‘exploit’ another person to do so.

This is why there was such a booming black market in the USSR and why the Soviets relentlessly hunted, killed and gulag’d these people. They were the capitalists who were willing to horde, import or otherwise gather goods that could be sold to those who wanted them.

It requires the government to fanatically restrict everyone, every last one, to keep them from ‘going off the reservation’ and accidentally creating capitalism again. It requires the boot to be on everyone’s neck.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. However, it is resilient. It functions as a byproduct of human greed, which is intrinsic to our existence. Rather than attempting to change a fundamental part of human thinking, capitalism basically sits on top and functions because of it. It’s hard to get rid of because it is inherently part of our psychology.

While the path to true communism requires capitalist behavior to be stamped out or else risk being subverted internally, capitalism can survive with individual socialist behavior. A group of people forming a co-op or commune does not inherently damage capitalism.

This is why communism kills so many people. It’s the equivalent of a cat owner forcing their pet on a vegan diet. And if the cat continues to break out of the house and kill birds to eat, the owner has only two options; crack down on the cat (either by locking it up under more draconian measures or by psychologically/physically abusing it) or give up and let the cat eat meat.

