One day, I'll understand why people in this day and age are so afraid of Communism. It's pretty clear that, at a national scale, Communism doesn't work. I think we all saw the ending of that story in the 90's. Anyway, this is Marx at his core (from the Communist Manifesto): "In the place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."
In other words, you work for the good of yourself and society, not to enrich your employer in exchange for cruddy wages. Nice idea. Just doesn't work once you scale it up past, say, a hippie commune.
And this is what Marx thought a Communist society would look like:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of wastelands, and the improvement of soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc., etc.
No one's proposed number 1. No one's proposing number 2 either - if you think our tax burdens are bad or going to get worse, go talk to a Dane. Number 3 arguably happened at this country's inception - no American has a right to an inheritance. We inherit only because our relatives decide we are worthy (there're some ins and outs to this, but at the end of the day your parents are not obligated to leave you a bent nickel). Number 4: not on the table. Number 5 is on it's way because our capitalists asked for it (let that sink in). Number 6 hasn't been proposed by anyone and hopefully never will be. Number 7 isn't on the table, is a very bad idea in general and everyone who's been paying attention since rise and fall of Communism should know that by now. Though I see farms out in the Washington desert and have to wonder sometimes. Numbers 8 and 9 aren't on the table either. Number 10 we've sort of had for a while now (well, not the combination thing, but public education and child labor laws).
