Communism means that all income comes in the form of wages and the collective owns the other factors of production collectively and benefits equally from them.
I know that because of imperialist propaganda as well as so-called “Red” propaganda, today’s contemporary man has little understanding of true Marxist communism. As I keep trying and failing to explain, Marxist communism is not about absolute egalitarianism. Rather, it is about structural equality for workers. It is about eliminating returns to capital, not eliminating capital. Put simply, in a communist society no one makes money from owning capital. It does not mean no one can gain anything from private property, such as a commodity. What it means is that no one makes money from owning productive assets because those assets are publicly shared.
Marx defined things in terms of their relation to production. Classes, for instance, are defined in terms of their relationship to the means of production. Private property is also defined—at least implicitly—in terms of its relation to production. In Marxist theory, capital is property that is used for production, and all that communism really means is that no one is a directly compensated member of the capital-owning class because everyone has an equal share in capital. In communism, everyone owns capital as a collective.
But every member of this collective still owns their own labor power. And everyone can be compensated with wages according to the value of their labor. The only caveat is that enough redistribution must occur in order to free everyone from severe want. No one will have to live in onerous conditions because of pecuniary indigence. Is that really so bad?
Liberals today believe, as they have always really believed, that such a vision of the world is utopian. And for liberals, utopian implies that it shall not come to pass. That’s the dividing line between liberals and leftists: liberals have given up on a hopeful vision of utopia; leftists still have hope that big change is possible. Liberals just talk about hope and change. Liberals see utopia as a nice idea that never seems to pan out in history. Liberals hope that marginal change will lead to progress. Liberals fancy themselves as the practical sort of women who will make progress through piecemeal measures. In a way, the notion that satisfactory progress is possible through moderate changes seems utopian in the face of recent history.
Leftists don’t need to give up on utopia. Don’t become a liberal, young leftist. A truly communist nation will surely be difficult to achieve. And, despite the rhetoric, there are not any truly communist nations in the world today. But the difference between the utopian vision of the communist and the blurred vision of the liberal is that communists actually have a clear idea of the kind of world they want to work toward. Communism means that all income comes in the form of wages and the collective owns the other factors of production collectively and benefits equally from them. That’s a 26-word sentence, which is kind of a long sentence, but it’s still just a single sentence and relatively compact. That’s communist parsimony and clarity. That’s a much clearer vision of a future state than liberals have. Liberals only believe in piecemeal means because all they have are piecemeal goals. If you don’t believe me, then just ask a liberal what is his vision for the future? I’d be willing to bet dollars to donuts that this liberal will not be able to express it in a 26-word sentence. Maybe after 26 sentences…