The Right Loves to Hate Communism. What is it?



I suppose we're all guilty at one time or another of writing or talking about other groups we're not part of and incorrectly thinking we know all about them. That happens when Christians talk about atheists. Christians say atheists leave religion because atheists want to live in the fast lane called sin and not pay any consequences. Atheists live their lives at the same moral level as Christians.

The latest version of this is the Christian Right talking about "socialism" and assuming it is the same as "communism." They use the terms interchangeably. Those who advocate more government services, especially more programs for the poor and public education, are labeled "socialists" even though more government is not the same as socialism. 

There have been, I would guess, hundreds of books written about socialism and communism. What those words mean is not precise. In general, socialism means government owns all the "resources of production." That is, a country with actual socialism owns the land, factories and stores the distribute goods. People produce the goods and services and distribute them. How much people are paid and what, if anything, is charged for these goods/services is a topic of many books in my field of economics. I don't know of even one politician alive today who advocates this genuine definition of socialism.  

Communism is a form of socialism but with strong views on the topic mentioned above, how much workers are paid and how much is charged the public for goods. Most economists would agree, I believe, that communism is a branch of socialism that has an ideology of equal wages and equal distribution of goods. No living politician in the U.S. advocates communism.

Capitalism is an economic system where private people or firms own the resources of production and private firms distribute the goods. Wages and prices are determined by markets. So far as I know, all politicians who belong to political parties with the word "socialism" in them advocate private ownership of farms and factories and of the stores, that is markets, that sell what is produced.  They are neither socialists nor communists. They are capitalists. Karl Marx would not like them. 


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