Editing Communism


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[[Image:Communismleaders.jpg|right|thumb|400px|Contrary to western propaganda, this is how communism has always worked.]] 

''"Under [[capitalism]], man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite."''

'''Communism''' is the socio-economic philosophy that promotes the creation of a classless, currency-less and stateless society (like Anarchism) where the means of production are made the property of the collective society/working-class rather than any single person. Communism was supposed to bring about a global utopia, but in practice it committed atrocities of such incredible scale and depravity that it made the Nazis look like a Hello Kitty cartoon. Between 60 to 110 million people have been killed by the various communist totalitarian states over the last hundred years. Communism should not be confused with socialism, even though they are strongly intertwined. There were various systems and methods based around the idea of common property ownership to various degrees employed throughout history, but proper communism starts with Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher/political thinker who observed the effects of the Industrial Revolution. The cliff notes version is that while the mechanization of production that was happening was a good thing as it generated a lot of wealth, it was [[Butthurt|grossly unfair]] that said wealth only benefited a few business owners while most people lived in Victorian poverty, and he viewed society as being on a very clear cut path of social evolution with clearly defined phases and stages based around competition between various socio-economic classes.

===Communism relating to TG===
In general there are three ways communism is used...
*Dirty Commies: Similar to how nazis are used, making use of cold war era attitudes. These communists are the enemy, a vast brutal godless horde determined to take over the world that our heroes must resist. See Red Dawn.
*Champions of the Proletariat: These are either rebels against corrupt corporate overlords or a body of workers and soldiers fighting against fascist invaders, most people who complain about GeeDubs think they are being this.
*GLORIOUS COMMUNISTS: Somewhere between the other two and generally played for laughs. Communist regimes are oppressive, but also able to do great thing through sheer force of Industrial Might, soviet Super-Science and Will-Of-The-People and can be heroic just as easily as villainous. See Red Alert-II and III.

[[category:Not related]]
[[category:history]]


===General Explanation that may or may not be related to /tg/===
According to Marx, capitalist society would get more and more divided between a very small number of ultra rich property owners and an increasingly poor lower class, then there would be a violent revolution in which the owners would be overthrown and replaced by a new socialist government where everything was owned by the state for the benefit of all. Then the state would dissolve and you would get a classless stateless communist society in which everyone worked for the common good ''somehow''. Even though that last part is pretty far fetched, it had its appeal to a 19th century worker [[Hive|who works a fourteen hour shift in a dark textile factory (along with his wife and six of their eight kids) for just enough money for an dirty apartment smaller than the average modern living room in a crime ridden slum and enough coal, second hand clothes and bland food to avoid freezing and starving to death, at least until the power loom takes off his hand and he gets fired and thrown onto the street while his employer is sipping brandy and eating caviar in a 40 room neoclassical mansion with a dozen servants]]. As such it gained its following. The most influential communist nation in the modern world is China, who rose to the role after the fall of the USSR (By ironically, abandoning hard line Marxism in favour of it's own brand of capitalism).

In modern global society, it is normally considered impractical and too Utopian to function.  This is because the governments who practice it apply communism to the people they govern while keeping themselves at the top of the ladder.  Many believe that it cannot exist without great faults and descent into paranoid totalitarianism and thus many people who choose to support it are seen as hypocrisy-prone [[Tau|worthless idealists]] primarily in western nations. As always, human faults prove to be the Achille's heel to another idea....back to the drawing board!  

One of the main reasons communism doesn't work (except true communism has never even come close to existing so it is ridiculous to say it cannot work.true communism has no leaders, because all are equal) is that society did not develop on the lines that Marx thought it would. Industrial era poverty was rather horrible, but Marx was not the only person to see this and so various other people (some, if not all of them agreeing with Marx to some degree or another) for various reasons did things to make life less horrible by reforming what existed, rather than ripping everything down and building it back from scratch. They introduced labor laws, safety standards and collective bargaining for improved wages, benefits, and working conditions. A few industrialists found out that if they payed better wages they could get the best workers who worked better and would buy the products made in the factories where they worked. This gained steam by the late 19th and 20th century and reduced the revolutionary fervor among the various communists and socialist groups. Typically communists took over not in Industrial countries, but in backwards countries with minimal industrialization which were already caught up in considerable social upheaval (Tsarist Russia, post-WWII china and so forth). Once the commies got into power in said area, they pushed their industrial efforts forwards. The fact that the revolutions which put communists into power also put in place hard handed dictators who quashed anything that they thought might look like dissent also did not help matter. 

[[Image:AK-47.jpg|left|thumb|200px|Glorious Soviet Industries could be used to produce huge numbers of reliable and effective things which are still in high demand after a half a century...]] 
As to the economies, everything was centralized and put under a single economic plan for expansion. This could work at getting shit done expanding infrastructure and manufacturing (the AK-47 and the T-54/55 would not have become the world's most widely produced assault rifle and [[tank]] respectively if they could not), though it could also end up failing miserably as it did in the Great Leap Forward. But even when it did work it generally did so inefficiently with mixed up priorities. You end up with situations were you have shops which have Ice Cream that no one can afford and not enough bread to go around and spending huge amounts of effort to increase the annual output of sheet steel and do little to actually turn that steel into things that people can use. And heaven forbid that you allow one of your citizens become some CAPITALIST and buy that surplus steel and hire people to make it into forks to make up for the fact that the five year plan did not produce them in sufficient quantities, that way inevitably leads to slavery don'tcha know! This is before all the rampant corruption, giving much of the Nation's actual industrial output to the military and setting very high quotas for production which must be filled OR ELSE.
[[Image:Lada 1200.jpg|right|thumb|200px|...Their cars are not on that list]] 

Communism has also provided us with the Russian army, which is awesome. It is a sacred law of [[/tg/]] alternate history [[/tg/'s homebrews|homebrew]] settings that there must be at least one communist faction and it must control at least 50% of the world's total landmass.

==Communism Today==

Economists such as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman have proven how free markets are efficient, and conversely, how socialist top down command economies must eventually fail. Distinguished left wing economists such as Robert Heilbroner have conceded in print that the debate is over, and the capitalists have won. Thus, very few communist states have survived into contemporary times because most have collapsed under their own inefficiency and oppression. There are however several isolated bastions of communism that exist in varying states of undeath:

* North Korea - Commonly known as the Norks, North Korea's population is perpetually on the verge of starvation. Its government is reduced to announcing threats against the USA and the South in order to extract food Aid. They are commonly portrayed as evil antagonists in movies, video games, books, and traditional games.

* Cuba - possibly the best off of the communist countries, Cuba still has problems with shortages of basic staples and production, as well as major violations of human rights. It recently made amends with the USA and opened its borders to trade and tourism (Comically, the USA has made peace with cuba as part of a general policy of resolving global disputes in anticipation of conflict with a rising china, a former communist country that began to thrive after abandoning communism). Whether this enables Cuba to soldier on for another 50 years or induces a collapse is open to debate.

* Venezuela - Venezuela has long used its oil exports as a crutch to support its communist economy. However, oil revenue has collapsed in recent years and the country is suffering from shortages of basic staples such as toilet paper and food. Large amounts of social unrest, such as food riots, threaten to overthrow the government. Venezuela proves that, you can believe what ever you want about economics, but once you cant even wipe your ass, it forces a reality check.

{{BLAM|This article has been marked as containing treasonous capitalist road sentiments. Please report to your local commissariat for re-education through labor.}}