There’s no historical or contemporary evidence that communism is practical, where “communism” means, at a minimum, the elimination of private property.¹ This is a commonplace in political debate. It goes without saying. It doesn’t need support. Everybody knows it. It’s just obvious that communism can’t possibly work. But, as with so many such beliefs, it’s completely wrong. There’s plenty of evidence that communism would work, there’s plenty of evidence that it’s a natural state of human organization, almost a default. The evidence that it would work just fine lies in the fact that it keeps breaking out all over despite the extraordinary and ongoing expenditures of power and wealth the ruling class has exercised throughout the history of the United States to prevent it.²

The American part of this story begins with the constitution itself. In Federalist #10 James Madison argued that representative democracy rather than direct democracy was necessary to prevent people without property, who of course are the majority, from voting away private property rights. As he said, preventing this is “the principle task of modern legislation”. Republicanism is such an effective means of preventing this that it’s required by the Constitution in Article IV Section 4: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” One of the main functions of American representative democracy is preventing communism.

And when the Constitution talks about guarantees like this it’s talking about the exercise of state violence. Violent enforcement of laws is woven into the very fabric of the Constitution. The Fourth and the Fifth Amendments place explicit limits on the use of violence, which assumes that violence will be used. The same is true of the First Amendment, which limits the kinds of laws Congress can be passed, the contexts in which violent enforcement can be used. Without violent enforcement as the default position there would be no need to limit its use.

The Constitution’s requirements, like all laws, are enforced by violence. When it guarantees “a Republican Form of Government” it’s your ruling class promising to violently prevent you from living in a direct democracy which, as Madison warned, would lead to the elimination of private property rights. And this isn’t just a historical curiosity. Preventing communism is still “the principle task of modern legislation.” Enforcement of laws that authorize violence to protect the property rights of landlords and employers and to prevent communist organization from emerging is still the primary function of police, and without constant police repression people tend to organize communally.

Homeless encampments are an excellent example. Oppressed, impoverished people band together to support one another. They can look out for each other and organize with their communities to survive, and even to thrive if allowed. This may sound utopian, but it’s not. Here in Los Angeles a few years ago homeless people and housed activist supporters managed to use some of the space created by the pandemic to build a thriving communist community in Echo Park. As the residents put it in a public statement, which is worth quoting in full:

A year has gone by in which housed and unhoused neighbors have worked together to create a beautiful and much lauded homeless run outdoor community at Echo Park Lake. We have built and share kitchens, hot showers, community garden, trash cleanup, a sense of security, safety, and stability, and healing for drug addiction and mental illness with our own pioneering forms of therapy in the absence of any help from the city government. This community has drawn widespread neighborhood and Los Angeles organizational support, including Street Watch LA, Ground Game LA, DSA LA, and LA CAN. We have also received media coverage from NPR, the LA Times, and Knock LA. As was reported in the LA Times, two weeks ago local councilman Mitch O’Farrell in conjunction with LAPD declared their plan to forcibly displace up to fifty plus tent dwellers of Echo Park Lake as soon as possible without providing an adequate alternative.

The following is the statement of the Echo Park Tent Community:

For the past year or at least ever since Covid hit we’ve been left alone. Worse, we’ve been intentionally deprived of our basic needs like when the city cut off street lights and water fountains, but only on the “homeless” side of the park. Or when they decided to no longer throw away “homeless” trash, their words not ours.

The point is, we’ve had nothing but each other this past year and it’s honestly been a relief. The biggest pandemic in years actually turned out to be a blessing for us. Without the constant LAPD and city harassment uprooting our lives we’ve been able to grow. To come together as a community, not just unhoused but housed as well and work together for the mutual aid and benefit of each other.

Greater than that, we’ve gotten together as a community, unhoused with housed and did things together outside the context of charity or pity. We did things together for the sake of doing things together, as one community not separated by labels. Together we’ve been able to see and enjoy each others’ common humanity in a way the city, with its lens of economy never could.

So to sum it up: to Mitch O’Farrell, our demand is simply this; please continue to leave us alone, or stand with us. Ignore us as if we didn’t exist, much like you’ve been doing, and enjoy your corruption and greed, or come out and stand with us. Stand in solidarity with all of your constituents, not just those with money and housing. And watch as We make sure District 13 becomes a beacon of light for the world. Reshaping and reimagining what it means to be a community of people living together.

This isn’t a fantasy. I was here, and I saw it working. The problem didn’t lie with the communism but with the inevitable police repression, which involved hundreds of cops. This would be every encampment if not for police violence. The amount of money the government spends on clearing encampments shows that they know quite well that communism works. Why else go to such lengths to prevent it? And again, it’s not just encampments but the entire web of laws which criminalize sharing and cooperation. Zoning codes prevent unrelated people from sharing homes, giving away food in public is often illegal. Letting homeless people sleep in churches is a crime. The list goes on and on.

And laws don’t enforce themselves. As I said, all of these laws require massive expenditures on police, on courts, on legislation, on public relations to cover up the disgust that most people feel for their violent enforcement, and so on. If communism doesn’t work why has the ruling class spent hundreds of years and untold zillions of dollars preventing it? The fact is that not only does communism work just fine, but most people are sympathetic with it. The people it threatens know this quite well, as shown by their diligence in repressing it. Forms of human organization that don’t work don’t need to be prevented, they don’t ever arise, or are abandoned quickly. Communism works, just ask your bosses.

1. This essay is inspired by this mastodon post, but the sentiment is ubiquitous.
2. Not just the United States, of course, but at least since the invention of capitalism about 500 years ago.