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
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