Communism is the system needed for a perfect Utopian society. Or at least it seems that way. Depending on who you are, you might agree with that. There's a lot of "Neo-Marxists" who would support a more communistic approach to generally capitalist countries, like the United States.
At the surface level, this doesn't seem like a terrible idea, but realistically and historically, full-blown communism is a murderous failure of a governmental system. The concept of dispersing resources to all citizens isn't inherently evil, but it does create problems in social hierarchies and class systems. By the way, those two things are necessary for any healthy society.
An ideal capitalistic system is built on the idea of equality of opportunity, meaning everyone gets the same chance to succeed. True equality of opportunity isn't possible because humans aren't perfect, and that's a little too much to ask for. Communism, on the other hand, is built on the idea of equality of outcome, or equity. The distinction between these two ideas is essential. I'll put a simplified visual on this blog as well.
To conceptualize this, we'll use the fence picture down below. Equality of opportunity gives every person in the example an equal chance to see over the fence. On the other hand, equity involves giving shorter people more resources to see over the wall in the name of fairness. The problem is that equity is that it supports those with problems they have inherently.
That doesn't seem too bad. That's part of the reason communism looks so good in concept.
Let's apply this to another example. A running race starts people at equal distances from the finish line in the name of equality. But maybe one runner has more training or is younger than the other. If we wanted equality of outcome, we'd put the worse runner a bit farther ahead to make it fair. Now if we have a whole group of runners, we take all the factors that make someone a better runner and fix the race for discrepancies. Now that everything is fair, we can start the race. And what do you know, everyone finishes first and last. Everyone wins, but everyone also loses.
The problems with this idea become a little more apparent with this example. Equality of opportunity sets up the most competent people to win, and that logic is airtight. This is how capitalistic societies are based. The better person for the job will get it. People will often mention systemic racism or the gender pay gap, but I've never heard of concrete evidence for either of these. Besides, if women got paid less than men, then wouldn't companies only hire women so that they can save money?
The title isn't meant to defend communism, but the people who believe in it. They're not evil Stalinists who want to dismantle our system. I'm sure they're just a little misguided, and it's easy to become misguided as with the fence example. Neo-Marxism is a growing problem in America, though. Whether its college professors or ideologies or political correctness that push these ideas isn't important. Educating yourself on any issue is vital before you can make any opinion on it, and that should be the takeaway from this.