You’re on a massive spaceship with what’s left of humanity. It’s the only ship, what’s on the ship is all you have. There are no humans left except for the few thousand people on board.
There are a few Star Trek-style replicators throughout the ship. These produce food, clothing, medicine – all material needs. In order to produce enough for everyone to live comfortably, they require a few hundred people to use stationary bikes for a few hours each week to generate the required energy.
Paradise, right? Enough people are more than happy to spend some time helping the community meet its needs, and many just enjoy the exercise, so there shouldn’t be any problem getting those replicators running!
The trouble is, immediately after boarding the ship, a few people camped out by the replicators and claimed them as their own. Using the resources from the replicators, they have bribed some people to guard them and “their” replicator and beat up anyone who tries to use them.
Now that these people have total access to the replicators, they have total power over who gets food, water, medicine, etc. They demand that everyone on the ship use the bikes every day, all day, or they will not be allowed to eat or drink. (The exception is their enforcers, who are rewarded with more resources for keeping the population in line in a variety of ways.)
Overworking everyone else produces enough energy for the replicator-hoggers to live like kings. They order up luxuries for themselves from the replicators, and eat and drink when and whatever they want. They order up food and throw it away when they decide they don’t want it. Huge piles of objects go unused in their quarters.
They make rules for how everyone else on the ship has to live, under threat of violence from their enforcers. People who can’t or won’t spend all day using the bikes are deliberately allowed to die from hunger and thirst, and the resource-hoarders say it’s because life must be earned.
The resource-hoarders allow the ship to fall into disrepair, and even throw wild parties and break things. Engineers beg to be allowed to effect repairs, but the resource-hoarders refuse, even when warned that in a few years the ship will break down completely and no one will survive. They call the engineers liars and conspirators.
And people just… sort of get used to it. They rationalize it, they say that the resource hoarders work hardest of all because they decide who gets what and when. Even though there are thousands more being forced to work than there are resource hoarders or their enforcers, people are afraid, or don’t want to think about it, or they justify it, or they dream of the day when they can work their way up the ranks of the enforcers and hog resources too.
And, I mean, it’s not human nature to hoard resources. Most people share their rations and help each other survive as best they can. It’s literally like eight jerks just camping out by the replicators surrounded by guards they bribe with the fruits of everyone else’s work.
But we let them do it. And the idea that we wouldn’t is considered wacky and fringe.
the idea is always “people cannot possibly generate value; it just springs out of the ether. there is no such thing as people doing useful things. so the only possible way for people to have more than I want them to have is to be morally depraved and wicked and actively attempting to hurt the Totemic Power Of The Common Man, and thus deserving of punishment. the only fair share is having exactly as much as i want you to have and i am the arbiter of everyone forever.”
this is why communism invariably descends into “murder everyone who hurts my feelings”
communism is so blatantly, odiously wrong and so blatantly, odiously malicious and so blatantly, odiously based in nothing but personal status, that it’s obvious why it can never be discredited and the inherently popular will always be shilling it and pushing it. communists are psychopaths who care only about causing harm to other people for the crime of being weak – it is utterly inevitable that communists will be lauded are pure and noble and virtuous and everyone will bend over backwards to exalt them and enable them.
thanks for the reminder, i went a few minutes without remembering all is lost and suicide is the only escape from their invincible inviolate power. but all is lost, and suicide is the only escape from their invincible inviolate power. the concept of doing useful things will leave and it will never return. the shrieking of murderous, smug, inherently popular communists will rewrite everyone’s values. suicide is our only respite. the grave is the only place their dominion cannot reach.
people cannot possibly generate value; it just springs out of the ether. there is no such thing as people doing useful things.
“Generating value” is precisely what the people on the bicycles are doing in the above scenario, what on Earth are you talking about?
This is attacking actual, real-world wealthy and high-status people.
the only fair share is having exactly as much as i want you to have and i am the arbiter of everyone forever.
This is a fair and extremely strong criticism of communism as practiced, which is why I’m not a communist.
But attacking people for pointing out that the actual real distribution of things is grossly unfair, on the basis that random internet communists are BadWrong and therefore powerful and successful (?!) is … pretty much the exact thing you usually accuse people of doing, frankly.
Things are unfair. You know things are unfair. You frequently mention this well-known fact.
But the moment someone you consider contemptable points it out, you’re rounding them off to the nearest badwrong stereotype no matter that it doesn’t fit at all. Because it’s attacking the status of high-status people.
What fucking high status people? The message of this is clear and unmistakable and can only be argued if you’re a fucking liar: People who have wealth do not do useful things, they only have wealth because of their malice and evil, it is impossible that people have wealth because they do useful things, and therefore they did not earn anything, are wicked and bad, are responsible for “our” suffering, and should be punished.
It is straight up Communism. It is absolutely inarguably one hundred percent Communism. Not “socialism”. Not “a criticism of capitalism”. People who are wealthy are innately wicked and do not do useful things and steal from the Noble Heroic Common Man. It is one hundred percent Communism and nothing but Communism. It is all of the lies told by Communism.
Communism doesn’t ever attack high status people ever ever ever literally ever. Communism is status. Communism attacks people who had the audacity to improve their lot in life by any means other than “having innate status”. The people who are entitled to take utility from others by virtue of their innate status look at people who do useful things and say “Those people must be thieves!”
This message, because it is Communism and it is nothing but Communism, does not attack high status people. It, after all, does not describe anything like what has occurred in reality, so it cannot correspond to an attack on people who exist and have status. It attacks the concept that people can ever possibly deserve to have more wealth than status, by proclaiming anyone who has more wealth than status is a wicked, evil, malicious thief who is exploiting everyone. That is all. That is all there ever is. That is all there ever will be.
They will not ever stop and they will not ever be stopped. You, along with every person, will bend over backwards to excuse them and to not notice the things they say. Because the only place where their dominion does not extend is the grave.
Communism doesn’t ever attack high status people ever ever ever literally ever.
I know of some Russian princesses who might take issue with that. “Ever ever ever literally ever” is a strong modifier.
That is all there ever will be.
You, along with every person, will bend over backwards to excuse them and to not notice the things they say.
“I know you’re holding onto this elephant, the same as I am. The fact that you nonetheless persistently refuse to notice that the elephant is actually a snake is just one more sign that you and everyone else cannot think straight regarding elephant-related issues.”