the political philosophy behind the long embargoed nation. Cuba is one of the last communist

dictatorships left in the world, and since extreme anti-communist sentiments in the mid

20th century, the philosophy has been a regular fixture in political discussions. So we wanted

to know, what exactly is communism?

Well, there are a number of overlapping philosophies and socioeconomic systems that can be described

as communist in nature. But in the most basic sense, communism is when all manufacturing,

or “means of production” are equally owned by all the members of a state. The intended

result is to eliminate the capitalist-inspired class system where one class does all the

work and the other gets all the money.

Although similar ideas have existed both naturally and intentionally since the dawn of time,

the most common form of communism comes from the work of German philosophers Karl Marx

and Friedrich Engels, in what is today known as “Marxism”. In particular, Marxism is

focused on the exploitation of the worker. It’s based on the idea that any profit generated

by the worker but instead goes to the business owner, is a form of inequality and should

be abolished.

In recent history, several countries including the USSR, China, Vietnam and Cuba have attempted

to institute their own versions of communism. However all can be said to be predominantly

socialist, and not communist. The biggest difference between the two is that socialism

says that all workers should get an equal share in profit and property, while communism

says that there shouldn’t be money or ownership in general, and everyone should get as much

as they need, and work as much as they can. Unfortunately, attempts to achieve this political

philosophy have led to lower standards of living, government corruption, and in the

case of the USSR, total collapse and failure.

A number of reasons have been put forth as to why communism hasn’t worked out historically.

But the strongest criticism of the philosophy is that communism removes the incentive for

people to work harder than they absolutely have to. It also leads to resentment of those

who work less hard but receive the same. In general, communism is described as being great

in theory, while disastrous in practice. The state of the world seems to agree with that

assessment.

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