The original definition is a community where private property is not a thing. Private property is when an individual can control the land, tools, and knowledge people need to survive. Private property is factories, not your toothbrush.
Most pro USSR, PRC, or Cuba leftists believe those countries governments controlling all or the vast majority of private property constitutes communism. Some think these countries are socialist and working their way to communism.
Many anti-communist people don’t really understand how these countries work specifically. All their ideas of what communism is are based on how they view the above communist countries.
Finally right wingers will describe California as communist because they have social programs and higher taxes than some states. Basically if the government is intervening in the market by supplying a service or good directly to a citizen that’s communism.
From what I’ve observed most people lie somewhere on this spectrum of definition.
The original definition is a community where private property is not a thing. Private property is when an individual can control the land, tools, and knowledge people need to survive. Private property is factories, not your toothbrush.
Most pro USSR, PRC, or Cuba leftists believe those countries governments controlling all or the vast majority of private property constitutes communism. Some think these countries are socialist and working their way to communism.
Many anti-communist people don’t really understand how these countries work specifically. All their ideas of what communism is are based on how they view the above communist countries.
Finally right wingers will describe California as communist because they have social programs and higher taxes than some states. Basically if the government is intervening in the market by supplying a service or good directly to a citizen that’s communism.
From what I’ve observed most people lie somewhere on this spectrum of definition.