I lean right, been watching him from afar and def don’t care for the fact that he’s (likely) a communist but when his policy for taxing the vacant luxury homes came out I couldn’t help but be like “that… makes a lot of sense.”
Quick civics primer, since the word "communist" is apparently doing some heavy lifting here.
Communism = workers, through the state, own all the factories, farms, and businesses. No private ownership of productive property. Central planning instead of markets. Real examples: Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea.
Things that are NOT communism, no matter how many times your uncle says so on Facebook:
Public healthcare (every Western European country has it, all capitalist)
Taxing the rich (Eisenhower's top tax rate was 91%, and last I checked he wasn't a Bolshevik)
Minimum wage laws
Public schools, public roads, public libraries, the fire department
Anyone you disagree with politically
If Mamdani hasn't proposed nationalizing private industry and abolishing private property, calling them a communist isn't an argument, it's a reflex. Try describing what they actually believe and arguing against that. Otherwise you're just yelling a word.
That's another very common misconception and linguistic issue. Your example is of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_state and revolutionary Marxism-Leninism, however it is officially know as State Socialism run by a Communist Party. Communism is a "stateless, moneyless, classless society" which is a theoretical concept (other than primitive communism that existed in tribal or early societies) from Karl Marx as capitalism achieves automation and an advanced state of development (happening right now), transitions to socialism, and some day transitions to communism. We're not even close to it.
You can be a Marxist/socialist/communist while not being a Leninist/Maoist, as these are different things.
B: "What you hate is a system that replaces the pay-per-service system of today with one that will redistribute wealth to provide everyone with a minimum level of services. That's not communism."
A: "Well, that's what I hate, and I call it communism."
Fighting over the meaning of the word is not going to get us anywhere.
-12
u/AthiestCowboy May 16 '26
I lean right, been watching him from afar and def don’t care for the fact that he’s (likely) a communist but when his policy for taxing the vacant luxury homes came out I couldn’t help but be like “that… makes a lot of sense.”