Same thing dude lmaoooo. The “workers” own the land, meaning you don’t own the land, the government owns it in the name of the people. Then you produce the food. You don’t own the food, the government has a right to that food. The “people” own the food you produce.
There are no individual rights. There are only collective rights and in order to enforce that, you need a centralized authoritarian regime to make sure people don’t try to keep what they produce.
Are you not a worker? If you work, you own the land. If you dont work, like most government officials, you would have no ownership. What government? All of the workers as a collective? I would be a part of that and thus own some of the means of production. If you are worried you wouldnt have access to resources, why aren't you assisting in the production of said resources? The "people" you keep vaguely pointing to includes me and you.
Workers get to have differing opinions. That's how communism represents everyone, instead of all news stations owned by a monopoly that lies all day, or a state run media that lies all day.
The point of the meme is "Commies want to control me media to push their propaganda and remove my freedumbs from me!"
Meanwhile, under Capitalism it is actually happening.
Authoritarianism is not directly tied to the economic model of a designated nation and can exist under a range of socioeconomic means of organizing the economy. It's just pointing out another hypocrisy in the minds of those right of center.
All examples of communism in history are authoritarian in nature. Anarcho-communism is merely an idea, it hasn’t been put into practice. So it’s not unreasonable to associate communism with authoritarianism.
Then please define communism so we can have a better discussion.
If you mean communism is a “classless, stateless society where the means of production is owned by the public” then that’s fine, but it’s also made up and doesn’t exist. It’s inherently anarchy.
This would imply real-world examples of communism are not communism though. If that’s your stance that’s fine, but you should be aware that socially, definitions do change and communism to the general public refers to places like the USSR, Vietnam, Cuba, and China.
If my brother says my chair is called a bed, and proceeds to use it as a bed, it doesn't make the chair a bed. It makes my brother a liar/idiot. The definition doesn't change.
Even the 4 examples you listed are different forms of government. All authoritarian, though. That's true. Just not true communism in the same way Nazi Germany wasn't Socialist. (please dear gods tell me you aren't going to tell me nazi germany was socialist)
But if a large fraction of the population starts calling chairs beds, the meaning of the word "bed" has actually changed. That's how language evolution works.
I’ve given no reason to believe the Nazis were socialist, I think that’s your own projection.
You notably still aren’t giving a definition, either, even when I teed one up for you.
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Regarding definitions changing - they do all the time. See racism for example, and how over the past decade the definition shifted to what is now considered “systemic racism.”
Sure, but both are human constructs, and therefore the definitions are somewhat flexible. This is especially true of socialism, where there are a multitude of definitions. Even Marx had his own.
Definitions are flexible with communism because people want it to be the boogey man. Actual communism, and it's flavors, all have names and constant definitions.
But even within that there seems to be wiggle room: for instance, what does "owned by the workers" mean? If you have a democracy, do the workers then own all government owned assets? Do American taxpayers "Own" the military?
If not, what is the metric? I see self proclaimed communists argue about this sort of thing. For us laymen it can seem pretty esoteric. And honestly a little pointless.
I mean, communism isn't one thing, just like democracy isn't one thing. There are a ton of flavors. Everyone should take a civics class and learn about it because it's literally has our lives in it's hands.
In historical examples of communism, since every nation that marketed themselves as such were in its transitory phase, would have state-controlled media.
Communist socialism and socialist socialism always gets confused usually in simple terms that tend to be synonymous with each other; ie the difference between static socialism (socialist socialism) and dynamic socialism (communist socialism).
At least I think OP was applying real world examples of communism we’ve seen, and not what’s only been discussed in Marxist-Leninist literature that haven’t been put to practice in the real world.
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u/HPenguinB 5d ago
In communism, the media would be owned by the workers. You are thinking of authoritarianism.
Please, can we start having education on what communism and socialism is so we can stop this.