the.com/communism
The theory where everyone shares equally; the practice where someone always controls the sharing.
means A political and economic system in which property, production, and resources are owned collectively rather than privately, in theory to abolish class distinction.
from From French 'communisme,' built on 'commun' (common), tracing back to Latin 'communis.' The word spread through radical politics in the 1840s, and Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels cemented it in the public mind with 'The Communist Manifesto' in 1848 — though the idea of common ownership is far older than the label.
- origin
- Marx and Engels wrote it as a critique, 1848
- core idea
- abolish private property, workers own production collectively
- irony
- promised stateless society, built some of history's biggest states
- still running
- China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos officially claim it