I appreciate your engagement, even though I disagree. My apologies if I came across rude. So let me try again.

Do you think that communism is "bad".

I don't think communism is bad. I think it's horrendous, as history has already shown us. Millions and millions of lives destroyed and incredible suffering for the rest. I appreciate that you mention that China's system is not really communism as theorized by Karl Marx, but it is the inevitable outcome that perhaps Marx, a product of the industrial revolution, did not foresee.

we're all being told it's bad constantly over the course of our entire lives. This is propaganda. This is brainwashing.

Many people think communism is bad because we have seen or experienced what happens under the yoke of communism. The idea of brainwashing is not just a semantic concept but a suggestion that someone was passively programmed into a particular set of beliefs, presumably because they lack the intelligence or will to think for themselves. Right or left, we all carry versions of reality based on social/cultural conditioning, neurological imprinting, and genetics. This sounds nerdy, but it's more nuanced and nudges us to better understand the environmental and neurological mechanisms underpinning a belief of those we disagree with.

All that matters is that communities need to retake control of the means of production in addition to currency itself.

The problem with Karl Marx's 'communism' is precisely that he called for the taking over the "means of production." In his time, the means of production were the tangible factories and labor that went along with it. But since then, we have learned that the source of wealth is not the means of production, or capital as Adams espoused, but information, knowledge, and cybernetic feedback. In other words, the source of wealth is the neuro-digital brain and its interaction with other brains.

It doesn't matter what we call it. That's just semantics. What matters is freedom.

Semantics are important. Memes like "means of production", "worker's revolution", "bourgeoisie", "one percent", "democratic republic of..." and so on can be powerful viral ideas that are either limiting or expanding. The concepts derived from communism appear expanding in theory ("you have nothing to lose but your chains") but in practice, they quickly turn into self-limiting and oppressive beliefs.

You mentioned anarcho-capitalism. This is something different than communism. I'm afraid I have no opinion on it.

Communism and freedom are not mutually exclusive concepts.

Not in theory, but at the end of the road, communism puts all of us in chains. After all, you have to do what is good for the community or else...

I appreciate that you have brought up this topic. I don't discuss politics on Hive, but this one did trigger me, and perhaps that's a good thing, though my approach could have been better.

I apologize for my crankiness. I don't have any weed left, so that may have contributed to my terseness.