You’re wrong.
Communism can be entirely defined as an economic system with no private ownership.
The classes concept is a symptom, not the cause. It’s true that without private ownership there wouldn’t be a working class vs upper class, but we would hardly be classless at that point. There would still be people working, and people not working under communism. Some people can’t work, they simply aren’t capable, and some will choose not to work because there will already be enough to go around from the people who choose to work just for something to do. If you don’t think that classes will form because of those difference, you don’t know human nature very well.
Marx gave a single definition of communism, there are plenty of others.
OilyArena@lemmy.ml 13 hours ago
I don’t think you understand what an economic class is. A new class does not emerge because one person is more productive for society than another. It’s a question of what your relation to the means of production is, and in a communist, classless society there would be no inequality there.
Could you provide a few alternate definitions of Communism? Sounds interesting.
BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 13 hours ago
I mean, the current 3-tier standard for social classes directly disagrees with you. Middle class people do get a new tier just by being more productive(perceived or actual) than another.
The 3-tier system is archaic at best, and more likely intentional propaganda.
Either there should only be 2 classes of people(those who work to live, and those who profit off other people enough to not need to work) or there should be a dozen classes to encompass things like the homeless, welfare supported persons, retired people, people who make part of their income from profit and part of their income from employment, etc.
The definition of communism I’ve already mentioned is one of those theories, but you’re arguing it isn’t real. An economic system where there is no private ownership of the means of production. That’s it, no discussion about social classes or anything.
Other alternatives span a range from no private ownership of anything (normally it’s just the means of production) to group ownership rather than being some sort of universal system.
OilyArena@lemmy.ml 12 hours ago
Look: you can either own means of production and be part of the ruling class, or you can not own any and be forced to sell your labor for the rest of your life. A social welfare state is something that purposely built by the ruling class to further their interests, with some concessions to past union efforts.
That’s not what socialism is, trust me, I live in a country with one of the oldest and strongest Social Democratic impact in the world, and while the effects of that are still nice today they do not change anything about the fact that a huge majority works to enrich a tiny minority, and Social Democrats like you have never seriously put an effort into changing that, historically.
BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 3 hours ago
You don’t need a ruling class to have a social welfare state. It’s possible to just have everyone not work in theory.