You're looking for the term Totalitarian. All Communists are Totalitarian, not all Totalitarians are Communists. They've long since done away with the pretenses of Communism.
> They've long since done away with the pretenses of Communism.
They've kept all their pretenses of communism.
We aren't a pure capitalist society, or a pure republic, or democracy. We still use those words to describe ourselves. It's important that we do use those words to describe ourselves. The phrase 'all men are created equal' in the declaration of independence aided the abolitionist argument, even if at no point did the goverment treat all men as equal.
The ideals of communism still have an impact on China's goverment, culture and even economy. Just because they fall short of a perfect communist society doesn't mean they are not communist.
Has there ever been a communist country by that strict definition though?
I've always thought communism was just an unachievable ideal. With socialism as the best case implementation of it, and totalitarianism as the worst case.
Kind of like how "free market" is an ideal, but capitalism is generally the implementation.
Hippie communes? Basically communism works great on the small scale when there are no bad actors in the system. It breaks down at larger scales and becomes authoritarianism.
what means of production even are there in hippie communes? how can you compare a tiny circle of friends with an economic system? all their goods resources and infrastructure is produced and distributed through a market economy. they are just an actor on that market. and what makes you think that these communities work? do you know how. many just break up after a few months? how many work for more than 5 years, a decade or even are multi generational. anecdotally from West Europeans who tried that, it always ended in disasters, people abuse it and these groups break up, split or the people just give up.
They've kept all their pretenses of communism.
We aren't a pure capitalist society, or a pure republic, or democracy. We still use those words to describe ourselves. It's important that we do use those words to describe ourselves. The phrase 'all men are created equal' in the declaration of independence aided the abolitionist argument, even if at no point did the goverment treat all men as equal.
The ideals of communism still have an impact on China's goverment, culture and even economy. Just because they fall short of a perfect communist society doesn't mean they are not communist.