[lev99]

> 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.

[AlexB138]

Fair points, all. However, this quote:

> The goverment has strong control of their citizens, controlling how many children they can have, which city they can live in, etc.

is specifically talking about the totalitarian nature of their government.

[stale2002]

Comunism means worker countrol of the means of production.

Or in other words, all private capital ownership and private business ownership is illegal.

Lots of people own businesses in China. Therefore, by definition, it isn't communist.

[rapind]

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.

[stale2002]

The Soviet Union and cultural revolution China are close enough that they count.

In those two societies, almost all businesses we're owned by the government, so I think that counts.

Modern day China doesn't count as there are tons of billion dollar businesses owned by shareholders and private parties.