[Retric]

If you’re open to a wider discussion.

Norway's and Alaska’s use of oil wealth to subsidize their population via state ownership of that wealth is very communist in nature.

Ancient Rome’s huge grain dole similarly was quite communist in nature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cura_annonae

America’s freeing its slave population is similarly redistribution of the means of production to the general population. Which seems strange to modern ears, but the communist manifesto 1848 predates the US civil war 1861–1865.

[GMoromisato]

I'm not going to disagree with the idea of the state redistributing wealth via taxes/benefits or even nationalized resources (e.g., mineral rights or FCC spectrum). Both have been features of US capitalism almost since the founding.

But if you're saying the US is a successful communist country... well, I promised I wouldn't argue.

[gacgacgac]

I'll argue -- socialist is not the same as communist. Norway is not a communist country (despite arguably being a socialist one).

[GMoromisato]

I agree. Moreover, socialism and capitalism are not antithetical--they are orthogonal. Norway and the US have socialism (e.g., Social Security) and capitalism (e.g., people invest their capital to fund industry).

Socialism without capitalism is communism--the state owns everything.

Capitalism without socialism is anarchy: if you don't socialize a legal system, law enforcement, and national defense, then you don't have a country.

[Retric]

East India company and its armies are something of a counter argument to your second point.

[gacgacgac]

Anarchism exists within socialism too-- the anti Francoist anarchists in Spain who were crushed by Soviets for doing the wrong kind of socialism, for example. Kropotkin's approach and anarcho syndacalism is anti-statist, and also anti-capitalist.

Anarchism is a complex area that can be capitalist, socialist, individualist, collectivist, primitivist, techno..logist? Basically, like communism, anarchism doesn't have just one flavor.

[Retric]

> I promise I wouldn’t argue

Fair, to be clear I wouldn’t actually call the US a communist country either. I would say it’s more communist than modern day China, granted that’s a low bar.

What’s IMO worth considering is just how much more communist it is today than in 1776. 22 million Americans work directly for the government (fed, state, local, post office etc), that rises significantly when you include research grants, government contractors, farm subsidies, etc. K-12 education, Qualified immunity (1967), banking laws, etc the government is both getting a stranglehold on the economy and continues extending its reach.

We are closer to nominally capitalist than I think anyone wants to admit and in ways both parties quietly agree with. That isn’t to say we need “smaller government” just understanding of what’s happening.

[gacgacgac]

Communism is not "when the government does stuff", and "the more the government does, the more communist it is".

[Retric]

Basic government functions like the military aren’t communist.

Communism however is when the government does everything. Thus there’s a threshold where more government control is more Communist.

40% of US corn is turned into ethanol not because the free market thinks it’s a good idea but because the government does. That’s Communism in action inside the US, it’s inefficient central planning that fits right into the kind of stupid economic decisions you’d see in the USSR. https://afdc.energy.gov/data/widgets/10339