Quote:
Originally Posted by JurisDictum
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Communism can mean a few different things to people -- but in most the political science world it means a certain kind of authoritarian system where one party (they usually call themselves a socialist party) controls a far-reaching government that does not allow free assembly, expression of political ideas, or most civil disobedience.
They control who gets to run what business and sometimes have large amount of state-owned business that displace free enterprise. If you want to advance in that society you have to join the party and they basically rule your life. No sense of privacy or civil rights.
Mix all that together with some Marxist language and wellfare for single women and education and you got yourself a communist country. Most these countries also have had leaders that purposefully make a "cult of personality." Marxism doesn't think people can unite while they are religious -- so they try to replace faith in God with faith in the state. It's not that uncommon for leaders to be deified.
While it is interesting to talk about what Marx's vision of communism was. The word is now use to describe a type of dictatorship (single-party systems we call it). Meanwhile the true heirs of Marx call themselves Democratic-socialists. They consider Communism -- as I do -- to be a fake-socialist system that is actually just a shitty form of capitalism (there was a money-economy in all these societies).
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I am not disagreeing with what you are saying about communism. NK is more of a Totalitarian or Monarchy government with the exception that the Kims are not Kings, they are gods.
Communist in their case would insinuate that the one person has a comity in which has a 'say'.