My grandma grew up in a Communist country—East Germany. A large part of her family fled from there just days before it actually collapsed. Given the stories she and my great-grandma told me, I never believed in communism as a workable alternative for a nation. This belief has only been solidified as I’ve grown older.
Democratic countries aren’t perfect by any means. They, too, offer room for corruption, inequality, and censorship. But what they do better, in my opinion, is provide space for a fundamental truth: Humans are self-minded creatures. Democracies try to give them ways to grow, advance, and build ownership, then rein in how much power any one party or individual can accumulate.
In Communism, on paper, “everything belongs to everyone.” Technically, there aren’t any incentives to strive. But humans want to strive. And they do. And when some inevitably rack up power behind the scenes, it usually comes at the expense of the rest—except this time with even fewer guardrails than in a Democracy which openly acknowledges these patterns.
But that’s just me. I’m only one man, and I’m not trying to convince you. And while we could talk about many other pieces of the puzzle, one of the most interesting ones is, perhaps, a story—a story like George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
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