When I was growing up, communism was not looked upon with admiration. We heard the horror stories of those who left communist countries like Russia. Stories of people being jailed and tortured for their faith or their disagreement with the government. Stories of people starving because there was a lack of food. Stories of government waste and corruption were also common to hear (and joke about). Even though our government had problems as well (Nixon for example), we still believed our system of capitalism and free enterprise to be far superior than communism.
Today, however, our youth don't seem to be as concerned about communism and its problems. In fact, communism is on the rise among our youth. Even our own President in his book "Dreams of My Father", bragged about seeking out Marxist professors during his time at Harvard and looking at his record so far in his first term I would say he learned much from his teachers.
So just what is it about communism that attracts people?
I think it comes down to the table below
The first quadrant is entrepreneurs. Here you have people who are highly productive, but not interested in leading the country (though they do lead large groups of people at times in their companies). The second quadrant is welfare recipients. The want to follow, but are not interested in contributing to society in a positive way. They are only interested in what is in it for them. The third quadrant is labeled: congressmen. Now this may seem odd, but I put that label on them for a reason. While we don't think of congressmen as highly-productive leaders.... they should be! They should be checking with their constituents on a regular basis seeing what problems exist that need addressing. These people are willing to do the HARD work of understanding all the issues, debating the issues with their constituents, fighting for what is right and most of all willing to say NO to more power. The last quadrant I have labelled: dictators. The reason is because these leaders, like the welfare-recipients, are lazy and only care about "what's in it for them". It takes really no effort to be a dictator. All one needs is an adequate number of lazy-followers below you who you can keep pacified with enough beer and entertainment, a set of government agencies to control the people and punish any who get out of line.
So what is the attraction of communism?
It all comes down to how lazy you are.
As our society becomes increasingly lazy, communism grows. Congressmen (house and senate), grow tired of running for office and debating the issues. They grow tired of reading angry letters and emails from their constituents. They grow weary of visiting their districts and speaking at town-halls, schools, parks and retirement centers. They don't want to spend time compromising on bills with others from the other side. They are worn out by having to deal with complex issues and an ever changing world. They would rather be out on their yachts drinking wine than spending their time reading 3000 page bills. They would rather have the government run by a 1000 anonymous government agencies who can write their own regulations at will without the need to bother them. To them communism just makes more sense.
The people also grow tired (hard to see how the lazy can grow tired, but they do). They are tired of going to the election hall and pressing a button for this person or that person. They grow tired of spending time reading about those running for office and listening to the debates. They would rather have people like Oprah or George Clooney tell them who to vote for (if its good enough for them...). Communism is attractive because it ends all that. No more two-party system. No more debates. No more negative ads on the TV. No more disappointment. No more decisions.
They also grow tired of dealing with a world where some make it and some don't. That is the ugly truth about our system. Not everyone does make it. Some become unbelievably rich and others become very poor. For the lazy, they are tired of seeing the productive drive by in their sports cars and talk about their trips to France. They are also tired of helping the less fortunate. They would rather hand those problems off to some nameless government agency rather than do the hard work of visiting the shut-ins or the homeless. They aren't interested in running soup kitchens or collecting food for the hungry.
Those on the edge between the lazy and productive, become weary of trying. They see the lazy sitting in homes and not paying their mortgages and say: Why not me? They see those getting free food, free health-care and say: Why not me? They see the lazy not paying back their student loans and say: Why not me? They see their friends and family getting cushy life-long government jobs and where they can retire at the ripe old age of 55 with a padded fully-paid pension and say: Why not me? Those who are tired of filling out countless government forms and begging relentless government bureaucrats for their signature to run their businesses, say: Why bother!
But what the lazy fail to see (probably because they are too lazy to think about it), is that none of this comes for free. All the luxuries we enjoy come at the cost of someone elses pain and toil. The cushy government job is payed entirely by the taxes payed by the people in the NON-government sector. The health-care you receive ends up coming from the health-care denied someone else. The food you enjoy was grown, harvested, processed and shipped by those who chose NOT to be lazy. The student and home loans you thought were free were from the savings of those who worked hard and saved their money. The money did not come from "Obama" as some welfare people think it does. It did not come from "his stash".
It came from us who were NOT lazy, worked hard , played by the rules and paid our taxes.
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