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What is Communism? |
Government
Communism is one type of political and economic system. A political system is how a government is set up and how it runs. An economic system is how business works and how money and wealth are spread out in a particular place, such as a country.
When communism is spelled with a lower-case C, it talks about the idea that the political system is based on. With communism, there is ideally no private property. That means everything you owned would be shared with everyone else. You would have to be really good at sharing! All resources are equally available to everyone.
In a Communist government that idea is used. There is community ownership and control of industry and resources (mines, mills, and factories.) The goal is to not have different social classes, so there would be no rich and no poor. All people would be equal.
Historically, Communism has been tried in many countries, including China, North Korea, East Germany, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. One Communist country was the USSR (the Soviet Union,) which is now Russia and many of its neighboring countries. Communism failed there for a couple reasons. One was that despite the aim of having everyone being equal, there was still one small group in power, running the government. If a person disagreed with the government, there was not much that could be done. People were trapped under the government’s control. Also, the ideal in Communism is that everyone works as hard as everyone else and gets paid the same amount, but in reality, some people just don’t work as hard as others. How would you feel if someone did less work than you but got the same reward?
In order to be effective, Communism requires a delicate balance and equal participation among all people. It might sound easy enough, but it can actually be very difficult. That’s why it has failed in many countries that have tried it.
What’s Your Government?
How does your government compare to Communism? With a grown-up, think about the things that make your government the way it is.
Are there different social classes? Does the government control business? Do people choose the government? How do people voice their opinions and make changes?
What other countries share your type of government? What different types of government are in the world?
Here are some different countries. What types of governments do they have?
Iraq
Israel
China
Jordan
United States
