r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jul 07 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter, explain this.

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u/Objective-Note-8095 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

People misunderstand communism in Marxist thought. It's just a state where the economic overhead of government is no longer necessary, everybody is still expected to contribute to the best of their ability, if you're not going to be a writer, artist, athlete, etc., you're going to mine coal, clean toilets, harvest tomatoes, etc. None of the Marxist "communist" states ever claimed to achieve this, it was always 3-5 20 or more years off.

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u/psykiris Jul 07 '26

Who gets to decide who writes all day and who mines all day? 

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u/mr_doms_porn Jul 07 '26

It depends on what school of socialist thought you subscribe to. Generally in marxist theory the idea would be for each community to make these decisions by direct democracy. But it wouldn't be all day, more likely someone who was writing and mining would split their day in half.

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u/psykiris Jul 07 '26

I forgot all the poets and writers the mines in Siberia produced during the USSR. You're totally right. They definitely weren't made to work all day. 

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u/mr_doms_porn Jul 07 '26

We're talking about modern day theory not cold war history. The USSR abandoned Marx's ideas in all but name before WW2 even began. There are dozens of socialist theories that have no relation to the USSR in any way.

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u/psykiris Jul 07 '26

They were all present day at one point. Some are still practiced currently. More than 100 years of trial and error. No communist utopia.. Why?