What's really so wrong with Communism?

Even though I know I have freedom of speech here in the good ol’ US of A, I am still a little bit scared to write about this topic.  I feel as though it may fall into the wrong hands and I’ll be called to a congressional hearing where they’ll condemn me a communist and send me Guantanamo Bay.  My friends will hate me.  My family will suffer.  Public universities won’t accept me.  The only place I’ll be able to get a job is at Walmart. 

          If that happens, I hope my classmates would come to my aid, arguing in my defense that I am, in fact, not a communist, and that I just wanted to have a conversation about the reality of Communism. 

          You see, I don’t think Communism is inherently a bad thing.  The essential ideas behind it are good.  Everyone deserves to have food, clothing, and a certain quality of life.  Why should some die of hunger while others gorge themselves at all-you-can eat buffets?  Communism is supposed to put everything in the control of the people, eradicate classes, and eliminate private property.  On paper, these ideas are sound.  The problem is, economically, communism doesn’t work.

          If the government has control of the industries, and everyone works for them and receives the same wages, what encourages the workers to work at all?  They receive the same pay whether they sit on their ass, doing nothing, or if they work their butts off.  Communism eliminates incentives.  Another problem arises with private property.  If no one owns property, then they have no incentives to take care of it.  Here’s an example.  A group of five farmers ask their communist government to buy them a new tractor.  At first, the farmers are all better off because they get to use a tractor that they didn’t have before.    The problem is, taking care of the tractor takes time, money, and effort.  None of the farmers own the tractor, they each only get to use it for one day a week, so who maintains the tractor?  No one.  There are no incentives to take care of property that no one owns.

          Americans should not be scared of Communism, as long as we also consider why it is likely to fail.  There is nothing wrong with thinking about the equality Communism offers, unless you are someone with power or a ton of money who benefits from inequality.  Perhaps one day, these ideas can be morphed and incorporated into our society in a way that really works, so that problems like children dying of hunger can be solved.