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If your first thoughts are "no one owns anything", "dictatorship/lack of free elections", and "the USSR v2.0", …nah. Not really.

Let's talk about the framework that let Karl Marx imagine Communism. It's called "dialectical materialism" (DM), and it's a way of looking at the world's basics that points out how past systems (like Capitalism) failed, and what a new system should ensure it does to take care of people until we find the NEXT system.

It's a philosophy. We're gonna put our average thoughts and feelings away for a second to look at the world through DM's lens.

1) A US Communist wants to help create and move to a better social & economic system.

Capitalism is built on buying low, selling high. Right? That's not equitable, from the very start. John1 knows that John3 has a bunch of potatoes, knows that John2 wants them, so John1 does not introduce them to each other; John1 exploits John3 by paying him a lowball price for his potatoes, then exploits John2 by selling him potatoes at a price that's unnecessarily high. John1 sits happy; Johns 3 & 2 are underpaid or overpaid, respectively. It actually worked for a while, and even that example leaves two people unhappy, so the idea that it would be forever? Ridiculous. DM posits that it can do better, and that history will demand better than DM eventually.

2) A Communist in the United States wants the end of systemic racism, the end of discrimination based on sexuality or gender identity, and the beginning of a nation where people really do have the chance to "be anything they can dream."

(Unless they dream of being Capitalists.)

Capitalism: built on exploitation. Built on buying low, selling high. A Capitalist will not go to Senegal and explain to leaders there why they should sell a valuable resource to him, or at what price he will resell it. A Capitalist will not go to a Black worker on a factory floor and tell that worker how much more their white counterpart is earning per hour. That hurts "buy low, sell high".

We're not about that. You, reading this, are a human. We want to work with you to end your exploitation and build something more equitable. Why? Because you're a living human being. Discrimination is not fair or equitable; it's exploitative, and we want that gone.

3) An American Communist wants you to stop thinking about the "higher, middle, and lower" classes to see it in a simpler, more black & white way: "workers" vs "owners".

Do you own the company where you work? Do you, through the company, own all the necessary bits to hire a worker, train them for a short period, and continue producing the thing you produce?

Or are you a worker? Someone who goes at a dictated time or for a specified number of hours, is paid a set rate (or on a set scale), and who, if fired, would need to either try and collect all the bits to start their own company ... or hunt for a new job?

A Communist knows it's not exactly as clear-cut as that—DM is a good framework with lots of thought behind it, it's not new—and that the distinction between "owner" and "worker" is the one with the most practical impact on how a person lives their life. Few folks talk about how they'd style their life to join Old-Money Elites and fit in if they won the lottery; they talk about how amazing it'd be to not work, because they're workers and oppressed. The middle school someone went to, whether they ate out regularly or had a gaming console growing up, only has so much bearing compared to whether they own or whether they work.

4) An American Communist wants all the folks who are more "worker" than "owner" to come together, recognize that things could be better, and start making better things happen.

This is where the word "revolution" goes, so this is where people begin imagining guns. They imagine cops & military attacking crowds.

DM, as a socioeconomic framework, isn't built on shooting people OR being shot. It's built on the ideas that societies change as the world around them changes, and that any new philosophy must have a clear view of history, and must constantly adapt to current conditions.

DM & Communism are about practical change. The US Federal system of government, being at least a "good faith" attempt at progress for the time, has ways to change it baked in.

"The Revolution" isn't about a junta taking over the Presidential Palace. The genuine Revolution is getting workers to see what they have in common, and getting them to work together to create something better. It can even be lawful, if they don't outlaw the vote.

5) An American Communist wants the new system we create together to provide the things we need for happy lives.

We want you, and us, to have food. We want people to be able to see a doctor and afford the medications they're prescribed. We want people to be able to find a job. We want them to have a home while they're looking.

All of those things—food, medicine, housing—are currently subject to the same Capitalist idea that an Owner will buy the items and the labor low, and sell them high to you, the Worker. Simply changing the way things work, so that goods & services are worth their genuine, practical value? Doing away with mark-ups, from the corner store to medical care? Paying the wages of the people who make your life, not the people who tell those makers and do-ers that they can't clock out to use the bathroom?

Not only would that difference change a lot, it's one that, together, we can make happen.

Just not alone. It takes as many of us as we can gather.

If reading any of this makes sense to you & seems like a good thing? Maybe something you'd like to see or take part in? I highly encourage you to visit cpusa.org and do a little reading. Maybe subscribe to an e-mail list, go to an event, and talk to some people.

All we want is for people to stop letting this system lie to them—about what it will do for them, the place that exists in it for them, and how it's the only reasonable game in town—and to collectively make something more caring, more sustainable, and less discriminatory. We need you to stop listening to Capitalism describe Communism, and instead start thinking that we really could do things in better ways.

We want what so many other Americans want:

Not This.