How to explain communism

[Eniac]

Someone sees the wrongs of capitalism, you think he might be leaning left.
You win him to communism, and furthermore to your perticular communist ideology (trotskyst, anarchist, or so) how?
It does not have to be simple as for a 5 year - old, but you'd have to explain the terminology you use and naturally overcome the all of communism is totalitarianism and evil bullshit. Go!!

[tuwix]

Ask him: Would you like live in a world where everything is free? If so, you are communist. :)

[Brutus]

A world where society is organised on the basis that poverty is impossible, and where everyone receives according to their need.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Tell him the characteristics of a new society that you want. See if he or she agrees. Then tell him or her that is what communism is. It will be very surprising to him or her. :D

[Eniac]

you're trying to make it simple, but it isn't.
for example these are some of the problems he sees
1. How would you dispatch food and other commodities, you can't really go in a store and start grabbing shit
2. this is rather irrelevant, hence doubly complicated - how would sports function? from transfers to who gets to go to the stadium?

and as I said you don't have to fear getting deeper into theory as long as you can explain new terms you introduced, actually I'd like to get in theoretical discussion because I myself have a lot to learn there.

[Tim Cornelis]

You don't have to be theoretical as practice is on your side. I usually overly simplify communism to a few points:
1) Participatory democracy
2) Workers' Self-Management
3) Economic planning
(Additionally it may also be:
4) Common ownership
5) Confederalism)

Participatory democracy:
We have the Zapatistas, Marinaleda, Abahlali baseMjondolo, and the Landless' Workers Movement that prove participatory democracy can work.
The Zapatistas have construed a network of self-governing communes, known as the Councils of Good Government. There are 32 autonomous municipalities (or communes if you will) each consisting of up to circa a hundred constituent communities. These communities make all decisions through participation of all willing. They elected one or multiple delegates to execute their decisions at the commune-level (or municipality). The 32 communes gather to make decisions regarding large issues, e.g. peace negotiations. They additionally have peasant cooperatives of collective farming of coffee. All this in spite of being besieged by a superior military, harassed by right-wing paramilitaries, and having multiple languages and dialects, terrible infrastructure, low education level amongst the population, dire poverty, and bad means of communication.

Marinelda is a Spanish town based on a cooperative economy. It has one cooperative that employs 2,600 people, all earning the exact same per hour. Housing costs 15 euro a month. Local police was abolished and realtors and bankers are not welcome. Annually, circa 100 popular assemblies are organised to make decisions regarding the municipality. It is one of the few municipalities in Andalusia with no deficit, and it has an unemployment rate of 2% (which would qualify as full employment by some standards), in stark contrast with Andalusia as a whole with an unemployment rate of up to 30%.

The AbM in South Africa has thousands of members, and works in accordance with participation, autonomy, and democracy. Most of its members are poor and poorly educated, yet they maintain a highly democratic movement that facilitates makeshift education systems and builds sanitary facilities.

The Landless Workers' Movement (MST) may be the most convincing yet. It has 1,500,000, has existed since 1984 (iirc), and has a directly democratic system based on participation, decentralisation, and grassroots democracy. Yet it works. So the argument communism doesn't work on a large scale, in this regard, falls flat. It is based on based (illegal or legally squatted camps) with 10 to 15 families. These have a collective assembly to make decisions in. They elect two representatives, one man, one woman, to a regional coordination and essentially as camp secretary responsible for ensuring decisions and organisation is maintained as was decided. Additional representatives are elected to the state-level coordination and the National Coordination Body. The land they squat is collective property and families can choose to cultivate it individually or cooperatively.

Workers' Self-Management:
There are thousands of instances of successfully worker managed cooperatives. The largest is the Mondragon Corporation employing almost 90,000 people. Marinaleda, the MST, and the EZLN also have cooperatives. Problematic is, of course, that in a market context these cooperatives make workers the collective capitalist actor—it doesn't break with capitalism. However, it does prove workers can manage the economy without capitalists.

Economic Planning (decentralised and from below):
Examples of these are scarce as it requires a complete overhaul of the system (unlike worker cooperatives). Rural areas in Spain 1936 may be named as an example, using distribution according to needs or labour vouchers as a means of distribution. The Free Territory in Ukraine also had communes wherein peasants and workers drew work programmes to be executed cooperatively. Currently, there is this town in China, Nanjie, the so-called "last Maoist village" (not true by the way), which distributes food, housing, clothes, education, and healthcare completely free of charge. It does have problems as it is encircled by markets, so it produces beer (among other things) to make a revenue to import goods. And loans were signed to sustain this, making Nanjie almost bankrupt. It also has 7,000 migrant workers on a population of 3,000 whom are not entitled to the same benefits. It does suggest, though, that work points can replace money. Nanjie also lacks democracy and participation, and is highly authoritarian and corrupt.

All this suggests that the basic structures of communism are feasible as practice shows.

[Comrade #138672]

Ask him: Would you like live in a world where everything is free? If so, you are communist. :)Well, even if someone wanted everything to be free, he or she may still be skeptical about how realistic it would be, why it wouldn't be utopia.

I have more success when explaining why Communism is necessary, considering the material conditions, instead of appealing to idealism. I do not just say that Communism is great. I insist on its necessity.

[Deity]

you're trying to make it simple, but it isn't.
for example these are some of the problems he sees
1. How would you dispatch food and other commodities, you can't really go in a store and start grabbing shit
2. this is rather irrelevant, hence doubly complicated - how would sports function? from transfers to who gets to go to the stadium?

and as I said you don't have to fear getting deeper into theory as long as you can explain new terms you introduced, actually I'd like to get in theoretical discussion because I myself have a lot to learn there.

Why are either of those 2 things a huge problem?

Food has many different and quite simple solutions.

Why does anything have to change with sports? They could function in the same, or a very similar manner just without the use of money. Just get rid of team owners.

[baz]

dont get hung up on terminologies
drop the hint that if democracy is good in society at large, why not in industry and the economy as well?

[Eniac]

many solutions, such as?

how to decide who gets to go to the stadium

[Tim Cornelis]

many solutions, such as?

how to decide who gets to go to the stadium

I'm sure there's many solutions. Obviously, first come and first serve is an option but then all tickets would be gone in a matter of minutes, a lottery is an option but then people who aren't really fans may get them. First-come-first-serve would give real fans priority, but as with festivals today, tickets are gone in 30 minutes, if they're free, this may become seconds. But you could introduce a point-system, not just for getting tickets and other scarce goods, but within sports as well.

For example, the FIFA establishes that each football team in the first league receives a predetermined amount of points to trade on the transfer market. The second league teams get less. Each match won gets you point, and in European tournaments you receive more points for winning. The UEFA currently has a coefficient list of all European leagues determining who gets into Europe and with how many teams. A similar list could be made to determine how much points each league or team receives.

[Blake's Baby]

A world where society is organised on the basis that poverty is impossible, and where everyone receives the fruits of their labour.

Everyone doesn't receive the fruits of their labour, that's a) impossible (because everyone is in and of themselves the fruit of other people's labour) and b) highly undesirable because it means most people starve.

[Brutus]

Everyone doesn't receive the fruits of their labour, that's a) impossible (because everyone is in and of themselves the fruit of other people's labour) and b) highly undesirable because it means most people starve.

Apologies, I will edit it.