Tell me why pure communism is not OK?

I don't like your use of 'pure', but Communism would be great, not just OK. A society where people just work together to meet their needs, eg building houses because people need places to live, rather than to make a profit for a small number of capitalists. No rulers, no classes, no bosses. Common ownership of land, factories etc, and production for use.

This is the Marxist position (not Marxist/Leninist, as Lenin wasn't a Marxist).

Communism has no connection at all to the state capitalism of Russia and Cuba.

There are many reasons. But the following is what I see to be the primary reason:

Communism believes in an equal distribution of wealth, taking into accounts needs of individuals and the work done by the individual. The state is the mechanism through which this equal distribution is meant to be achieved. This means, that in order for system to work it necesitates the state having a lot of power in order to ensure equality in wealth distribution. There lies the problem. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and communism requires the state to have much more power than a state in a typical capitalist economy country or social market economy countries.

Whenever the state has that much power, the power tends to be abused. The problem is that creating a system of checks and balances is much more difficult when the state has been given so much power. Creating checks and balances is difficult enough as it is in a capitalist or social market economy. The problem is that much more worse in a communist economy.

Even if the leaders from the top to bottom of the structure have the best of intentions, that is not enough, as leaders change, and it is not enough for the leaders to be good, but we need a system in which there can be adequate checks and balances. This is arguably impossible or at least extremely difficult in a communist system. That is why pure communism would be unachievable and potential a dangerous goal.

Dont get me wrong, capitalism has its own problems as well, a big one being corporatism and big companies having far more influence in political decisions. However I think capitalist is far more viable than communism or any other command economy. I would argue that instead of moving towards communism, it would be more beneficial to reform our system to get money out of politics so that big corporations dont have all the power. I would also call for serious reforms of the banking system as right now it only favours the rich getting richer. However, a full list of my suggested reforms on how to improve would be lenghty and would stray off your main question. Do PM though if you would like to discuss such issues further, I enjoy disccussions on such things..

"Pure communism" would mean a nation or world where a state is no longer required, classes no longer exist, and resources are shared perfectly evenly among all.

That's great in theory, but it's not an attainable goal.

Edit: Heh, don't worry. There's a good reason you can't see my name, I don't have one.

What I mean is that, like IChee said, it would require a humanity ready to live in such a world, and I don't think we are yet. As a (very) long-term goal, communism is great, but for now, and probably for quite a while, we should focus on more moderate socialist goals. Taking power away from the ultra-rich and giving it to the people gradually. Trying to force communism on people has never turned out well. Capitalism needs to be taken out of power before we can even think of actual communism, the current powers-that-be won't allow it.

Edit2: I guess a better way to put it is, it's not an attainable goal right now, and won't be until we ease towards it. We can't just leap to it.

Edit 3: If you're still looking through this question, may I ask what country you're from, out of pure curiosity?

The problems with pure communism are a lot like the problems with pure libertarian capitalism. Basically they are both utopian fantasies thought up by eloquent individuals who then go on to judge the present based on these pure speculative ideal societies. Of course the present turns out to be very imperfect (as does anything measured against perfection).

They then start justifying immediate political choices based on these utopian speculations, like cutting all welfare spending and deregulating everything then expecting the economy to magically improve, or forcing people into collective farming experiments against their will, or whatever. Usually, this sort of stuff makes things worse rather than better.

The fact of the matter is that pure communism is just a fiction. The principles of "to each according to their need, from each according to their ability", the elimination of alienation, war, oppression, the abolition of money, the state, classes, inequality, all sounds great. The problem is that it is an impossible dream and the consequences of trying to realize that dream have always been tyrannical.

It's better to take a measured approach and see what tangible and realizable goals can be achieved in the here and now (like nationalizing the finance industry next time it needs a bailout for example) and work up from there instead of wasting time chasing clouds.

Funny that ! The Pilgrims used a communal system for many years after coming to America, out of necessity. A system which, we today, would view as communist.

Communism is actually the best system in the world BUT it has never really been tried.

The USSR and China, and other smaller countries that claim communism are actually fascist states

where a ruling class controls everything. ( USSR now is Russia as it was before and that State is no different ) Claiming Capitalism doesn't make Putin any less of a dictator !

Both socialism and communism work on a small scale but fail on a large scale because the "leaders"

take over the system.

Look at how even apolitical people are coming out against capitalism/corporatism nowadays. In the cyber world we have a free operating system that is much better than the capitalist windows. You can get almost everything for free on the internet. Culturally people are rejecting capitalism and promoting equality and welfare. Only ignoramuses and right wing nuts can complain about communism.

The Sri Lankan undertaking has not something to do with Buddhism. it is political not non secular. CHINA is predominantly Buddhist nevertheless the government.is communist. it somewhat is not suppressing everybody perfect now. Mao replaced into an fool, not a Buddhist. The China Tibet undertaking is a political one, not a non secular one. There are extra Buddhists in China than Tibet. The Mao lifestyle has been phased out of China at present it somewhat is advertising Buddhism actively. additionally the Hindus never attacked the Buddhists -- the Muslims did. Sigh!

It's not that it's not OK, it's just not very feasible, and hasn't worked once.

Real "communal" living and farming has resulted in millions of deaths in Russia and China - the stuff just didn't get where it was supposed to go.

You know why communism is not ok? Because it denies human nature. It denies the instinct to compete. It denies practically all values that have historically driven the human race.

Pure communism means no private property. Everything is owned collectively. This is in direct conflict with the instincts and natural inclinations of even children, and more so in adults. Marx and Engels had their pie in the sky utopian dream, but it is hobbled by the necessity of conveniently ignoring the utter imperfection of humanity.

Because pure Communism is literally impossible.