I know a lot of Muslims lived in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and still do in places like China.

I am not a communist, though I do believe justice entails that each person have the right to earn a livelyhood and get the basics of life.

I am an American, and there is one argument against communism I never could understand---in fact it appeared illogical to me.

It was claimed that if everyone made the same wage or almost the same wage, no one would have an incentive to want to work harder or invent new things.  I know that in the Soviet Union wages were not the same, but the claim was made here that they were.

If someone found themselves in a situation were they they had high paying job and all of a sudden found themselves living in a communistic country and making a lot less, I think it would be irrational to just give up and be lazy.

For one, if everyone worked hard and invented new things, they may not have as much as they would if they lived in a capitalistic country, but they would be a lot better off than if they didn't work hard and invent new things: medicines, tools, scientific discoveries, ect.

What do you think?

I am not trying to defend communism in any way, it is just that I never could anderstand this particular argument against communism.  It seems to me that a person was claiming that if I didn't make bookoos of money he/she would just be lazy and let everything fall apart. However, if he worked and tried to be productive he/she may not be as well off as in the US or Britain but he would be a whole lot better off than if he was just lazy.

It's kinda like a man having to have a leg amputated and out of anger he had to lose a leg tells the doctor to cut the other one off too.

The problem with Communism lies in several factors.  Its not that everyone makes the same wage, but the incentives are no better for those that work and those that don't. 

For example.  You and your comrade are both given a quota of 500lbs of Nails.  Now, you can work hard, calculating need, size and weight an come up with 200lbs of 1" nails, 200lbs of 2" nails and 100lbs of 9" nails based on your believed need for the country.  Your comrade realizes that 9" nails weigh much more than 1" nails and are easier to make...so he just does 500lbs of 9" nails.  You both made quota and you both get paid the same even though you worked harder.

Now, of course, your sister is a brilliant mind and lucks into testing herself into the R&D department of the Ministry of Construction Products.  Her job is to develop a better nail.  So she does, not because that's what she wants to do, but because that's what she was assigned to do.  But, the Ministry of Defense decides the nail is a military advantage and cannot be released to the west. 

So, now your sister, who would have rather been a ballerina is not being shipped off to live in the lap of luxury in some Siberian science village.  A guilded cage, all because she had scores that made some bureaucrate think she would best benefit society as a research scientist. 

The problem with Communism is the economic models they follow ignore supply and demand ratios and are reliant on a bureaucrats opinion on what the system needs.  The socialist aspect is that people are assigned according to their talents and not necessarily to their wishes.  Therefore, though people might have a talent they wish to explore, the government could chose to assign them to a more productive aspect of society.  Communism does not allow for choices and natural fluctuations in the economy.  Its goal is to create a static economic environment with growth equal to the needs of the population, removing many of the forces that actually drive an economy forward.

This is why traditional communist or rather socialist markets collapse over time.  A truly communistic society must be completely free of corruption and greed.  There has never been a truly communistic society.  What was going on in Eastern Europe from 1917 to 1991 was a socialist market. 

Even the Eastern "communist" countries are not Communistic markets.  China is a socialist government with a capitalist market.  Vietnam has changed to a captialist market as well and North Korea....well no one really knows.  All we know is there a huge humanitarian crisis in N. Korea and that they only have a few trading partners.

Socialism as it was practiced in the Soviet Bloc, really has many factors that make it doomed to failure.  There was much Propaganda on both sides as to the benefits and dangers of this system.  Having studied Communism and Russia for many years, I've come to an understanding that might be hard to express sometimes.  The conditions that arose in Russia lead to a breaking point that escalating in the early 90s.  The transition to captialism for them has not been an easy road and has been fraut with many pitfalls.

The loss of state sponsored programs caused the collapses of many businesses, poverty for those receiving state guaranteed pensions and the utter destruction of the rubles value.  When I was there in 1997 it was 5300 rubles to 1 USD.  You could see old women selling anything they could find for money and more beggers than I've ever seen walking the streets of New York.  I understand its gotten better now, but its been 15 years and the recovery is still ongoing.