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Communism is an economic system with flaws and virtues you can discuss and argue about. Nazism is about race supremacy and totalitarianism. So yes, thankfully you can't say "Communism is bad" with the same impunity as you can say "Nazism is bad".



Communism as envisioned by Marx is an economic system, sort of.

Communism as anyone has ever tried to implement it, or has talked about implementing it in pratice, is a system of totalitarian social control masquerading as an economic system.

The only difference between Nazism and Communism in practice has been whether "right genes" are defined by race or by your ancestors' professions and social classes. The totalitarianism is pretty similar, really.

(As a side note, "communism" as practiced in the Soviet Union, the version I'm most familiar with, had quite its share of racism as well, both official and just people on the street.)

The terminological confusion is unfortunate on the one hand and great for motte-and-bailey arguments[1] on the other.

[1] As described http://philpapers.org/archive/SHATVO-2.pdf and discussed at a bit more length at http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-word... . Note that such arguments are very common. They are not limited to postmodernism or the fringe elements of the social justice movement by any means; I see them all the time on both the left and the right.




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