“Communism bad”
“Why?”
200 year old tropes so ancient they were debunked by Marx himself
Of course, you go through the motions of explaining the most basic political concepts that could be grasped by skimming the cliff notes for literally any Marxist works
“Friedrich Engels? Is he like the president of Germany or something?”
It’s like a kindergartener trying to teach you calculus.
I dont really like describing tribal economies as communist, I mean I get the value of saying it is, but just describing a collective body in a primitive economy doesn't communism make.
To be fair to the Davids, as far as I remember they don't explicity call pre-contact ways of life communist.
I don't think the claim is necessarily that tribal economies are inherently communist, rather that certain groups certainly were. Societies marked by an organizing ethos of "from each according to means, to each according to needs," no class hierarchies, robust social structures and welfare programs, and quite literal communal ownership of means of production -- if we are not going to call that communism, I think we're denuding the term of all meaningful content. I also think we should seriously scrutinize our reasoning for saying, "this was communism over here, but this small tribe or social state can't reallllly be communist." Not impugning your motives in any way, as I wholly agree with your critique as it was stated. I just think we should be careful here.
Personally, I think the most pragmatic thing to do is go case-by-case and distinguish between communism that proceeded capitalism (whatever you'd like to call it) vs Marxist communism, characterized by a transition away from a capitalist state, which is obviously an inherently modern phenomenon.