McCarthy was right.
I grew up hating communism as a default of having cuban grandparents who constantly complained at the destruction and terror this political philosphy had on their home country. But never ventured to understand it, until I read this book. I considered starting with marx but chose this instead. I do think there were some good ideas in this book and do think some aspects of communism can be applied to america’s crony capitalism that would lead to general improvement to quality of life, however my biggest issue with this book was some of the assumptions it makes. True 500 men working a field for a year can make enough food to feed hundreds of thousands, i.e their output of work creates a surplus in production, however it makes a lot of assumptions of everyone working at the same quality and that’s not realisitc, anyone who’s ever done a group project in school can cetainly understand. To me this book is further proof on my previous idea that Communism is a political/economic assumes a lot about people, it’s utopian and unrealistic and always leads to suffering and dispair for many while serving and bolstering the ultra rich, which is idealisitically in contrast to what it claims to do. I’m glad I read this to have a better understanding of communism even if it made my blood boil at points.