People suffered under the totalitarian regime and corruption. The central planning was also a problem in terms of making sure that goods production could meet what people needed. China’s semi-capitalist system with the authoritarian government stepping in when the companies don’t cooperate is an attempt to adapt to retaining communism while letting go of central planning. And this system is acceptable by western capitalists. This is a criticism of the West and its adherence to capitalism rather than liberal ideas, not an endorsement of “communism”*
* most people use communism as short hand for central planning which IMHO was the major economic problem that caused economically slow growth and lack of goods. combined with the authoritarian repression that caused a different kind of suffering. But neither of those is required by a communist political movement.
There have been 20,000 voluntary communes in the US. They all failed. Communism doesn't work, whether it is forcible or voluntary. No commune or centrally planned economy has ever managed to feed itself. Hence the suffering.
In Israel about 74/270 are still communal with the rest having privatized, but they’re still communal living arrangements.
It’s important to remember that most movements and experiments fail, same reason countries and companies also fail. A lot of them failed due to mismanagement, idealogical disputes, children not sticking around (ie no new members) etc. building sustainable communities is hard and not a unique problem for communes.
btw these are all the same reasons open source projects fail yet we wouldn’t call open source a failure despite it having all the same problems and looking more like communism than capitalism.
Also you’re overstating the failure rate. Amana Society, Inc is a cooperative structure that evolved from a commune. REI is also a cooperative corporate structure although not quite like a commune. So clearly there’s a path to evolve to that’s sustainable and does work and looks quite a bit different from capitalism. And there’s a difference between communal living and cooperative commercial entity which is good to separate.
* most people use communism as short hand for central planning which IMHO was the major economic problem that caused economically slow growth and lack of goods. combined with the authoritarian repression that caused a different kind of suffering. But neither of those is required by a communist political movement.