According to Red Scare mythology, communism is an “anti-American” doctrine that threatens “democracy” and “freedom.” Trump recently proclaimed that communism is “a philosophy that this country is not ready for and never will be.”

Yet, despite all the pro-capitalist media and school curricula; reactionary wars and coups; lies and government resolutions denouncing its horrors—the specter of communism keeps returning to haunt the ruling class.

The truth is that communism will work better in America than anywhere else. It is, after all, the wealthiest country in human history.

“Should America go communist as a result of the difficulties and problems that your capitalist social order is unable to solve,” wrote Trotsky in If America Should Go Communist, “it will discover that communism, far from being an intolerable bureaucratic tyranny and individual regimentation, will be the means of greater individual liberty and shared abundance.”

A workers’ government

Workers make up the vast majority of society, so our class needs a party that represents and fights for working-class interests. The formation of a communist party is a necessary first step if we want to transform society. Once the majority of the population is won over to its program, it will form a workers’ government, coordinating nationally to bring the country’s main industries into a planned economy—controlled democratically through workers’ councils, or soviets, as they were known in Russia.

The workers’ government will harness the nation’s economic resources to rapidly raise living standards. To start, we will immediately end hunger. The US is the world’s third-largest agricultural producer and leading agricultural exporter. Just 1.3% of the total US workforce is involved in agriculture, producing enough food to feed 140% of the country. A national plan of production will allocate that surplus to the more than 45 million people, including 10 million children, who go hungry in capitalist America.

We will also cut down on the 40% of food that is wasted, averaging 1,250 daily calories per person. Most of this isn’t squandered by consumers, as liberal preachers and greenwashers would have us think. Nearly two-thirds of it rots at farms, trucks, hotels, grocery stores, and in restaurants.

Soviet America could also end homelessness in its first month. Approximately 10.5% of all existing housing stock is vacant—a whopping 15.5 million units. Even if we ignore all units on the market waiting to be rented or bought, abandoned or in need of repair, seasonal rentals or occasional-use properties, that would still leave around two million empty units that could be made immediately available to the 771,480 people who were homeless last year.

Rents will be capped at 10% of income. This measure would dramatically increase disposable income overnight. Currently, around half of renters spend 30% or more of their income on housing, and an all-time high of 12 million waste over half their income on rent. Canceling all credit card, student, and medical debt will lift another huge weight off workers’ necks.

Healthcare will be free and universal. The same goes for education at all levels, including free childcare facilities and after-school programs. On average, working parents spend 24% of their income on childcare. It’s no surprise that more than one in three Americans don’t have children because they can’t afford to. Soviet America will change this.

Investing in affordable public laundry services and quality restaurants will lift the burden of household chores, which falls disproportionately on women. Instead of unhealthy food designed to get you addicted, a rational system will invest in providing nutritious, balanced meals. By making healthy food easily available, we can begin to address the obesity and chronic disease epidemics.

Full employment and free time

The current median full-time wage is around $60,000 per year. This could become the new minimum wage, with cost of living adjustments tied to any inflation that might persist in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. Wages will go much further when most of your paycheck isn’t going to rent, insurance, etc. Transitioning to a 20-hour working week—without any loss in pay—will allow the 41 million Americans currently functionally unemployed to contribute meaningfully to the economy.

Liberating what Marx called the “reserve army” of unemployed workers from enforced idleness will unleash human labor like never before. A massive program of public works would improve existing buildings and construct new ones, helping the tens of millions who live in low-quality or overcrowded housing—not to mention building new schools and hospitals, fixing bridges, roads, railtracks, dams, the electrical grid, and other crumbling infrastructure. We could even build brand new cities, rationally planned with human needs in mind.

With a shorter working week and all basic needs met, we won’t have the constant desperate feeling of treading water, busy and worried about surviving another day. The way people live, think, and relate to each other will be transformed. We will find more leisure to spend with family and friends; to read and learn; pursue art and hobbies; or acquire new skills.

Free time and energy are also desperately needed to address the climate crisis. The science and technology necessary to retool energy infrastructure already exists. Under a planned economy, in cooperation with the world’s working class, we will finally implement it. Research currently devoted to harmful ends, like getting you addicted to your cell phone, could be swiftly redirected, so we can devote more resources to science that will ensure the survival of future generations in harmony with the rest of the planet.

How will we pay for this?

The plan laid out above is objectively possible. But to most, it probably sounds like pie in the sky. Indeed, under capitalism, it cannot be done.

As Trotsky put it in Marxism in Our Time, “Machines, raw materials, workers, everything is available, not to mention the population’s need for the products. If notwithstanding that, the plan is unrealizable—and unrealizable it is—the only reason is the irreconcilable antagonism that has developed between capitalist ownership and society’s need for expanding production.”

Under capitalism, goods and services are produced, not to fulfill human need, but for profit. Millions of workers collaborate in a highly complex, worldwide division of labor. Yet the fruits of that labor belong to a handful of individuals who own the means of production.

Houses lay empty while people sleep in the streets. Food rots while millions go hungry. Life-saving medicines sit on pharmacy shelves while the un- or underinsured suffer and die.

Although we have become desensitized to this absurdity, it’s far from rational or natural to our species. The only way for society to move forward is by nationalizing the key levers of the economy under democratic workers’ control.

The “small business” lie

Would such expropriations mean a tyrannical government taking away your hard-earned property and giving it to lazy idlers allergic to hard work? That’s what anti-communist propaganda would have you believe. They claim that when “private property” is abolished under communism, not only your car and your house, but even your toothbrush will be taken away! None of this is true.

They also try to sell a fairy tale version of America as a land of “opportunity,” where everybody can lift themselves up by their bootstraps, start a small business, and go from rags to riches—all thanks to hard work, dedication, and ingenuity.

Capitalism’s apologists point to official statistics showing that a whopping 33 million businesses exist in the US. Do communists intend to forcibly expropriate all of them? How could that possibly work?

Drilling deeper into the US Census Bureau’s statistics from 2022 reveals that 27 million of these don’t employ any workers at all. They are set up by self-employed workers or are empty shells for other companies.

Only six million of these 33 million businesses have employees. Nearly 90% of those have fewer than 20 workers—which could give credence to the claim that “small business is the backbone of America.” However, these firms only generate 11% of total business revenue and employ just 14% of the total workforce.

If a workers’ government expropriated merely the 0.33% of businesses with 500 or more employees, it would bring over 73 million workers into the socialist plan of production. You may be surprised to learn that the Small Business Association considers most businesses with 500 employees—and depending on the industry, even up to 1,500—as “small”! Probably not what you picture when you think of a “mom-and-pop” operation.

Even then, a future workers’ government could leave any firm formally categorized as “small” in private hands, expropriating only the 7,229 companies with more than 1,500 employees, just 0.11% of all businesses. This would still account for 57% of total revenues and 62 million workers—a third of the country’s workforce.

The Fortune 500

The starting point of our communist program is even more modest: to expropriate 500 companies. The Fortune 500 monopolies will be run under democratic workers’ control and management as part of a socialist plan of production. These massive entities employ 31 million workers, accounting for two-thirds of US GDP and $20 trillion in revenues last year.

A workers’ government will ensure public control of all essential sectors by nationalizing just a handful of the country’s total companies:

• 72 IT, telecommunication, software, and other tech (including Amazon, Nvidia, and Apple);
• 57 mining and oil, energy, and utilities;
• 56 retail, wholesale, and household goods (including Walmart and Costco);
• 53 banks and financial institutions;
• 48 insurance (including health insurance);
• 39 medical and pharmaceutical;
• 37 food and drink producers or distributors (including Sysco, Starbucks, and McDonald’s);
• 21 automotive, and 17 other transportation and logistics;
• 20 construction and real estate;
• 17 materials (steel, glass, etc.);
• 15 industrial machinery;
• 15 miscellaneous / service (staffing, waste collection, hotels, etc.);
• 12 chemical;
• 11 aerospace and arms manufacturers;
• 10 media and entertainment (including Netflix, Disney, and Fox).

All other businesses could remain untouched—as long as they abide by the new labor standards for the minimum wage, working week, safety, union rights, etc.

As a matter of fact, the small shops you love—your corner cafe or food truck, your favorite Italian restaurant, the artisanal jewelry shop—will thrive under a planned economy. The Fortune 500’s 20 commercial banks hold $13.2 trillion in domestic assets. Having seized these and other key financial institutions, the workers’ government will provide small businesses and farmers much better terms on loans and rents.

In 2024, finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing accounted for one-fifth of US GDP, over $6 trillion. Abolishing private insurance—and transforming banking into a democratically controlled nerve center for managing society’s surplus wealth—will free up tens of millions of workers to perform socially needed labor. The same goes for the $360 billion wasted every year on advertising. The skills of workers in those industries could be harnessed in useful sectors at their prior wage, if not higher.

Eliminating the need to secure imperialist spheres of influence through expensive wars and arms production would also unleash huge resources that now serve destructive, rather than productive, purposes. Take, for example, “Operation Midnight Hammer,” which capped Israel and the US’s so-called “12-day War” on Iran. The Trump regime spent $1–$2 billion blowing expensive holes into an arid mountain. That money could have built ten new hospitals. Consider how many resources will be freed up when the entire $1 trillion US military budget is spent to serve, not kill, people.

Current capacity utilization is 77%, meaning that 23% of all existing productive capacity sits idle. A workers’ government would put it to use in short order. The waste of having competing companies produce the same goods and services could also be eliminated on the basis of a rational plan.

Thanks to economies of scale and planning, the national economy will become so efficient that the working week could be reduced even further. Many small and medium-sized business owners could be convinced that there is no point in toiling away to keep their enterprises afloat when there is more than enough wealth for everyone. Many of them may voluntarily join the planned economy instead.

A world without billionaires

Some might argue that Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg worked hard and deserve their billions. Is it fair to expropriate them?

The richest 1% of Americans now own nearly as much as the bottom 90%. Last year, the ten richest Americans each increased their wealth by $100 million every single day. It would take the average worker in America about three million years to amass Elon Musk’s net worth.

All the billionaires’ obscene wealth comes from exploiting their workforces. It’s workers who produce, distribute, manage, and organize everything in society. Workers build the cars, space rockets, and computers, code the software, and store and ship all the commodities.

While the capitalists gorge on billions, there is not only a “wealth gap,” but a widening “death gap” between rich and poor. The death rate in the poorest US counties rose by 570% over the past 40 years. Could it be because 112 million people struggle to afford healthcare in the world’s richest country?

“Thus, the abstract concept, ‘monopolistic capital’ is filled in for us with flesh and blood,” said Trotsky. “What it means is that a handful of families, bound by ties of kinship and common interest into an exclusive capitalist oligarchy, dispose of the economic and political fortunes of a great nation.”

This oligarchy is completely parasitic. The founder of Blackstone, the biggest private-equity firm in the world, explained: “We raise large amounts of money . . . and then buy companies . . . We try to improve the companies and we own them for a while [read: dismantle them to cut costs]. Then we sell them, and hopefully make a lot of money for our investors.”

Just three investment firms, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, hold a majority of shares in 40% of all US corporations and in 438 of the S&P 500 firms. They control the likes of Home Depot, Target, and Walgreens; Starbucks, McDonald’s, and PepsiCo; General Motors and Ford; Delta, United, and American Airlines; The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and New York Post.

Is it “freedom” to be forced to toil at a job you hate just to beef up the billionaires’ portfolios? Is it “democracy” if a financial oligarchy controls all media, both political parties, and the entire government?

How many would defend the Musks, Bloombergs, and Kochs against a mass workers’ uprising? In Trotsky’s words, “Your corporal’s guard of billionaires? . . . They will cease struggling as soon as they fail to find other people to fight for them . . . As to the comparatively few opponents of the soviet revolution, one can trust to American inventive genius. It may well be that you will take your unconvinced millionaires and send them to some picturesque island, rent-free for life, where they can do as they please.”

Workers’ democracy

Once the workers take power, genuine democracy—workers’ democracy—will replace the current, undemocratic capitalist Congress, courts, and presidency. Forget about choosing which of two hated politicians will oppress you for the next four years!

Workers’ councils will elect representatives on the principle of one person, one vote, at the workplace, neighborhood, city, state, and national levels. All representatives will be immediately recallable by the bodies that elected them and receive no more than the median workers’ wage.

It will be up to the working-class majority to decide its own destiny. All plans and laws will be decided by simple majority rule votes, carried out and enforced by these same bodies.

Contrary to the lies and slanders, communists are not for a “one-party state.” Communists will agitate fervently, during and after the revolution, to win a majority in the soviets. People and parties may voice any opinion—even pro-capitalist ones! But they will need to convince everybody else, and will be allocated media access based on their popularity.

World revolution

Once America goes communist, it will be game over for world capitalism. US imperialism is the world’s most counterrevolutionary force—from its invasion of Soviet Russia in 1918, to the Vietnam War, the Bay of Pigs and Cuban embargo, the Contras in Nicaragua, Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile, etc.

Who would dare make war on Soviet America? From bastions of reaction, US military bases could be turned into revolutionary outposts. Not only the Epstein files, but also all other secret files, treaties, and dirty dealings of the CIA, FBI, and the entire ruling class will be circulated to publicly expose their crimes. All colonies would be granted immediate independence and the debts of dependent nations forgiven.

A successful revolution here will electrify the world. The working masses of the Americas, Asia, Africa, Europe, and beyond will settle accounts with their own capitalists in short order—unless they have gotten to it even before the US socialist revolution.

This is the prerequisite to achieving our aims. You can’t have communism in one country. As Trump’s tariff war shows, the world economy is more integrated than ever and relies on an intricate international division of labor. A communist America will help build a voluntary Socialist Federation of the Americas and, together with our class sisters and brothers worldwide, a World Socialist Federation.

The technologies of planning

The concentration of vast, technologically advanced multinationals in a small number of capitalist hands will greatly simplify the task of economic planning.

The world’s biggest companies, like Walmart and Amazon, collect massive amounts of data: every online shopper’s click, cart selection, and order; how long they look at particular products; the efficiency of each fulfillment center, etc. Sensors automatically update inventory by detecting what is being consumed in real time. They feed the data to AI applications that coordinate operations and forecast daily and quarterly demand.

Many incredible technologies help organize and plan production down to every detail—within an individual company. A workers’ government will aggregate the data across all industries to develop a harmonious, long-term plan for the economy.

Warehouses with drones and autonomous vehicles navigating aisles; 3D printers cranking out spare parts; AI computer-vision tunnels automatically uncovering product defects and determining the best packaging type—these technologies already exist. The motivation for the working class to rapidly apply and improve them is clear: the more repetitive and time-consuming tasks can be automated, the shorter the working week can become.

By contrast, the sole incentive to work under capitalism is financial compulsion—to earn enough money to survive. Workers have no stake in their daily grind. That’s why 66% of workers are suffering burnout, including over 80% of young people.

Communism is about freedom from excessive labor. The incentive will be to collectively develop the productive forces to free up more time to actually enjoy our lives. Instead of alienating us from our labor, communism will give ordinary people a real stake and purpose.

Relatively quickly, this will lead to a world of superabundance. With the artificial scarcity of capitalism abolished, people will grow accustomed to consuming what they need. Crime would vanish. The underlying basis of religion, racism, sexism, and all other forms of oppression would disappear. The state as an armed force necessary to suppress counterrevolution and foreign invasions would fade away. We will go from the lower, transitional stage of communism—usually called socialism—to its higher stage: a classless, moneyless, stateless society.

A new kind of human

To some, this seems inconceivable. Aren’t humans inherently greedy? Wouldn’t people take advantage of the system, enriching themselves at the expense of others?

In reality, working together to improve our collective chances of survival is the most natural human instinct, rooted in the natural history of our species. The ruling class wants you to think capitalism is eternal. But modern humans have been around for 300,000 years. If we imagine it as a 12-hour clock, we have lived under capitalism for less than 40 seconds. For 98% of human history, we lived without classes, states, prisons, police, armies, or oppression.

During that time, our survival depended on mutual cooperation. Under communism, we will come full circle, but on a massively higher technological level. Life will no longer only be about survival, but about developing science, art, and culture to new heights. In the words of Alan Woods:

“We are fighting for the soul of the human race. We are fighting for a society in which the potential of everybody can be developed to the full. Freed from the humiliating dependence on the slavery of capitalism, we will finally raise ourselves up to our true human stature and reach out our hands to the stars.”