Free for all Communism has never worked in any meaningful way. Now, the always ready retort is “it’s never had the chance to!” to which I’d reply: it never will. If it can compete with other forms of governance let it rip, but… ? where is the success story?

The problem is that this is false. Socialist countries led by communist parties have consistently brought dramatic, radical improvements over what came before in a way that far surpasses any upsides of capitalism. Metrics like life expectancy, in many cases, increase by 50-100%, poverty rates plummet, land reform helps end famine where it was once common (a huge part of life expectancy increases), and their economies are democratized in a way that fundamentally doesn’t exist in capitalist countries. Socialism works.

Communism is a post-socialist stateless, classless, moneyless society. Communist parties have always governed socialist countries, because communism has not yet been achieved, and is itself a global phenomenon.

Not sure what you mean by “free for all.”

Democratic Socialism works very well in other countries all over the world: they recognize there are certain services that are critical to provide in order for democracy to function: fire, police, healthcare, disability affordances, so many things that government is uniquely situated to promote and provide.

You’re confusing social democracy for socialism. Social safety nets within the boundaries of capitalism are not socialism, socialism is not when the government does stuff. Capitalism is a mode of production characterized by private ownwership as the principle aspect of the economy and capitalists in control of the state, with socialism being public ownership as principle and the working classes in charge of the state.

“Democratic Socialism” itself is a a vague term. Socialism is already democratic, rule by the majority is a necessity when the working class is in control of the state. What it ends up meaning in practice is socialism relying heavily on electoralism and reformism, such as in Chile under Allende and in Venezuela.

The important factor here is that the social democracies that are doing the best, their safety nets are largely funded by imperialism and unequal exchange. These are not internally driven systems, but closer to landlords in country form towards the global south. Now that imperialism as a global system is weakening, we can actually track the erosion of safety nets in these social democracies, and in the general shift to the far-right.

I’m happy to change from free-for-all-capitalism, welcome it, but you can’t point to a hypothetical end point that’s never ever existed AND won’t be allowed to exist as long as resources require capital.

We can point to the real existing socialism in the real world and uphold their gains. No socialist country has been perfect, of course, all have had problems and struggles. They have, however, always been progressive and emancipatory as compared to what came before, and more effective at providing for their people compared to peer capitalist countries, without relying on imperialism.