Communist ideologies have developed throughout the past two centuries into multiple variations of the fundamental principles of Marx. This has been done through pioneers of this ideology, who ruled over almost the entire Eastern world during the 20th century. Unsurprisingly, these ideologies still exist to this day. Nevertheless, these often radical organisations clustering communism’s followers together have begun dramatically increasing in popularity again since the start of Y2K.

 Initially though, it is important to understand the concept of communism, which is the idea of a community that strives for unanimous equality through equal amounts of wealth, holidays, workloads, as well as rights. Moreover, all members of the community are expected to contribute to their common cause according to their abilities and are compensated based on their needs and requirements. Evidently, to make this system succeed however, communist governments, which are designed to be completely run by citizens in the final stage of communism, need to be completely unbiased and systematic in their method of distributing wealth. Subsequently, this unbiased wealth distribution should ensure the achievement of complete socioeconomic equality among all layers of social classes. This concept (in theory) sounds like a perfect society, where no starvation, inequality, and crime can exist. There is no one with more wealth or power than you, and everyone receives just what they need to sustain themselves and their families (Ball & Dagger).

 So, what is causing the rapid increase of communism’s popularity again? Of course, communism sounds like a utopic system as imagined by its founding fathers. Nevertheless, such a question is rather complex to answer in one simple statement, as there are a multitude of other, more deep and complex reasons within modern society, which would encourage citizens to switch from the capitalist systems in place around most of the world today to communism.

 Firstly, one of the leading causes for the criticisms of capitalism and the growing rise in the popularity of communism amongst people globally is due to the inherent issues associated with financial recessions, which are a part of the recurring economic cycle in capitalist societies. Examples of such events were the recessions of 2008 and more recently of 2020 throughout COVID-19. Nonetheless, even though these cycles are usually highly anticipated approximately every six to seven years on average, they have begun rising in frequency and decreasing in duration since the 2020’s begun, as governments simply threw even more money at the issues of recessions through disorganised stimulus checks, causing record inflation and stock prices to fall. The US alone printed 80% of all dollars in existence between 2020 and 2021, severely devaluing companies, as well as the life savings of ordinary people (Levi). Recessions are also a huge issue because they cause mass unemployment and economic hardships especially amongst poorer, less wealthy members of society, such as essential service providers like factory workers and construction workers. Not only are these people the fundamental backbones of society, but it also takes immensely long periods to recover their lost jobs because of failing companies, therefore elongating the effects of such an economic downturn. In fact, the investment magazine Kiplinger quoted regarding the 2020 financial recession in the U.S. that “although it was the shortest downturn in U.S. history, it took the economy until July 2022 to recover the 21 million jobs lost during the slump” (Burrows). Communist ideologies, however, do propose employment for all, which has indeed been demonstrated as executable by communist regimes globally, that prided themselves in providing stable employment for most of their population. Additionally, it is important to note how communist manifestos tend to propose universal incomes for all, adjusted to the amount people need just to live comfortably, with average luxuries. This theoretically could also alleviate the issue of overspending by the masses, which is the problem that tends to cause the prices of products to dramatically increase due to the high demand, as with communism, people would simply be able to afford only what they truly need.

 Secondly, capitalist societies have also seen great criticism regarding their handling of issues surrounding global warming. As a matter of fact, greenhouse gas emissions, which are largely responsible for global warming have begun drastically increasing since the advent of the industrial revolution. During this period, former feudal societies were abandoned in favour of a free, unregulated economy, where everyone was left to fend for themselves with almost no rules to ensure a pollution-free and sustainable industry. This claim is also supported by many scholars as stated in this quote from the Pit Journal, which reads that “progressive scholars recognize the serious damage that results from a global capitalist drive. Endless efforts of private owners to expand and increase their profits force a “perpetual treadmill of production and consumption”” (Pollock). As claimed by the quote too, capitalism has therefore driven great greed in manufacturers, whose profits were largely backed by the sale of unnecessary products and overproduction in general. For example, such overproduced and unnecessary, yet highly harmful products are a wide range of plastic products that are manufactured purely with profit in mind, with complete disregard for environmental footprints. On the other hand, as I mentioned in my previous paragraph, most communist manifestos tend to propose universal incomes for all, adjusted to the amount people need just to live comfortably, with average luxuries. This theoretically could also alleviate the issue of overspending, hence largely eliminating the problem of overproduction, in turn benefiting the environment by reducing harmful waste, and further popularising the concept of communism even amongst climate warriors.

 Thirdly, the widespread use of social media has further promoted pro-communist agendas within society, as members of such beliefs can now associate and group up faster than ever before to discuss their ideologies, hence creating an echo chamber of sorts for their ideas on most social platforms. This is in fact visibly displayed to us through tools such as Google’s Ngram viewer, which displays the percentage share of a word out of all the other words publicly uploaded on the world wide web, compared up until 2019 as of right now. Once this graph is analysed with the words “Antifa” and “anti-capitalism” compared to “The Joker”, the graph will clearly indicate how “The Joker” franchise, which released a brand-new movie in 2019, and was amongst the most popular trends of that year and the years before due to its comic series, clearly encountered serious competition popularity-wise in comparison to Antifa and Anti-capitalism's Google searches. Furthermore, on platforms like Reddit and Twitter, where chat moderation is often weak, group chats such as r/Communism, r/AntifascistsofReddit, and hashtags such as #Antifa often promote agendas that are highly representative of communist ideologies, with some even entertaining ideologies with high levels of political incorrectness, which is unarguably an issue independent of whatever side of the communism v. capitalism argument you are on. Nonetheless, it is an indisputable fact that often radical ideologies are the ones which tend to garner the most attention, and that is a must for an ideology to rise drastically in popularity, therefore, further showing us signs about how communist ideologies are indeed at a rapid popularity growth phase.

 In conclusion, the concept of modern communism carries a wide variety of benefits, however, it also carries a large variety of issues, which can be seen throughout former communist societies, with most failing quickly. Largely, the failure of these societies can be associated with the ruling parties’ dictatory ruling methods, widespread political corruption (in turn defying universal income), as well as great oppression and censorship, hence not allowing the final stage of communism to take effect, meaning the rule of the people, together. On the other hand, I do believe that for capitalism to maintain its current popularity in the light of communism's increasing popularity, I think it needs to focus more on reducing the greed-driven societies of the present, and find solutions to increase the welfare of its workers, as well as moderate the spread of harmful and radical misinformation, which might influence more gullible and susceptible people into following an ideological concept, which’s true intentions and purposes they fail to understand fully.

Works Cited:

 
Ball, Terence, and Richard Dagger. “Communism.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1 Dec. 2022, britannica.com/topic/communism.

Levi, Daniel. “80% Of All US Dollars in Existence Were Printed in the Last 22 Months (from $4 Trillion in January 2020 to $20 Trillion in October 2021).” Tech Startups Best Tech Companies Startups News, 18 Dec. 2021, techstartups.com/2021/12/18/80-us-dollars-existence-printed-january-2020-october-2021/.

Burrows, Dan. “What Is a Recession? 10 Facts You Need to Know.” Kiplinger.com, Kiplinger, 22 Nov. 2022, kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/t038-s001-recessions-10-facts-you-must-know/index.html.

Pollock, Lauren. “How Capitalism Is a Driving Force of Climate Change.” How Capitalism Is a Driving Force of Climate Change | The People, Ideas, and Things (PIT) Journal, PIT Journal, 1 Jan. 2020, pitjournal.unc.edu/content/how-capitalism-driving-force-climate-change.