Was communism equally irrational and silly as religion ?

I was often fascinated by the ( erstwhile ) communist regimes ( like the former Soviet Union )for many reasons, among which was the fact that they were among the very few in human history that have dared to defy religion, and also the fact that they provided an " alternative " setup to the now ubiqutous free-market system. But when i decide to read more about this system, i was amazed how such a ridiculous, weird and irrational belief system had influenced or even dominated the policy-making of so many countries. I was forced to draw parallels with religion, an equally irrational and ridiculous belief system, that , unfortunately, continues to brainwash people's minds even today..

As far as i could understand , communism is just brainwashing.. there is no sound rational or logical basis for its claims, most of which seem outlandish.. consider the communist dictum " from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs " .This eliminates the incentive for people to work hard , since they will continue to get the same reward , no matter how hard they work. Without a profit motive, firms had no incentive or need to provide quality services, and no need to innovate and adapt new technology to satisfy the customer, as they were monopolies , and the customer was forced to buy whatever crap they had produced.. Neither there was any incentive for individuals to work hard -- there was similar pay for both specialized and unspecialized jobs ; and in any case there was guaranteed employment,free housing and medical care ( ..and there was hardly any desirabe consumer product available to buy )* ,Neither there was any incentive for firms to produce quality goods . And there was no market mechanism of knowing which goods are in demand and hence need to be produced.. the managers had no idea of public demand , and the result was both surpluses and shortages ( the latter mostly of consumer goods and food ). And since the State decided what goods to be produced on its own whims and fancies rather than public demand, it diverted a lion's share of the economy to military expenditure.**

This belief system ignores the basic tenets of psychology-- to motivate a person to work hard, it is necessary to provide some incentive -people cannot be forced to work hard for " collective good ". People work hard for their own material prosperity, and performance-based pay serves as an incentive for putting in more effort. And since wokers pooled in their effort for a collective goal, there was no way to identify individual effort ,and hence workers did not bother with productivity as individual contribution could not be measured anyways.

And since there was hardly any attractive consumer products to lure the people, they had few aspirations in life ( compare that to the present day situation ,where one thinks " i will work harder, get a pay raise and buy that new laptop/cellphone/car/dress " )--Consequently , the only collective aspiration of the nation's people was military glorification of the country - hostility toward USA and other western countries. The communist nation avoided trade with foreign countries, since they emphasized " self-sufficiency "--this lack of trade only accentuated Cold War hostilities, and resulted in lots of money being spent in nuclear bombs and missiles.

One can easliy see similarities between religion and communism- both are irrational, unfounded beliefs -- Both promise an ideal state- religion promises " heaven " to the religious and communism promises an utopian world of " guaranteed employment, housing and free healthcare " . In reality , both heaven and the socialist utopia are nonexistent . Both recruit new members to their beliefs by luring them with false promises of heaven or socialist utopia. And they both deride other irrational belief systems ( the different religions deride each other ,claiming themselves to be the "true relgion" of the " true god " , similarly communism was intolerant of any religion -irrational belief systems just like itself )



* " They pretend to pay us , and we pretend to work " -- an ex-soviet citizen succintly sums up the situation.

* " The reason why the Soviet System doesn't work is that the workers dont work " - was the finding of an economist.

** One KGB spy who defected to Britain revealed that 50 % of the economy was devoted to the military . A huge amount of government's money was spent in providing subsidies ( free healthcare, education etc ), leaving nothing for innovation.