I was thinking about communism seriously, and the more I kept turning it over in my mind, the more it began to feel unfair to me in practice, even though the intention behind it can sound noble at first. The promise is beautiful on paper. Everyone contributes according to ability, everyone receives according to need, and nobody is supposed to be left behind. The problem is that the idea begins to break down the moment I look at actual people, actual families, actual property, actual work, and actual power. One thing I keep coming back to is the claim that human nature is shaped by the system, and that selfishness is mainly produced by capitalism. I do not fully accept that, because selfishness does not only appear in capitalist societies or in competitive markets. It appears in families too, where people are supposed to care for each other without calculating profit. For example, property disputes inside families happen all the time, and siblings who grew up together often end u...