Why the Communist idea still matters

The point is not to return to the twentieth century, nor to repeat its mistakes. It is to recognize that the communist Idea names something that remains unresolved: the problem of how to organize collective life on the basis of equality rather than domination.

We may find a different word for it. But any such word will have to carry the same weight-the same insistence that another form of life is both necessary and possible. For now, communism remains the most honest name we have. Not because it is free of history, but because it refuses to let history close the question. That is precisely what makes it so difficult-and so necessary-to think again.

To dismiss the communist Idea is not simply to reject a word or a history. It is to accept that the present arrangement of life is as far as thought-and as far as justice-can go.