On Communal Fraternity

On Communal Fraternity: And hence, I ponder, what does it mean to live in communal fraternity? Is it to live in a community where every one recognizes fundamental human rights? Or is it defined by the Faith you hold and the income you earn? For some, the only basic human right is the right to live, which encompasses the right to preserve one's life through morally acceptable means. Expanding upon this notion, however, the Marxists teach us that there are more fundamental human rights than the simple right to live. In the former Soviet Union, for example, citizens were guaranteed a job, an education, and healthcare. Granted, the quality of education and the subsequent job/healthcare it led to were not always up to the Soviet citizen to decide. Therefore, the government directed the individual where to attend school, work, and receive healthcare. By many Western standards, the lengthy extent of governmental oversight in its citizens' basic affairs would be considered undemocratic, and thus, the Soviet experiment with full-fledged communism can be perceived as a failure. In fact, Russia was one of the last places that Marx would have anticipated a communist revolution, as the means of production were non-existent and the working-class conditions were not ripe.