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Suppose communism is bad (if you think it's good this isn't addressed to you but sure feel free to chime in). How do you teach normies this?
I mean the kind of normie who lives in a world where powers far beyond them do incomprehensible things like set the prices of stuff in the store, so that some of the stuff they really want is too expensive for them, but look, the store is full of that stuff, so somebody has all this stuff but they're not letting them have it except for way too high a price, those greedy assholes.
And then you try to explain to them how markets work and how prices come to be and it all just comes across to them as some weird bootlicking apologism because they're simply not on that level.
Is there a more "down to earth" approach that is needed? Normies who have deeply internalized rules of decency and ideas of "thou shalt not steal" (often normies with religious backgrounds) seem to naturally be anti-communist.
Now I'm sure some of y'all here (you know who you are) will say these people basically just need to be oppressed because if they have their way civilization is destroyed and everything is shitty for everybody, but if you oppress them then they complain but otherwise you have a civilization that hums along. But I hate this, I feel like there has to be a way to make society work that doesn't require telling a huge segment of the population "stfu and get in line or we're putting you in a cage". And I mean obviously violent (as needed) enforcement of civilized norms is necessary, but I notice there are a lot more people who are sympathetic to communist ideas than are actual active criminals. My point is more about these people, not the active criminals (who I support putting in cages)
Is there really no way to get through to people other than to just tell them shut up and take it because we're trying to run a civilization here
I think I know the kind of normies you are referencing here. There are roughly two stripes of normies -- people who don't think deeply / interrogate concepts -- that don't think "Communism is bad:"
I wouldn't try to get into a philosophical discussion with someone who doesn't think philosophically. I think you have to take a practical approach, like:
What should happen to people who don't want to participate? What if the government tells you your job is to dig ditches all day every day, and you would rather knit or fix cars or answer phones? Or, worse, start your own business? They say no, you will dig ditches. What should happen to you? What if you accept being forced to dig ditches, but want to talk to your fellow ditch-diggers about how you don't like digging ditches? The government (your boss) tells you to stop talking about that. What should happen to you if you keep talking about it? What if you think of a better, more efficient way to get the ditch dug, that requires less effort on your part, and your boss doesn't care? Communism isn't creative; it doesn't allow for individual initiative/enterprise (except for political climbers, but watch out for the other political climbers!). Every person is a cog in a machine and if you are not a cog in the machine you are a problem. It doesn't matter if the machine is efficient or even operable, you are there to do what you're told, or you're a problem. This is why Communuist countries do not allow their citizens to leave and invariably turn into prisons/death camps.
The Marxist argument against capitalism is that there are a lot of real problems with capitalism, and it presents itself as an idealized solution to the problems of capitalism. The problem with this is that people are imperfect and any system run by people will be imperfect, including Communism. There is no Utopia. All of the same human failings that Communism wants to eliminate will be present inside Communism. There will always be problems. In a centralized system, the problems created by that system are distributed throughout the entire system. One important person makes a mistake or does something evil, and everyone downstream of that important person has to confront the consequences and has no recourse to fix the mistake -- you may not even be able to acknowledge the mistake without consequences!
Capitalism is decentralized, so it's a bunch of people making their own mistakes, and these mistakes have a smaller impact because those downstream are fewer and may be able to navigate their own mitigation strategies. Of course, these people might not make a mistake but do something good that will have good effects on anyone downstream from them. Communism essentially precludes the possibility of the good thing happening and instead locks everyone into the shared mistake path.
As a sort of libertarian, I've been accused of favoring my own Utopian ideal, but really it's the opposite: an anti-utopian ideal. People will do things badly and hurt themselves, and the best way to minimize the effects of this is to keep power limited and allow people the flexibility to fix their own mistakes or mold their circumstances to avoid the worst effects of others' mistakes. Meanwhile, we can share in the benefits from people who do the good things by choosing to trade with them and work on our own good things that give us purpose.
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