Spain's 'Communism' Myth vs. Real Private Sector Ties

Spain has no communism, but the State ties citizens to private banks

A brief complaint sparked a conversation that remains active. The starting point was simple: in Spain, you cannot do anything without permission, and those who point this out become targets. The underlying suspicion—that a creeping communism has entered the kitchen—collapses when one looks at who is actually in charge here. However, the discomfort fueling this belief is not imaginary.

Is Spain a communist country?

No. It is a parliamentary monarchy with a market economy, private banking, and energy oligopolies. This is the most repeated argument in the replies: talking about communism in a country where there are barely any communists left confuses the diagnosis. The Communist Manifesto of 1848 proposed the expropriation of landed property, a heavy pogre tax, the abolition of inheritance rights, or the centralization of credit in a national bank. None of that is in effect.

Some refine the argument further, claiming that currents labeled as red are actually products of the Frankfurt School rather than Soviet doctrine. Others get lost along the path of cultural Marxism and Freemasonry, without any proof backing such a cocktail. The useful conclusion holds: what squeezes the average citizen does not come from there.

Even among those rejecting the label, there are hierarchies. Some warn that communism, where it was truly applied, turns out worse than imagined: restrictions even on residency and textbook nationalist drifts. That does not make it the explanation for what happens here. It only marks where not to go.

The State forcing you through the bank

Here the conversation shifts gears and becomes interesting. The complaint is not that the State does not exist, but that it exists to push you into private hands. There is no public bank, so you must have a current account. You cannot drive without insurance, so you must hire a private one. Trying to live without electricity or water has a price: no certificate of habitability, no business opening.

The chain repeats in every utility and every policy. That is not central planning. It is a State acting as a salesman for oligopolies and then explaining that things are just like that. The breakdown of how many of these obligations are legal versus merely inevitable yields figures worth examining calmly.

Is there free market in Spain?

The economic diagnosis intersects with the political one here. Some argue that the system is not neoliberal at all: there is intervention everywhere, and the State decides, subsidizes, and grants concessions. Others respond that the State is at the feet of capital, that supply companies do whatever they want, and that the wage earner who pays gets the worst deal. Both descriptions fit within the same vignette.

Controls on trains that already existed

The historical counterpoint arrives, and it is the most devastating. In the fifties, traveling to Barcelona or Madrid without being able to justify the reason or carry a signed employment contract could end with the traveler sent back to their village. This was done by a government that was certainly not communist. The cited regulation is from 1941, barely two years after the war ended, and refers to a text from September 1939.

From this comes the argument that dismantles half the conversation: servitude to the State has centuries behind it and needs no red label. Forcing someone to stay in their province or serve in a war was not invented by Marx. Putting a communist stamp on an administrative problem does not fix it; it only changes the enemy.

Congo, Venezuela, and the myth of labor legislation

The roughest stretch arrives when discussing whether less State means more rights. Some argue that where there is no State, there are no labor rights, presenting this as proof that regulation protects. The rebuttal points out that slave child labor exists in Congo, so using that country as an example of restrictive legislation does not hold up.

The Venezuelan case opens another front. Decreed job immobility implies that, since January 1, 2023, employers cannot fire, downgrade, or transfer a worker without just cause qualified beforehand by the Labor Inspector. Stricter legislation, ruined economy: both things simultaneously. Less regulation elsewhere, child exploitation. Neither corner resolves the fundamental question.

A World Bank report that disappeared

The Doing Business report comes up, incidentally. The World Bank canceled its report due to possible irregularities in its preparation, with pressures to improve China's position. Those who cited it as a thermometer of economic freedom were left without a thermometer. The data serves the usual purpose: indices are also cooked.

Where the discussion stalls

After all this time, no one has closed the circle. There is no Spanish communism to overthrow because it does not exist; nor is there full freedom to display because controls remain. The only real coincidence is that the problem is not the system's label, but who uses it to decide what you can do tomorrow. And there, right there, the conversation is left unanswered.