Editing Khmer Rouge (section)

=== Economy ===
The goal of Khmer Rouge was to create a communist society through the complete and immediate abolition of money, trade and private property. The new society was to be perfectly egalitarian, which required homogeneity, which Khmer Rouge sought to achieve through the destruction of existing social structures and the uniformisation of the newly emerging socialist society. To this end, the creation of a 'new society' that would completely break with the existing traditions and cultural heritage of Cambodia was also considered necessary. One of the Khmer Rouge activists stated: "We must burn the old grass so that new grass can grow." For Khmer Rouge, egalitarianism also included the concept of ‘levelling down’ - Cambodian society was to be brought to the level of the rural poor and develop from there; anything that was inaccessible to the general public was considered bourgeois and a luxury that was had to be destroyed.<ref name="tomasiewicz">{{cite journal |title=Maoizm, polpotyzm, dengizm: trzy formy azjatyckiego marksizmu |trans-title=Maoism, Pol Potism, Dengism: three forms of Asian Marxism |language=pl |first=Jarosław |last=Tomasiewicz |author-link=:pl:Jarosław Tomasiewicz |year=2013 |journal=Ideopolityka |pages=6-7 |volume=2 |issue=1}}</ref>

The leading economic theorist of Khmer Rouge, [[Hou Yuon]], distinguished two types of economic systems: ‘natural’ (natural economy) and ‘commodity’ (trade-based); in the agricultural conditions of Cambodia, the "commodity" economy was considered a parasite on the ‘natural’ economy - according to Youn's calculations, rice producers received only 26% of the profits. This formed the basis of Khmer Rouge's hostility towards cities, as urban areas were seen as playing a parasitic role in the pre-industrial society of Cambodia, and even the urban working class was considered a relatively privileged group. Khmer Rouge instead postulated socialism built on agrarianism - the poorest peasants, organized into production cooperatives, were considered the main and in fact the only force of the revolution; one of the Khmer Rouge's slogans was "agriculture is the basis for further industrial expansion" - the economy was to be based on agriculture, with the development of industry postponed for the future. The Cambodian economy was also supposed to be self-sufficient along the principle of ‘reliance on one's own strength’, which Khmer Rouge considered necessary to ensure the independence of the Cambodian revolution from imperialism and neo-colonialism, even if this entailed technological regression.<ref name="tomasiewicz"/>