Because famously no one has ever died from being over worked under communism

Outside of the gulag prison system? It would be unlikely.

A common saying that reflected the typical experience was "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us".

To discredit capitalism is not necessarily to credit communism.

We can surely criticise one without having to immediately complain about the other, can't we?

Edit: To be clear, my problem with this is that to pretend that there is only a choice between 'capitalism' and 'communism' is a false dichotomy.

>To discredit capitalism is not necessarily to credit communism.

For most people a non-capitalist system is necessarily socialist/communist. So the response is apt for most situations.

> there is only a choice between 'capitalism' and 'communism' is a false dichotomy.

I fully agree, there are nuances that are not considered in what is traditionally defined as communism/socialism/capitalism.

But it's important to note that most people understand things only in black and white, and never the shades of gray.

In capitalism thats a wanted and necessary feature, under a socialist system thats an unfortunate accident. I gotta admit, it very likely happened because workers republics had to do what needed to be done to survive relentless attacks of western oligarchies.