decades of red scare propaganda and purposefully sabotaging public education
A lot of people mix up “socialism” with “people being good neighbors.” That’s not actually what the term means. Socialism is specifically about who owns the big stuff, the means of production. In a socialist setup, people still work jobs, they still get paid, and daily life still involves employment and compensation. The difference is that major industries aren’t privately owned by large corporations. They’re controlled collectively by the public or by the workers themselves.
Small private businesses can still exist; they’re not eliminated outright. What changes is the ownership of large-scale systems: energy, manufacturing, transportation, resources, things on that level. These are shifted away from private corporate control and toward collective control.
The fundamental issue of socialism and why it doesn’t and has not worked historically is because of human nature. A corporateocracy or a capitalist based society aligns much better to human nature than socialism does which is why it’s significantly more “successful”.
If everyone does better, then you’re doing worse by comparison.
I want 10% unemployment and 0% interest rates. That’s the magic formula where I can sexually harass my au pair and she has no choice but to put up with it.
The ultra rich have successfully convinced a lot of people that they, too, could become ultra rich some day - but there’s no place for ultra rich under socialism.
Then further, a lot of people have been convinced that only the very very poor would be better off and everyone else would be worse off. That is of course also untrue.
It is due to lobbying and astroturfing.
Simple as.
It’s definitely not based in data, because that overwhelmingly shows massive economic and happiness growth happens in these states
Where in the world has socialism been successful in the past?
I’ll wait.
I’m Canadian and my country is extremely successful. We’re also pretty socialist. Obviously socialism isnt a binary, but we have universal Healthcare, strong financial regulations, and a stronger more centralized federal government than the US. We’re doing very well, and the elements which cause us the most pain tend to be where we are more like the states, not where we’re more like Denmark.
Off the top of my head: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland.
Here is an important example of the disconnect between liberal and conservative interpretation of the word “socialist”. Economists would not label Scandinavian countries as socialist. Meanwhile conservatives point to Cuba and Venezuela as examples of socialist failure when that’s not entirely true either. We’re talking past each other in these debates.
That’s because Conservatives have no argument other than pedantry when it comes to their villifying of “socialism”.
“They aren’t socialist, they’re Democratic Socialism or Social Democrats, which are totally different from each other and not socialism at all!” (Is their pedantry, in case anyone was wondering)
It’s ALL socialism, just with a few different policies at play. But that would destroy the conservative argument that you can’t have a successful capital economy under socialism. So they play the “They aren’t real socialists” bullshit game.
Economists would not label Scandinavian countries as socialist.
Economists would say that’s a matter for political scientists. And aren’t all conservative.
But yes, in the English-speaking world, conservatives and the far left use the traditional definition, while the mainstream left has recently gravitated towards something like “when the government does things”.
In the same vein you could argue that US is not true Capitalism because trickle down doesn’t happen and many means of production are still owned by the government.
And yet we call them a Capitalist country, no?
To me the hate is quite simple to understand. Socialism means that the extremely rich will be worse off financially. The 1% have an unnatural love for money, and the idea of being less wealthy for the greater good is totally abhorrent to them.
For generations they’ve been able to demonise socialism using their disproportionate influence through the media, to the extent that the majority of the population now fear it.
We’ve really not moved on that far intellectually from the witch trials. People are collectively ignorant and fearful, and with the right nudges are easy to control to the point where they’ll literally vote against their own good. They are the proverbial Turkeys voting for Christmas and I honestly don’t know how we will ever get past it.
We’ve really not moved on that far intellectually from the witch trials.
Cognitive biases seem to be unavoidable. Even if you are well-educated about a particular bias, it often takes reflection (internally or externally motivated) to recognize it in your decisions / behavior.
Fallacious reasoning is often just as good at convincing an audience, which is one of the reasons they are still in use despite many or most being documented and named in ancient times.
Individual training in critical thinking skills can help, but theocrats (in specific) and authoritarians (in general) spend a lot of effort making sure that public education is robbed of that. But, that’s not enough to “intellectually move on”; even with that training, bias occurs. So, we have to build systems for bias detection and remediation if we want a just global society.
Thankfully, we’re now reaching a turning point where PragerU will be used to teach directly in schools, letting kids know why socialism is bad and capitalism is good. Wait, that’s the opposite of what we want, fuck!
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Conservative reactionaries since the French Thermidor Reaction opposed it, believing communalism and eventually socialism undermines their existing hierarchical, feudal system. Stalin also did not help matters at all.
Yeah Stalin was like “You want to see totalitarianism with socialist window dressing?”
This is also why I can’t stand tankies. Worshipping the Soviet Union, China and even modern day Russia. Clearly the “is not The West™” is the important part for them, not socialism or communism. Also, I’ve had interactions with people on reddit where they said that the mass deportations were absolutely justified, etc.
Look, I also want a lot of the things socialism offers, without necessarily going full communist. But I’ll argue all day that Nordic countries do it better. Not perfectly of course, there’s still billionaires and there are still issues. But people are by and large much more free than they are or were in any of the countries tankies love, and those who aren’t well-off still have it much better than they do in, say, the US.
Socialism by its barest definition is great.
Socialism as outlined in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is a little sketchier because it makes a lot of unrealistic assumptions about human nature and is just generally super hard to implement without creating a power vacuum.
Socialism as in the USSR’s Socialism is a century old practice of the cruellest and most war hungry culture imagineable, having taken advantage of the afforementioned power vacuum to starve and torture millions at home, ally with the Nazis in WWII and then change sides halfway through, tear down democracies around the globe, and push us all the closest we have ever been to thermonuclear annihilation. A threat so great that even 30 years into its grave is still a great stone over our heads, having crafted a world power balance that will threaten our destruction for generations to come.
But Socialism by its barest definition is great.
Socialism as outlined in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is a little sketchier because it makes a lot of unrealistic assumptions about human nature and is just generally super hard to implement without creating a power vacuum.
Marx’s general proposals for the implementation of a socialist government:
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Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
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A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
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Abolition of all right of inheritance.
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Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
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Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
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Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
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Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
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Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
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Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries: gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
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Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc., etc.
Which of those do you think is hard to implement or makes unrealistic assumptions about human nature?
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Socialism as outlined in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is a little sketchier because it makes a lot of unrealistic assumptions about human nature and is just generally super hard to implement without creating a power vacuum.
And is still pretty vague. There was a lot of colouring in for the Bolsheviks to do.
Socialism as in the USSR’s Socialism is a century old practice of the cruellest and most war hungry culture imagineable, having taken advantage of the afforementioned power vacuum to starve and torture millions at home, ally with the Nazis in WWII and then change sides halfway through, tear down democracies around the globe, and push us all the closest we have ever been to thermonuclear annihilation. A threat so great that even 30 years into its grave is still a great stone over our heads, having crafted a world power balance that will threaten our destruction for generations to come.
I’m glad it fell (plz don’t ban), but there’s hella artistic licence there.
The power vacuum came from the Tsar. They were always enemies of the Nazis, although they did temporarily agree not to fight them, and then afterwards they basically won the war themselves. The US went first with the nukes. I don’t even know what you mean about the current power balance - Russia is laughably weak, China is behind where it would have been if it took the Japan path. And, the thing about their cruel culture just sounds like bigotry.
The power vacuum came from the Tsar.
The Bolsheviks literally couped the democratically elected and socialist post-Tsar government of Russia, kickstarting several years of civil war.
They were always enemies of the Nazis, although they did temporarily agree not to fight them,
Funny, then, that they invaded Poland and the Baltics in tandem with the Nazis and spent several years supplying the Nazi war machine.
and then afterwards they basically won the war themselves.
Fucking what.
Even Stalin regarded the Soviet position as unwinnable without the Western Allies.
My dad was Finnish, and I think it helps to remember, Finns were fighting Russians before and during the time Russia called itself Communist and Socialist. The western side of that divide, the Nordic countries, practiced a very different version of “socialism”, with democracy, and they seem to be reaping a lot of benefits.
Yeah, and capitalism has never lead to the toppling of foreign democracies or threatened thermonuclear annihilation
Ah, shit wait
Top of the line Whataboutism
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the cruellest and most war hungry culture imagineable
America?
BuT hER eMaILs!
Gonna go bomb a wedding, maybe torture some Muslims at Gitmo? You sick fucks can’t go a year without invading a country or brutally toppling a government. What’s the longest you ever not been in a war/conflict/or any other word you created to downplay your crimes?
bUt TrUmP iS tHe OnLy PrObLeM wItH aMeRicA
Yes, you have several EmAiLs to complain about instead of actually addressing anything. I doubt anyone here thinks the US is perfect, but that’s not the question.
I did address something, I addressed that the US is everything that American thought about the Soviets.
The question had noting to do with perfect, the question was about unmistakable evil.
“Socialism by its barest definition is great.” That’s what I thought too until I learned about the USSR’s Socialism and how it led to starvation, torture, war, and nearly caused a nuclear apocalypse. It’s easy to romanticize socialism in theory, but we must remember the horrors it has caused in practice.
Lmao thats just the short version of my comment
Years of propaganda from oligarchs, their think tanks and their propaganda spreaders. This has been an attack for many decades but especially after WW2 during the red scare and then after 1970 when the Powell Memo was issued. That is the origin of all of our messes, including Reagan and Trump.
Many of the same right wing think tanks are from the same oligarchs from decades ago and/or their heirs. Think Timothy Mellon or Birch Society (Koch Brother father). Even then, there was “the business plot” where the oligarchs of the 1930s wanted fascism because of the threat FDR had to their wealth and power.
The red scare is a huge factor that continues to this day.
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The issue is in the comparison:
Socialists will compare socialism at its best against capitalism at its worst- and vice-versa.
Where no one on any side of anny argument is willing to admit that any form of government that is left to run unchecked, will always exploit the people.
Different shape, same solid.
The issue is also that people seem to be quite polarised in their groupthink. Socialism and capitalism aren’t mutually exclusive, and they are only destructive if they are adopted as a pure ideology which disallows any discussion of the possibilities of the other system. In my opinion, an ideal system has protected elements of both. Healthcare, education, prisons, public services: socialised. Supermarkets, car sales, beauty products: a free market.
At the moment our society is far too capitalist, and socialism is seen as suspicious at best. This is causing harm and suffering.What happens if capitalism works perfectly? A few people have great lives (the capitalists) and everyone else is screwed (the workers). That’s the entire point of capitalism.
What happens if socialism works perfectly? Everyone has decent lives.
(What you wrote about corruption is true, of course, but your first claim was simply false.)
Thank you for proving another point. That no matter what- socialism will always win from a socialist’s perspective- even if they need to redefine the subject.
If capitalism works perfectly, by design- anyone has a fair shot. This is the absolute truth of it even if you don’t like it.
The problem is, it’s not working perfectly. And if socialism was adapted, I’d all but guarantee it would be bastardized just as bad if not worse.
If capitalism works perfectly, by design- anyone has a fair shot.
I don’t believe “fairness” is a defining characteristic of Capitalism. Can you please provide a definition of Captialism so that I can be sure we are talking about the same thing?
I didn’t say it was a defining characteristic of it. Just that if it works as it should, anyone has a chance at success.
What you did was exactly my point. You tried to compare socialism at its best against capitalism at it worst. If that fair, then let’s compare Singapore today vs. Bulgaria in 1989.
Or would you say that’s unfair?
You tried to compare socialism at its best against capitalism at it worst.
I think you are confused. I don’t believe I’ve tried to make a comparison between socialism and capitalism in this thread. Perhaps that was someone else?
Oh! My apologies! I have gotten accustomed to not looking at usernames for some reason.
anyone has a fair shot
Try talking to a person who grew up in a primarily black neighbourhood in America. Or a poor person who had to skip school so they could work to afford food.
Almost every rich person now had rich parents and rich grandparents. Even the “self-made” rich people had access to opportunities not available to poor people.
It’s easy to risk everything to try starting your own business when failure means going back to your parents for food and housing. It’s so much harder to justify trying when failure means starving on the street, and not trying means continuing to live in a house.
Capitalism does not give people a fair shot. It takes wealth from people with capital to give to people with capital, and by necessity, oppresses people to stop them from gaining capital.
The vast majority of people simply do not have a fair shot.
Yeah I agree, that was a ridiculous thing to say.
You honestly think racism doesn’t exist in other forms of government?
That is a strawman argument. I did not say that, and it is not relevant to what I did say.
Fucking hilarious!
Dude… it’s absolutely what you’re taking about. You framed capitalism as a form of govern that allowed racial discrimination.
ALL forms of government do this.
Now I’m done discussing this as you’re clearly working in bad faith to come out on top here.
The term “socialism” was poison since the Russian revolution and the red scare that followed. The rich/capitalists used all powers available to poison it so that even the mildest western EU forms didn’t threaten the tiny amount of their exploitation of the working classes.
Socialism threatens capitalists -> Capitalists spend money in media and politics to ensure support for capitalism by spreading fear about socialism -> People are scared of socialism.
It’s really that simple honestly. I generally hate oversimplifications but there’s not that much more to it
Some of y’all need to go live in a socialist country for a few years and learn something about how it actually works.
Spoiler alert. You don’t want any part of it.
What are you on about? I’ve been living in Denmark for five months now, I fucking love it.
Crime is virtually non-existent, everyone is paid a fair wage, the streets are clean, addiction rates are down, nobody goes bankrupt from medical treatment, and everybody has the option for higher education.
What’s so bad about that? Do you like living in a rural area with high rates of alcoholism, property crimes, domestic violence, crumbling infrastructure, and monopolies bankrupting your main street?
Meanwhile I’ve just walked 2 km from the flat past hundreds of small locally owned businesses on nothing but pedestrian plazas to a small farm to table cafe for brunch.
I mean Denmark isn’t socialist. It’s capitalist with sane regulations to protect the people, which is ALSO something that the American right has labeled as communism, despite the fact that you do, in fact, still have a free market economy with plenty of private ownership in these countries. It is IMO the best system we currently have, because it has good elements from both socialism and capitalism. Capitalists can take risks and profit off it, but nobody has to be in poverty.
Right, I agree with you, but these knuckle draggers use Denmark, Norway, and Finland as their primary examples of socialism.
You live there and you’re still wrong.
Denmark has a free‑market capitalist economy.
Go learn what socialism is.
Oh thank fuck you know the difference between democratic socialism and actual socialism, now go ahead and tell me what you think countries are truly socialist.
I think socialism is awesome but capitalism, when highly restrained, is more effective at generating capital.
I think a few fairly simple steps can merge the best of both.
Limit personal net worth to, say, 01 million dollars. Companies can have a networth of, say, 1 billion tops. Below that, put like 10 or so tax brackets, the more you’re worth, the more you pay tax. Anything over those limits goes 100% to tax
This favors many smaller companies working together instead of one huge monster that can’t even take care of itself and requires regular bailouts
The tax income will be more than enough to support a large socialist system that can take care of free education, free healthcare, etc, hell, even universal basic income
Best of capital generation,best of socialism.
Oh yes the myth of the small business capitalism. The reality is there was once thousands of car manufacturers in the US and now there is maybe fifty with a big three making the vast majority.
Same goes for about every sector there is in every country. The ideal of a capitalist society that uses great restraint is just a fantasy. Concentration of wealth and the wealth gap is high in every single country in the world.
There is no real example of capitalism effectively addressing wealthy inequality or creating a small business form a capitalism for any significant length of time before it starts concentrating. It may start out with small businesses, but monopolies quickly develop.
You may ask why is it bad to have wealthy people. The problem is representation. All nations policies almost always exclusively favor those with capital. They get unequal representation.
One only has to look at the mega corporations to see the concentration and do a policy review to see the majority of laws passed directly benefit them.
I would like to see a country actually implement what you say to prevent concentration of wealth. It probably will never happen though.
I would take it a step further and say all corporations must be worker-owned. Every employee has an equal share, and maybe there is a probationary period along with that to weed out the bad eggs. This alone naturally encourages organic growth (among other, greater benefits) because any new hire will divide the pie further.
Mmmm, sort of, I guess, depending a little on who does what different percentages maybe? A guy who does 4 hours vs a girly that works 8 hour day, for example, but yeah, there should be something like that
I still want to reward founders too, you need people to start something new, give them a bigger % or something, but those are details
Either way, if nobody can be filth rich anymore we should be able to get to a stable point where all people can work way less, where we focus less on consumerism, focus more on life.
Unfortunately the 1 million dollar net worth would have to be modified by location. If the average house is hitting a half million most places, and passing $1 some places, they need to at least be able to be worth slightly more than their residence.
My idea requires some more work
I think this only works on a world wide scale. Make salaries all the same everywhere, one world coin.
Houses are currently extremely overvalued, real value for most houses is easily 3X less than they go for now
Most houses could go for under a million. Two people live there, a 10M cap gets you very nice house with loads of room to spare, still.
If anything, the 10 million cap seems too high still
