Yep. We should have told the colonies of Georgia and Carolina to fuck off, and we'll get around to conquering them, after we kicked The King out of the other 11 colonies.
If one person had voted differently during The Continental Congress, we would have started abolishing slavery
Yeah y'all really don't want to end up like us. We're not the land of the free. The streets are most definitely not paved with gold. We're just a giant ponzi scheme.
No kidding. Their "fix" every year is to either fill all the potholes with asphalt, which the spring rains promptly loosen and get kicked out, or a thin "repaving" layer, which gets destroyed by the summer monsoons. I'm convinced Caltrans is a jobs program for people that can't get a job otherwise, because those guys can't seem to get anything done correctly.
It's actually insane how many of our institutions are actually based on pyramid schemes. No wonder we all use it as the symbol for conspiracy because it is a huge portion of how anything runs in the US. Cover the costs by convincing more people to join in at a less beneficial or profitable step down the pyramid and hope someone else will be coming behind you for you to take from as well.
Start a social media account for pics of the pothole. Keep tagging city officials in it. Call or email someone every time you're reminded that the pothole exists so they will be too. Make the city rue the day they gave Cave Johnson lem... Potholes.
Well, French president and several of its ministers are saying that socialist left, or radical left, is extremist. So no, it's not an America problem. It's very much a Europe problem too.
Yeah, socialism isn't taxing the rich, it is or at least have always led to brutal dictatorships because the real one is just communism with extra steps.
Social-democracy on the other hand is wonder for the people (see Sweden etc) in real life.
There are elements of capitalism there, but I wouldn't call it a capitalist economy. Capitalism requires that private individuals own the means of production. But, in Russia does anybody outside Putin's inner circle really own anything?
Yes, absolutely. The Russian Federation is the direct result of a collapsing Socialist system in the hands of Capitalists, just because fewer and fewer people own things doesn't mean it isn't a direct result of Capitalization of the economy.
The USSR wasn't really socialist at its core, and the new Russia really isn't capitalist at its core.
In the former system, the theory was that the people / workers owned the means of production. The reality was that it was the leader and those close to him who really "owned" them in the sense that they had power over them. It was all about who you knew in that system. In a true socialist system, it should have been up to the people to make decisions, but in the USSR it was up to the party's elites, and the people just had to live with it.
In the current system, it's Putin and his close circle who own everything. While they allow capitalist type activities to happen, the capitalists don't really own anything. If they displease Putin anything they have can be taken away on a whim. If you stay on Putin's good side, or at least stay beneath his notice, you can operate as a capitalist. But, become too successful and you'll be reminded who's in charge.
Both true socialism and true capitalism require that the rule of law apply to everyone, even the leaders. If the leader can just ignore the laws and seize the "means of production" without facing consequences, it's authoritarianism, not capitalism or communism / socialism.
The USSR was a flawed form of Socialism, but was fundamentally Socialist. The majority of the economy was run by Worker Soviets, in a process called Soviet Democracy. The Politburo, ie the highest Soviet, had a massive amount of influence and power, but day to day decisions were made locally. I would agree, I don't think it was a particularly good form of Socialism, but I would still consider it Socialist.
Modern Russia is absolutely Capitalist at its core, that's the entire foundation of the Russian Federation. The Capitalists are the Oligarchs! The Inner Circle are Capitalists! just because it's a higher stage of Capitalism doesn't mean it ceases to be Capitalism.
The USSR was a flawed form of Socialism, but was fundamentally Socialist
Was the rule of law strong enough that decisions were being made by the people, or were they being made by authoritarians? Because if key decisions weren't being made by the people, it wasn't socialist.
There was this whole thing called the Soviet Union then there was like a missile crisis
And there was like a group that called themselves National Socialists and they did a genocide and tried to take over a bunch of land by force
We also had to fight a bunch of talking trees that dug tunnels because military industrial complex and heroin
It's definitely many layers of propaganda but as an American I definitely understand WHERE it comes from, I understand why most people here flinch at the word.
You also gotta understand we had multiple generations in a row huffing lead gasoline so while younger millennials aren't impacted as bad, MOST Americans are legitimately lead brained.
It wasn't just leaded gasoline. I was busy getting hot boxed with cigarettes in my grandparent's leaded gasoline car before burning some asbestos, plastic cutlery, and batteries in the living room fireplace.
Forget no seatbelts or bicycle helmets. Our chemical exposure would probably send a younger person without a built up tolerance into instant seizure.
I also remember crimping down lead shot sinkers on my fishing line with my teeth. Good times. Good times indeed.
The Nazis were literally IN Europe. The USSR literally built a WALL here splitting the continent. And you're saying that explains why America is the one with socialism PTSD???
Ain't nothing more American than making everything about you I guess.
But European don't panic at the mention of socialism (what the comment you're replying to was talking about) yet the Europeans have suffered FAR MORE from your examples of "socialism" than Americans. You can't explain away how American politics differ from European politics by appropriating European tragedies.
But it DOES NOT explain the origins. The USSR and the Nazis are not CAUSES. They CAN'T BE because otherwise Europe would never integrated elements of socialism!
I think we actually agree on that, it's just semantics at this point. Whatever.
Also watch your aggressiveness. I didn't call you names and I expect the same in return.
Several things keep Americans from moving to Europe.
First, immigration laws of the country one is moving to. If one is not able to get a passport from an EU or EEA county based on ancestry, you basically need to be sponsored for a work visa by a company in the country you want to move to, which can be quite difficult. And even then, you have to be employed in that country for long enough to qualify for permanent residency, then citizenship, which can take up to 7 or 8 years in some countries.
If one is lucky enough to have parents or grandparents who emigrated to the US from a European country and can claim citizenship based on that, it's a lot of work to get all of the paperwork together and verified and accepted by that government's consulate (at least it is for Germany, but German bureaucracy is ... special).
Second, the US is one of the only countries in the world that double taxes its citizens. If someone was born in the United States, they will have to file taxes reporting income to the US government every single year until they die, and PAY taxes to the US government on any income over a certain amount every year until they die, regardless of the source of that income, and regardless of the fact that taxes on the same income need to be paid to the host country.
While I have zero respect for the snivelling shitgibbon name Boris Johnson, he was born in New York and had to renounce his US citizenship to escape the IRS. You also have to PAY the US government $2350 (in cash) for the privilege of giving up your citizenship, which is also...unique.
Sometimes there are tax treaties that can take most of the sting out of the double taxation issue (Norway's is decent for US citizens), but it depends on the country.
Finally, it just never occurs to many Americans that leaving is even a possibility.
Passports are $400+ USD, then there are the plane tickets, which are hundreds of dollars. Then to top it off you need to have room and board while looking for a job and someplace to live.
Another thing I’ve heard is fear of leaving the known and family.
Pretty much the only time we need passports is if we travel outside the U.S. and territories. Those that take cruises or cross borders to other countries would, but generally speaking a majority of Americans don’t have passports.
Maybe I just suck at the research, but from what I can tell getting a permanent residence visa is not easy for Americans. If I'm wrong I would absolutely love to know.
France seems to be relatively easy to gain permanent residence and even citizenship, but they do expect you to learn fluent French. Most of the EU requires birthright citizenship. A few will grant it to the decedents of immigrants, like Ireland, though they only do it for two generations out.
Eh for me it's a lot of things. For one just roots, family and friends. Then next is work, I'd have to find a new job over there (doubtful my current one would let me work abroad), and I'd need to see if visas would let me work over there, and for how long. I would probably make less over there, but cost of living is lower too, so I'd have to do finances. Most countries don't let you own property unless you're a citizen, and I wouldn't be, so I'd have to rent for a while. Path to citizenship would then be difficult, and I would have to pay taxes for both countries. Then just pure logistics of what do I do with everything here, would have to basically start all over. It'd be much easier if I was in my early 20s, but I'm nearing 40 which makes it much more difficult.
There is usually something like needing $250K in the bank to be considered for permanent residency. Then the paperwork costs money, so most Americans will have to wait until they get refugee status.
In all fairness, we panic and reach for our guns at the mention of just about anything. Right this very moment, I'm pooping on company time, scared out of my wits, a nine millimeter at the ready atop my presently ankle adorning boxers.
In your own words, they are economic systems. What do you call a system built on Capitalism, but with a slightly larger welfare net? Socialism? No, you call it Capitalism.
You're calling me brainwashed for correctly pointing out that Capitalism is Capitalism, even if you dress it up nicely?
Believe me, I'm not conflating Capitalism with markets. Capitalism is a specific form of market economy by which individual Capitalists buy and sell Means of Production, or Capital, by which they can pay Workers to use and create commodities via wage labor.
Examples of Socialist market economies include Market Socialism, a form of Socialism built on competing worker-owned co-operatives.
Examples of Socialist Market Economies do not include Capitalist Social Democracies, because the primary defining feature of Social Democracies is Capitalism with generous social safety nets, a kind of "human-centric" Capitalism.
You on the other hand are making the misconception that Socialism is simply when the government does stuff. You're wrong, of course, as countless people here have pointed put.
Capitalism with regulation is still Capitalism. Socialism is when Workers share ownership of the Means of Production, simple as.
Your greatest source is misinterpreting a line in Wikipedia? You think that means your Capitalism is actually Socialism despite relying on Capitalism, because the welfare net is larger? Lmao
Your data is Wikipedia. That's it. Read perhaps any Socialist literature and you're immediately debunked.
If Social Democracy was truly under Socialism, then the Workers of your country would own the Means of Production.
A more accurate reading of what you are claiming is that Social Democracy takes influence from Marxism while rejecting the conclusions and thus the necessity for Socialism, instead relying on Capitalism.
Tell me, plainly, how you can have Socialism with Capitalists and Capitalism. Or, does Nestlé not exist in the Nordic Countries?
Here's my source: Eatwell & Wright 1999, pp. 80–103; Newman 2005, p. 5; Heywood 2007, pp. 101, 134–136, 139; Ypi 2018; Watson 2019.
Want to go and read those books? No? I'm schocked.
The information from those books is listed on Wikipedia, yes. Are you so childish that you'll now pretend "you can't find real information on wikipedia"?
Weirdly enough, you don't have ANY sources for the things you pull out of your arse. Almost as if you didn't know what you were talking about and didn't HAVE any sources for your faulty claims, because like I said, you've conflated market economies and capitalism and think socialism equals communism, because you don't understand communism is just one form of socialism.
"How can you have socialism with capitalism"
Since I've already explained you keep conflating "capitalism" with "market economies", the question is then translated into "tell me, plainly, how can you have socialism and market economies", for which the answer is really quite simple for anyone literate. However, since you also conflate "socialism" with "communism", then the question becomes "how can you have communism with market economies", to which the answer is "you can't, since communism relies on planned economies instead of market economies".
That's where your confusion comes from.
Due to our good regulations because of our social demoractic, well governed economies, capitalist companies can participate, but they can't do the shenanigans they can do in less regulated markets.
The degree of regulation is the question. Even the US doesn't have "pure" capitalism. Things like the antitrust laws are by definition socialist policies, but this doesn't mean the US is socialist in any way. It just means even they understand the necessity of regulation over "pure" capitalism, because "pure" capitalism is unsustainable as it leads to monopolies which then kill the economy.
This is why for example I can actually drink my tapwater and eat raw eggs that don't even have to be refrigerated. This is why the quality of all products here is higher, and why it's more expensive for companies like Nestle to try their bullshit here, which is why they mostly aim for developing countries. To avoid the regulation that comes with properly functioning social democracy.
There are specific definitions and I'm sticking to them. If your economy has capitalists controlling companies with workers trading their labor for a wage underneath them, then it is capitalist, full stop.
Unless your economy is full of co-ops or something. I don't know the common typical structure for a nordic company.
You haven't even read a single "basic definition" my man.
Here's one :
Socialism
Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages
socialism
noun
a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned OR REGULATED by the community as a whole.
If your economy has capitalists controlling companies with workers trading their labor for a wage underneath them, then it is capitalist, full stop.
Youre refusing (or unable, lol) to understand that "capitalism" does not equal market economies.
Selling things doesn't mean capitalism. Trading goods doesn't mean capitalism. Owning a company doesn't mean capitalism. Having companies with workers doesn't mean capitalism.
Jesus fucking God I'm tired of explaining concepts that my 8 year old niece could google and learn by her self in five minutes
"unless you have a planned economy you're not socialist"
Yeah, exactly the point I'm making. Brainwashed morons think socialism means full planked economy, when it's no such thing.
Fucking spend 2 min on Google, is it so much to ask?
You literally said "Unless your economy is full of co-ops or something [it's not socialist]".
You're referring to the collectives of the Soviet union. A distinct feature of PLANNED ECONOMIES.
"I never anything about a planned economy."
Yes, you did. And now you're pretending you didn't. Like pretending reality isn't what it actually is. Trying to convince me something that happened didn't happen. Is there a word for behaving like that...?
You seem to completely misunderstand American diplomacy.
Just because America doesn't have the same style of conquest, doesn't mean they aren't conquerors.
America was the first empire to realize that all empires eventually fall whose agenda is toppling nations and replacing their flags with their own.
The USA invented a unique twist: never replacing the country's flag.
Instead, as evidenced by countless examples such as Iran and Panama, the American agenda has always been installing a new national leader whose interests align with American ideals of democracy and "freedom" (predominantly of the white Christian variety). But they keep their "flag", or in some sense maintain a national identity through the new leader, so it feels a lot less like they were conquered.
See how you didn't even have to ask which country it was? Because a 100% of communist countries became dictatorships ridden with poverty for the working class and gold plated luxury for the ruling class.
I'm happy now somewhere in the middle in this terrible, terrible capitalism. Oh, and I'm free to leave anytime I want, if I don't like it.
So do 100% of Capitalist countries without a strong democracy. In fact capitalism is the one designed to do so by concentrating capital.
When we figure out communism or socialism there's a really good chance it's a strong democracy that prevents it from falling into totalitarianism. Will it be a bunch of anarchic communes in council? Lol no. Will workers share profit equally with executives? Probably.
Funny how that's a fallacy, and there have been countless largely communist organizations of human labor over history, which lasted just as long as capitalist society.
Yeah I don't think we've figured out a good way past the charismatic sociopath problem. The best thing we're going to have in the short term is a democracy with a strong emphasis on socialism.
Living in the first decade of capitalism after communism, where freedom of the media exposed all the reality, people were still broke but the state no longer provided free housing (and the build codes changed to no longer allow cheap crappy concrete blocks), old "communists" sold half of all infrastructure to their buddies (where did someone get billions during communism??) and professionals started charging higher rates because now they were free to migrate west if they didn't earn a decent wage at home. Among others.
See how you didn't even have to ask which country it was? Because a 100% of communist countries became dictatorships ridden with poverty for the working class and gold plated luxury for the ruling class.
I'm happy now somewhere in the middle in this terrible, terrible capitalism. Oh, and I'm free to leave anytime I want, if I don't like it.
Grade-school level history: I didn't need to ask which country because all of the possible countries were puppet states of a single other country...
Because a 100% of communist countries became dictatorships [...]
There are a total of 0 communist countries throughout history. Your lack of very basic knowledge is starting to make me cringe.
I’m happy now somewhere in the middle in this terrible, terrible capitalism.
That's irrelevant. If you're happy while I'm driving a nail through your eyes, does that make driving a nail through someone's eyes a good thing? The fact that you are privileged doesn't make a difference.
Oh, and I’m free to leave anytime I want
No, you're not. Your statement is so completely uneducated, I couldn't even guess where to begin dismantling it.
Wendell Potter spent decades scaring Americans. About Canada. He worked for the health insurance industry, and he knew that if Americans understood Canadian-style health care, they might.... like it. So he helped deploy an industry playbook for protecting the health insurance agency.
In particular, I've noticed how the pro-capitalist people don't seem to realize that we're not living in a pure capitalist system. Instead we're living in a mixed economy where key elements are socialist: road building, firefighting, postal services, food and drug safety testing, old age pensions, even ambulances (except for one minor exception).
A 100% socialist (a.k.a. communist) system might not be possible (at least not yet) due to human nature. The few times that it has been tried, at least in theory, it has quickly become an authoritarian system instead. But, AFAIK, it's so obvious that 100% capitalist would fail completely that no society has even bothered to try it. Hundreds of years ago there were brief experiments with things like capitalist fire services, and Pinkertons as police, but they failed so spectacularly that nobody even thinks of going back.
So, instead we quibble about "capitalist" vs "socialist" when we're really just arguing about whether the mix should be 80% capitalist, 20% socialist or 60% capitalist, 40% socialist.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what socialism and capitalism are. Simplified it's who owns the means of production, that is basically the "capital" in the name "capitalism", in socialism these means of production have a shared ownership. Now you can have a discussion of what that means, if state ownership counts or whatever but as long as individuals own the means of production it's not socialism no matter how much you tax them(it would still be an improvement to tax them more it's just not socialism)
This understanding of capitalism is a misunderstanding that both Marxists and neoclassical types share. It is not capital ownership that gives the employer the right to appropriate a firm's whole product. The employment contract is what gives them that right. Sure, capital ownership affects bargaining power, but the root cause is that contract. Abolishing the employment contract while still having individual ownership is possible (i.e. a market economy of worker coops)
Is the US socialist because nVidia is a public company, therefore the shares are owned by the public? Is it a socialist country because most workers have 401(k) plans containing index funds, so they own a tiny portion of every major company? The ownership of the company is shared, so it must be socialism, right? I'd say no, because it's not shared evenly.
What if a single individual owns a single "mean" of production, but everything else is owned by the state, is that whole system capitalist? To me, it's clearly not. You could argue that it's mixed, but I'd say if it's 99.9% not capitalist, it's not capitalist.
Modern economies are mixes of socialism and capitalism. The people (through the government) own certain things, and individuals own other things.
Is the US socialist because nVidia is a public company, therefore the shares are owned by the public? [...] The ownership of the company is shared, so it must be socialism, right? I’d say no, because it’s not shared evenly.
How did you mess up this badly? A "public company" [sic, the correct term is "publicly traded company"] is a regular private company where the owners are hundreds or even thousands of individuals. A publicly owned company is one where every single citizen owns the company simply by being alive or every single worker owns the company simply by working there.
What if a single individual owns a single “mean” of production, but everything else is owned by the state
I don't even understand what you mean by this...
Modern economies are mixes of socialism and capitalism. The people (through the government) own certain things, and individuals own other things.
No, they're not, and this shows a very serious hole in your knowledge of economic and social systems. While, informally, it's sometimes said to be the case, that's strictly an oversimplification to communicate a different idea. Countries like the US simply use a government-assisted capitalist model. Places like the Nordic countries have a more transitional system, but are ultimately still just capitalist.
Of course they are. How can you be so confused. Countries like the US are a mix of socialist and capitalist systems. Some things are owned and run by the government (socialism), other things are owned and run by private individuals (capitalism). No society has ever worked where it was 100% socialist or 100% capitalist.
Why do chimps kill chimps from other groups that come into their territory? Why do some chimps use aggression against other chimps to manipulate them, while other chimps use grooming?
A certain degree of sharing is part of our human / animal nature, but so is a certain degree of claiming ownership over things, and certain individuals have more sway over decisions than others. Flat hierarchies with nobody in command seem to work in theory, but in practice it's different.
That's the Naturalistic fallacy at work, though. We aren't chimps, nor is doing what humans did in the past necessarily better than what we do now. By that chain, you would be an Anarcho-primitivist.
We could study what various apes do, and try to use that to guess at possible human behaviour - or we could literally just look at human behaviour directly. Surely the direct observations of what humans do is going to give us a more accurate and useful model of human behaviour compared to observations of other species.
What part of that goes against sharing tools, rather than letting wealthy people hold dictatorial control over them? Doesn't your point mean that we shouldn't have Capitalism at all?
Exactly, this argument is so weird, even if the assumption was true. "People are naturally greedy so we should have a system that allows them to do as much damage as possible"
In any society, some people will be leaders, some will be followers, this is natural. You cannot have a society without someone organizing the work and setting the course.
Of those who are naturally leaders, some will be much greedier than most. Some will also be ambitious, corrupt, two faced etc.
These people will do their best to gather wealth and power for themselves, be it in a capitalist or communist system. In the capitalist system they'll become entrepreneurs if they also have good business acumen. In the communist system they'll become managers and state officials if they can also navigate politics well.
At the end of the day, the same people will get to power and will hold dictatorial control over the means of production. In communist countries a literal dictatorship seems inevitable, while capitalist ones usually favor democracy (can be better for business) but they can also descend into dictatorship.
If you disagree, show me an example where all this is not the case. I'm honestly curious
Capitalism is the opposite of democracy. In a capitalist firm, the managers are not accountable to the governed (i.e. workers). The employer is not a delegate of the workers. They manage the company in their own name not in the workers' name. Managers do not have to have dictatorial control. It is entirely possible to have management be democratically accountable to the workers they govern as in a worker cooperative.
Capitalism v. Communism is a false dilemma. There are other options.
Secondly, you are just tying Socialism and Communism with dictatorship without proving why you think it's necessary. It's purely vibes for you.
Tell me this: why do you think a system where Workers have no say, only Capitalists do and serve as mini dictators, is more democratic than a system where Workers vote on how to run production?
Socialism is not when the government does stuff, so those institutions are not examples of socialism. Anti-capitalists are arguing for the complete abolition of exploitative capitalist property relations that violate workers' human rights.
This is a false dilemma. There are other alternatives to capitalism besides communism. It is entirely possible to have a non-capitalist non-communist system (e.g. an economy where every firm is democratically-controlled by the people that work in it)
Socialism is when the "means of production" are owned by the people as a whole rather than individuals. Capitalism is when the "means of production" are owned by individuals. Every modern state contains a mix of both.
If the US is 100% capitalist, then explain how the fire department is a capitalist institution.
Capitalism is not just when the means of production are owned by individuals. For example, in an economy where all firms are democratically-controlled by the people that work in them, the means of production can be owned by individuals, but such an economy is not capitalist because exploitative property relations associated with capitalism are abolished
Pinkertons as police, but they failed so spectacularly
uhh you might want to brush up on your history there, the pinkertons are still around, still quite closely tied to the government, and still being used (among other things) to suppress union organizing at places like amazon and starbucks! Kinda ridiculous to hear that our government is somehow 'socialist' when it does stuff like this.
Flameout Professional Fire Services (i.e. no publicly funded fire department)
Johnny's Good Eats Certification (i.e. no FDA testing to keep food safe)
SuperStonk Seal of Approval (i.e. no SEC regulating private companies, just for-profit companies doing that job)
Rodney's Roads and Trails (i.e. all roads are private, you need a payment plan to use them)
Policing by Pinkertons (i.e. all policing is private and for-profit)
Job Insurance, LLC (you pay for private job insurance when you have a job, you hope for benefits if you lose it)
401(k), or starve (you didn't contribute to your 401(k), that's too bad)
Only private health insurance, no medicare, no medicaid, no Obamacare, no CHIPs, etc.
You could still have a military, but injured soldiers would be treated by private MASH units, soldiers would be fed by Taco Bell (paid for out of pocket), on base housing would be contracted out to AirBnB, aircraft maintenance would be contracted out to Boeing, and of course Veteran's Affairs wouldn't exist.
Except, even there, it was only a dream. Fascism may have elements of capitalism, but fundamentally if the leader is above the law, then private individuals don't own the means of production, it's only the leader who truly owns everything, and so it's not really capitalism.
It's similiar, not the same. From what I recall, Americans didn't have their country violently buttfucked behind a curtain, something that is still visible where I live - thankfully less so in the country itself, but it's still embedded into people.
And I don't fear communism. I despise it. I do admit, maybe unjustly. Hard to feel otherwise though, seeing effects of one of the greatest, or at least highest scale shots at it's implementation.
However, yeah, my definition of socialism must be fucked, will educate myself further before making fool out of myself again. :|
To be quite honest, it seems to me - and I can be wrong - that it simply substituted power of wealth for power of position. Where I live I know that during occupation people were deemed as important based on where they worked - because where they worked dictated what they could steal obtain, be it items, access or favors.
There always will be someone on top, one way or the other. In capitalist society, it's the guy who has the most money. In co- ... socialist...? society it's the guy with most connections.
Why is it bad for people to want more in Communism? Do you think once a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society would be reached, people would want to regress?
The problem is that people point to the problems of the USSR and say it's because of communism, but when the USA does similar things, it's just them fucking up, not because they're capitalist. It's a double standard hinted at by OP.
The problem with the USSR was not that they were communist. I think that communism worked well for them, which magnified both their successes (beating nazis, reducing poverty, increasing literacy, getting to space, etc), but also magnified their mistakes (suppressing religion, art, etc).
It fit USSR interests to say that they were the standard bearer of communism back in the day. It fit US interests to say exactly the same. Neither had any reason to think about how the word was used prior to the USSR and if it actually applies at all.
It's no wonder that people who lived behind the Iron Curtain have just as bad an understanding of communism as people in the US. The USSR certainly didn't want you reading theory outside of Marxist-Leninist material.
So it's actually a pretty interesting read but I think this paragraph gets the idea across pretty well:
(Obv out of context)
Most current antisemitism in Eastern Europe is closely related to these debates, as nationalists strive to “fix” their nations’ collaboration (or in the case of the Baltics and Ukraine, participation) in the Holocaust with revised paradigms that equal everything out. One of the poisons of ultranationalism is the perceived need to construct a perfect history (no country on the planet has one of those). Another is hatred of local Jewish communities who have memory, or family, or collective memory, of nationalist neighbors turning viciously on their neighbors in 1941, and of the Soviets being responsible for their own grandparents or parents being saved from the Holocaust. In America, this would be akin to someone hating African Americans for having a different opinion of Washington or Jefferson because they were slaveholders.
A Jewish linguist/historian/activist talking about how equating the Soviets and the Nazis is rhetoric used to justify current and past antisemitism including holocaust collaboration.
Socialism is not "Social Safety Nets," and if you were knowledgeable about what you were talking about, you would say Socialism and attempts at Communism. Socialism is Worker Ownership of the Means of Production, and the USSR was a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Communist party had stated goals of reaching Communism, a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society, by using Socialism. They never made it to Communism.
The USSR of course isn't the only form of Socialism, and isn't the only method to achieve Communism, but what you just said makes absolutely no sense.
Do you think that maybe people begin to understand what you're talking about if you refer to Social Safety Nets as Social, not Socialism, because Social Safety Nets are not in fact Socialism?
As a side note: terrible choice to use rape as a casual term for doing something bad. Be more empathetic.
This post is WAY more insightful than 99% of people realize. I would argue that the only people that fully understand are part of the corporate engine that drives it.
Everyone talks about what the "best" system is but none have adequately solved the human corruption problem. Every system eventually falls due to human corruption imo. The US founders were on to something by trying to break up power and have each group kept I'm check but that too is failing.
The US founders were on to something by trying to break up power and have each group kept I’m check but that too is failing.
Yeah, separation of powers is a pretty old and workable concept, 8 times older than the whole history of the US, and has worked for most democratic countries since.
In addition to the corruption problem, there's also the problem of who gets to make the decisions. The people affected by those decisions want them to be made by smart people who have their best interests at heart. But, those aren't the kinds of people who end up in leadership positions. Whether it's capitalism, communism, even monarchies, the type of people who tend to be in charge are the ones who want power and know how to get it and use it.
The USSR was a developing country, and generally lacked luxury commodities, and depending on era, had a mostly unaccountable Politburo and a lack of food in the early stages.
By metrics, the Russian Federation has relatively recently surpassed life expectancy of the USSR, and now has more open travel and access to western commodities like smartphones, but you'll find many older people in Russia who wish the USSR never collapsed (the majority, in fact), though again that's also partially due to nostalgia for being an important global power.
I'm not OP, but I can certainly give you my story from Hungary. Not USSR in name, but USSR enough for the distinction to be moot.
Story starts with parents and grandparents. They were around when the soviets put Rákosi into power. He installed communism - everything belongs to the people! Including our fucking house. My grandparents often retold how police came one night, told them their house now belongs to another family, and they were told to get lost by morning. They could bring whatever they could carry with them, but they had to leave all the farming equipment, all the animals, pretty much all their belongings behind. The few hectars of land and our animals all belonged to the Producer's Union anyway, we lost all rights to them virtually overnight.
Not that it mattered. The things you produced? Since everything belongs to the people, police would come and take away whatever quota the party set that year. Even if we produced it, it's not ours after all. We may or may not got some of it back, depending on what the allocations were set. Usually not - famines got common, becuase noone cared too much about their work if it got taken away anyway. It got so bad that the good communist people people revolted against Rákosi.
Then came Kádár. I actually lived in that system. Shortages were commonplace. At the start things were strictly planned (later on they opened up to allowing people to work for their own benefit... strictly after they put in their required hours at their workplace, though). There were five year plans, though for what I know, those were mostly for propaganda. But since there wasn't a free market, the planning bureau would decide how many tractors, shoes, bread etc would be produced. Well, this never worked out well. If you wanted to buy fruits, toilet paper, anything, you would need someone to tell you when the shipment would come. Then you got in line early and hoped the stock wouldn't run out by the time you got your turn. And you bought whatever you could, because if you had excess toilet paper and your neighbour had none, you could barter for something you needed.
We wanted a car. So we applied at the state car dealership (Merkúr). We paid upfront, waited a year... and got a totally different brand of car in a different colour. We were furious, so we demanded our money back and purchased a second hand Lada Samara from someone in town. It still wasn't what we wanted, but I'd have rather burnt my money than give it to Merkúr at that point. Turns out the Lada Samara 1300S was a great car though, I shouldn't have sold it like twenty years later :(
We wanted to build a house. Only everything was in short order. We had to drive three-four towns away, buying bricks and ceramic tiles left and right until we had enough that we could start construction. We didn't build what we wanted; we could've paid for it, but we had to build whatever we managed to find in stock around.
Now I know people called us the "happiest barracks" because say Caucescu in Romania was way worse... but people who are so fond of actual socialism should remember that our people were risking getting shot to escape this system.
That's the sort of thing I might expect to hear from a teen with broccoli head syndrome.
For me the main problem with the USSR was that they abused beautiful dogs to create cyborg creatures out of them, in a horrifying attempt to create cyborg soldiers.
Ironically the same in left leaning countries just corps banging the workers and blaming someone else using insane propaganda every single fucking where
Canadian here: socialism has been a part of culture since the outset. Even Americans have social systems in place to support the population. Many don't recognize it as such, but it's there.
One of the many outstanding examples of this is fire fighting. Everyone just assumes that the fire department is there and normal, but it's socialist. In the early days, fire departments were more privatized and several may show up at a blaze to basically quote the property owner to put out the blaze. This was widely inefficient at a time when spending more time to discuss the business of firefighting would take away precious minutes from the job of firefighting and it would put lives and property at risk for every minute the start of firefighting activities were delayed.
It was pretty much unanimously acknowledged that putting out a fire is more important than figuring out who is going to pay for it, or do the job; so social infrastructure was made common for fire fighting. Given that it would risk not only the structure and lives of those involved in the blaze but also that of the surrounding structures and the lives of those who lived/worked in those structures, is obvious why government/social fire departments exist. They are there to save the life and limb of those involved in a blaze and do their best to prevent as much property damage as possible from such an event.
Its very nature is socialist, by the people, for the good of the people, paid for by the people. This is, however, still more or less unanimously agreed upon as a necessary thing.
Canada has extended this to healthcare, since during an emergency, like a life threatening wound or condition (cardiac issues are a common one to cite), time is essential. Going to an "in network" hospital, like the Americans may need to do, could add minutes or even hours of travel time between getting to the patient and getting them to the care that they desperately need. That time could mean the difference between living through it, and dying on route. So we have socialized healthcare too, no matter where I am in Canada, or what the closest hospital is or who administrates it, I can get the help I need immediately, at no cost to me. This saves lives, but it mainly saves the lives of people who would otherwise not be able to afford healthcare, or to have a healthcare package that allows for any hospital to provide care. This has been extended, in Canada, to cover more than just emergency situations. So pretty much all my basic care is covered.
This is socialist and one of the things that America seems to be very strongly opposed to. This leads me to believe that the fire department situation is less about saving lives and more about saving property. To put it crudely: "I don't want my (thing) to be damaged by the fire happening with your (thing)." (Kind of mentality).... At least on the part of regulators. They're okay with fire departments since fire can spread and create a bigger problem, including a problem for those who control the government. Meanwhile with healthcare, the problem is your problem and they don't want any part of paying for your ability to resolve it. In this assertion: property > lives.
Most liberal/left/communal focused people (myself included) are more focused on the greater good for all, not just for you, or your loved ones. We want what's best for the majority of everyone. The people on the right are usually very capitalist and focused on what benefit do I get? above all else. They get no immediate benefit if you're in good health or survive a major medical issue. There are long term benefits from having a healthy, educated public, but it's all long term thinking that seems to escape most capitalists. "Why pay for something now hoping for a benefit later?"
Additionally, the benefits are a paradox, that you'll certainly get the benefit, but usually in the lack of long term costs, so the benefit is forged in the form of not losing money in the future, which, quantifying a lack of losses that didn't happen is nearly impossible. This was recently demonstrated in the analogy of rat poison, which some of you may be familiar with: "why do we have all this rat poison around? I haven't seen a rat in years! Stop putting out rat poison, it costs us money and serves no benefit" then later: "where did all these rats come from?"
You continue to pay for and cover people for their safety and security, and you don't have to deal with replacing them. You don't suffer those negative effects of not having their help, and that's a hard thing to prove when it didn't happen.
Capitalists, from my experience, lack this kind of theoretical thinking, only benefiting from the experience of making a bad decision to remove the rat poison, only to have their entire company overrun by rats causing a more significant loss than if they had simply continued to pay for the placement of the poison. That experience and thinking is dangerous when it comes to policy, as many people need to die before the losses are realized.
The recent loss of a large portion of the population due to this same short term thinking during COVID, is going to have ripple effects on the job market for decades. People who would otherwise be alive, well, and ready to work, are either suffering with life long illness, or a serious case of death, and it creates a worker shortage.
Workers who were happy to keep their jobs at a minimal pay increase are now being replaced by people who are demanding better conditions and pay. Which only serves to emphasize the struggle between companies and their employees. That struggle has been ongoing for decades or more.
I've seen rather poor job postings for my line of work, go unanswered for weeks because the company is offering too little for too much work, and have a reputation for overworking their employees. An extreme example of this is from Amazon. They're facing a shortage of people who are willing to cope with their insane working conditions. They're burning through the workforce at an unprecedented rate by demanding too much and providing too little. Their own internal analytics have identified this as a problem, and they're not doing enough, quickly enough, to curtail it so they don't end up with nobody who is willing to put up with their shit for what they're paying (specifically referring to warehouse and delivery workers here).
It's an ongoing problem and it's borne from the extreme capitalist way of doing things: burning through willing workers until none remain, all in the pursuit of profits in the short term.
The only way that Amazon has curbed the issue is in contracting out their delivery system, bringing on dedicated delivery contractors, and professional delivery companies like FedEx and UPS (or similar) who can "pick up the slack" for not being able to hire enough drivers to fulfill their orders.
Amazon is a good case study on capitalist business practices and the values of capitalists. But I digress.
Social services, and social/socialist philosophies will always be better at/for long term planning, while capitalist systems will be better in the short term. The two will always butt heads on what's important because they focus on wildly different things. Many capitalist Americans bring this business philosophy home with them; they don't, and will never support something that doesn't have a clear and direct benefit to them, and will continue to advocate for personal responsibility of anything that doesn't and cannot affect them directly, believing that doing otherwise will unreasonably increase the costs of the systems they use for those benefits and unreasonably benefit those they see as competition on their imaginary "ladder of success", which will, to them, unreasonably and unjustly elevate those who have not earned it, to a better position on the success ladder, which may, as a side effect, cause their position to become weaker as a result. They're better than those who can't afford what they have, and they'll fight with every tool they have to ensure that those whom are less than them, know that they are less. That may be in the form of denying them healthcare that they need but cannot afford, or wages that they cannot otherwise earn because of either job scarcity (or simply the scarcity of jobs offering more), or that they don't have the education to earn such a position.
They're "better" than others. Those that want stuff that doesn't benefit them are idiots and their "lessers", and should be "put on their place" to them.
This is, at its heart, thinly veiled classism, driven into the masses by propaganda, and reinforced by the ruling class, aka celebrities, the affluent, and government officials. The "Elite" class has convinced their lessers to fight the fight for them.
IMO, the only way to break someone of this thinking is to attack the root cause of the thoughts, that you're not better than your neighbors and the people you would consider to be less than you are. That we're actually all part of the "masses" and we, as the "masses" are in a sustained and ongoing fight with those that consider all of us to be their lessers, aka, the "elites". Only when they recognize that we're not fighting eachother or vying for some imaginary "rank" in an objectively unfair system, will they ever understand that social services are not only good for everyone, but a requirement for everyone. We all will have slightly more or slightly less than everyone else, and those slight differences are nothing compared to how much more the affluent "elite" class has by comparison. Having 0.01% vs 0.009% of the wealth of any one of these "elites" isn't significant enough to divide us in terms of purpose. We are the people. The government is supposed to serve the people. It isn't. Stand up and take action.
Maybe, but they've also been well assisted by those countries which are shining examples of SC&L but have failed to get their messages across the world. Perhaps replies to this comment could indicate which countries those are, for some independent research.
This propaganda is coming from the most prosperous, overachieving nation in the history of mankind, so it seems like there might be something to it. Now the propaganda coming from impoverished, third world countries saying how all their problems can be solved through communism, just doesn't have the same luster for some reason.
Now if you can point me to an example of a utopic nation where everything is wonderful and workers run the show, I'm all ears.
Not from “the west” from “the rich”. There are rich people in every type of economy that use their money to gain more power. One of the many ways that is done is with propaganda to convince those with less that the rich in power are not the problem.
Not every economic system, economic systems that place significant barriers against ballooning of individual wealth off exploitation see less disparity, and thus less of an impact of money on politics. Beaurocracy becomes a new kind of power currency, which is why much of the Politburo in the USSR was corrupt, though its worth noting that their disparity levels were lower than currently in the Russian Federation.
The Russian Federation's "Oligarchs" are a spooky word for Capitalists that dodges the fact that they are Capitalists that took advantage of the collapse of the USSR to gain massive outsized power and wealth. The Russian Federation is Capitalist, not Socialist.
Not every economic system, economic systems that place significant barriers against ballooning of individual wealth off exploitation see less disparity, and thus less of an impact of money on politics.
You say not every economic system, but then you say less disparity, less impact.
Less disparity means there is still disparity. Less impact means there is still impact.
Because like I said, as long as there are human beings who want more power, there will be a struggle in any economic systems to prevent disparity.
That is because it isn’t the economic system that deregulates or undermines protections.
It is those who seek more power who deregulate and undermine protections.
And those people exist in all types of economic systems.
Even capitalist America had a point in history where disparity was low and the middle class and lower class thrived.
That is no longer the case because of those who removed regulations and changed the laws to suite themselves. And again, those people exist in every type of economy.
I did not say you could not eliminate the influence of money on politics, did I? You did. I countered it, and now you're implying that it's impossible to completely get rid of.
You can account for bad actors and power-seekers woth egalitarian distribution of power and a prevention against gaining in power.
What hierarchy? Statist hierarchy? That's why the goal of Socialism is Communism, and nobody has reached Communism yet. Do you think we live at the end of history?
Now, a large part of this is also obviously due to wanting to be a part of a more powerful state, which the USSR was in comparison to the Russian Federation, but this point isn't great. I could make the same point and say that we should send pro-Capitalists to Somalia, it just doesn't work well logically.
Large majority of Russians also want Ukrainians dead in a most fascinating ways. Weak argument.
Large, overwhelming majorities of Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians (hope it's a word), Moldovans, Estonians, Poles don't want to let USSR come closer than a shot distance.
Do the actual Russian citizens want that, or are they just silenced? I remember hearing about protests in Russia over the Ukrainian war, but that just leads to a bunch of arrests.
Let me know where in my comment I lost you. I didn't say Russians good Putin bad. I said there are Russians that don't agree with the Russian authoritarian government. What a revolutionary concept.
My argument isn't that Russians want good things, but that many people who lived under systems that can be considered Socialist absolutely do want them back. Of course the Ukranian war is unjustified, but that doesn't mean that we can make up ideas about what people living in now-Capitalist states believe.
Again, this is the Somalia argument. You can find people in Capitalist nations that hate it too, does that nullify your point?
Ok let's try to revisit it again. Of all the countries that freed themselves of a Soviet dictatorship literally zero want back, or are building 'socialist' economies. How about taking their experience as a measure?
Full disclosure, I'm living in a Western social democratic nation and am horrified by the capitalist and/or neoliberal ideologies. I am of a strong belief that neither of opposite ends of political philosophies bring good and prosperity for ordinary people.
Many do want the USSR back, because it was generally a better organization of the economy than what Capitalism and in some cases fascism has done for these countries. People who lived farther from Moscow had it far worse under the USSR, of course, but the people legitimately seem to have more of a longing for the USSR than anything else.
If approval rating was anything to go by alone though, then we could say Mao, Putin, and Kim Jong Un were some of the most successful leaders in history, and I don't think either of us are saying that.
My point is firmly against the idea that Socialism is bad because many people who lived in one form of Socialism hated it, that's an incomplete logical chain.
For what it's worth, I'm firmly pro-Socialist, just not pro-USSR. I firmly believe that workers should own and control the Means of Production.
Primo, I respect you and your point of view even if I find it wrong.
Secondo, first sentence is factually incorrect and there are plenty of evidence. In particular about soviets, for starters I recommend you reading memories of Zara Witkin.
Tertio, you find opinions of russians valuable, and simply discard reference to the half a dozen of Independent nations who (willingly or not) share origin story with USSR
I'll mirror your point and say I respect you and your point of view, even if I find it wrong.
Secondly, I'll also mirror you and state that the majority of Russians that lived in the USSR that are alive today want it back. 1932 was just the beginning of the USSR, barely a quarter century from Feudalism! Absolutely nobody is saying they want to go back to a developing country.
A more accurate look would be what the USSR looked like post-WWII, pre-collapse.
Blackshirts and Reds is a pretty good book, not too long, that might give you a different perspective. Additionally, Robert Thurston is a historian who actually lived in the USSR and participated in local elections, despite not being a citizen, because he was a Worker. Additional, conflicting views, if you want to check.
Again, I'm not pro-ussr, but I am trying to dispel some myths here.
Putin is a dictator, and a terrible fascist leader, but he does legitimately have a high approval rating, mainly because you can't go against him without putting yourself in trouble. I would not say that that means an unrelated question isn't reliable, especially because Putin is a fascist and the USSR was Socialist, if anything it's anti-putin to want the USSR back,
In advocating for privately owning and operating a business without excessive state interference, you highlight a core tenet of capitalism. This economic system champions individual freedom and autonomy, allowing entrepreneurs in a free-market environment to introduce innovative products, with relative ease and without burdensome regulatory approval.
However, concerns about state intervention under socialism introduce a nuanced perspective. While socialism aims to address issues of inequality and social welfare, it often involves more centralized control over economic activities. This centralized approach could potentially impact the entrepreneurial freedom to choose what products to sell and how to manage a business.
This dichotomy underscores an ongoing debate, weighing the advantages of a free-market capitalist system that fosters entrepreneurial independence against the goals of socialism, which seeks to address social and economic inequalities through collective decision-making and regulation. It prompts consideration of the trade-offs between individual liberty and the pursuit of societal equality and welfare.
Moreover, criticisms of socialism often include the potential for increased economic inequality. Centralized control might lead to bureaucratic inefficiencies and disparities in resource allocation. Additionally, concerns about AI companies taking advantage of stringent regulations add complexity, as the regulatory landscape could inadvertently favor larger corporations, potentially exacerbating economic imbalances and hindering smaller businesses, including startups in emerging fields like AI, from thriving and innovating. The multifaceted nature of these concerns contributes to the ongoing dialogue about the merits and drawbacks of different economic systems.
Your understanding of regulation only considers freedom on the side of business and not the freedoms of everyone those regulations protect from corporate malfeasance. You don't get that "socialism" includes things like worker cooperatives that should be the ideal of market commerce. Your concept of freedom seems to exclude the concept of positive freedoms. Your idea of capitalism ignores the coersive reality that workers without the means of production live under. I could go on but I'm not sure I could ever stop finding new issues, which is quite amazing.
In short, your comment contains nothing that isn't straight up corporate propaganda from someone with not enough curiosity about the world and privileges that have allowed you to remain ignorant.
Nah I wanna keep all the money I make from my private business and I don't want state approval to sell product or following some burdensome bullshit regulation. Socialism is dog shit compared to capitalism, I wouldn't want to give up any of my individual freedoms. If you don't like the system, simply go move to another country that has it. No need to get all upset.
LOL, that's not anger. At best it's exhaustion, which has become my typical reaction to people taking a dump on a thread and demanding answers to tired old bullshit that's been answered a thousand ways before.
European here.
This seems to mainly only be an issue in the US. Socialism = Communism = Enemy
If at all anything, the opposite seems to be the case here. We're looking at the US as a "this is how bad it will get if we let go" example
In addition: government programs that help everyone = helping black people = no.
I think this is the fundamental reason why the US never went to public/universal anything, be it healthcare, education, whatever.
Yep. We should have told the colonies of Georgia and Carolina to fuck off, and we'll get around to conquering them, after we kicked The King out of the other 11 colonies.
If one person had voted differently during The Continental Congress, we would have started abolishing slavery
Fascinating history.
Yeah y'all really don't want to end up like us. We're not the land of the free. The streets are most definitely not paved with gold. We're just a giant ponzi scheme.
Paved with gold? Lucky they're paved at all this time of year.
No kidding. Their "fix" every year is to either fill all the potholes with asphalt, which the spring rains promptly loosen and get kicked out, or a thin "repaving" layer, which gets destroyed by the summer monsoons. I'm convinced Caltrans is a jobs program for people that can't get a job otherwise, because those guys can't seem to get anything done correctly.
It's actually insane how many of our institutions are actually based on pyramid schemes. No wonder we all use it as the symbol for conspiracy because it is a huge portion of how anything runs in the US. Cover the costs by convincing more people to join in at a less beneficial or profitable step down the pyramid and hope someone else will be coming behind you for you to take from as well.
I have a pothole literally 2 feet wide and at least 10 inches deep on my street that our city just can't find the funds to fix...
Start a social media account for pics of the pothole. Keep tagging city officials in it. Call or email someone every time you're reminded that the pothole exists so they will be too. Make the city rue the day they gave Cave Johnson lem... Potholes.
If they won't do it some helpful citizen might end up reading something like https://www.wikihow.com/Fix-a-Pothole
Cries in Lindner
Well, French president and several of its ministers are saying that socialist left, or radical left, is extremist. So no, it's not an America problem. It's very much a Europe problem too.
Yeah, socialism isn't taxing the rich, it is or at least have always led to brutal dictatorships because the real one is just communism with extra steps.
Social-democracy on the other hand is wonder for the people (see Sweden etc) in real life.
That's not being conservative my man.
That's not being conservative my man.
🍿
*Unless Russia 🤑
Russia isn't socialist anymore. It's a fascist capitalist hellscape, which is why Republicans like it
The USSR collapsed several decades ago. Russia now is fascist, over a Capitalist economy.
There are elements of capitalism there, but I wouldn't call it a capitalist economy. Capitalism requires that private individuals own the means of production. But, in Russia does anybody outside Putin's inner circle really own anything?
Yes, absolutely. The Russian Federation is the direct result of a collapsing Socialist system in the hands of Capitalists, just because fewer and fewer people own things doesn't mean it isn't a direct result of Capitalization of the economy.
In fact that's the natural progression of a Capitalist economy
The USSR wasn't really socialist at its core, and the new Russia really isn't capitalist at its core.
In the former system, the theory was that the people / workers owned the means of production. The reality was that it was the leader and those close to him who really "owned" them in the sense that they had power over them. It was all about who you knew in that system. In a true socialist system, it should have been up to the people to make decisions, but in the USSR it was up to the party's elites, and the people just had to live with it.
In the current system, it's Putin and his close circle who own everything. While they allow capitalist type activities to happen, the capitalists don't really own anything. If they displease Putin anything they have can be taken away on a whim. If you stay on Putin's good side, or at least stay beneath his notice, you can operate as a capitalist. But, become too successful and you'll be reminded who's in charge.
Both true socialism and true capitalism require that the rule of law apply to everyone, even the leaders. If the leader can just ignore the laws and seize the "means of production" without facing consequences, it's authoritarianism, not capitalism or communism / socialism.
The USSR was a flawed form of Socialism, but was fundamentally Socialist. The majority of the economy was run by Worker Soviets, in a process called Soviet Democracy. The Politburo, ie the highest Soviet, had a massive amount of influence and power, but day to day decisions were made locally. I would agree, I don't think it was a particularly good form of Socialism, but I would still consider it Socialist.
Modern Russia is absolutely Capitalist at its core, that's the entire foundation of the Russian Federation. The Capitalists are the Oligarchs! The Inner Circle are Capitalists! just because it's a higher stage of Capitalism doesn't mean it ceases to be Capitalism.
Was the rule of law strong enough that decisions were being made by the people, or were they being made by authoritarians? Because if key decisions weren't being made by the people, it wasn't socialist.
The Oligarchs are feudalists, not capitalists.
I think you missed the point
As a european it's always been fucking WERID how americans panic and reach for their guns at the mention of socialism.
I mean
There was this whole thing called the Soviet Union then there was like a missile crisis
And there was like a group that called themselves National Socialists and they did a genocide and tried to take over a bunch of land by force
We also had to fight a bunch of talking trees that dug tunnels because military industrial complex and heroin
It's definitely many layers of propaganda but as an American I definitely understand WHERE it comes from, I understand why most people here flinch at the word.
You also gotta understand we had multiple generations in a row huffing lead gasoline so while younger millennials aren't impacted as bad, MOST Americans are legitimately lead brained.
It wasn't just leaded gasoline. I was busy getting hot boxed with cigarettes in my grandparent's leaded gasoline car before burning some asbestos, plastic cutlery, and batteries in the living room fireplace.
Forget no seatbelts or bicycle helmets. Our chemical exposure would probably send a younger person without a built up tolerance into instant seizure.
I also remember crimping down lead shot sinkers on my fishing line with my teeth. Good times. Good times indeed.
Bruh
The Nazis were literally IN Europe. The USSR literally built a WALL here splitting the continent. And you're saying that explains why America is the one with socialism PTSD???
Ain't nothing more American than making everything about you I guess.
But European don't panic at the mention of socialism (what the comment you're replying to was talking about) yet the Europeans have suffered FAR MORE from your examples of "socialism" than Americans. You can't explain away how American politics differ from European politics by appropriating European tragedies.
But it DOES NOT explain the origins. The USSR and the Nazis are not CAUSES. They CAN'T BE because otherwise Europe would never integrated elements of socialism!
I think we actually agree on that, it's just semantics at this point. Whatever.
Also watch your aggressiveness. I didn't call you names and I expect the same in return.
As an American I wish it was easier to pack up and move to Europe :(
This is a genuine question from a European, what does make it difficult to move here?
Several things keep Americans from moving to Europe.
First, immigration laws of the country one is moving to. If one is not able to get a passport from an EU or EEA county based on ancestry, you basically need to be sponsored for a work visa by a company in the country you want to move to, which can be quite difficult. And even then, you have to be employed in that country for long enough to qualify for permanent residency, then citizenship, which can take up to 7 or 8 years in some countries.
If one is lucky enough to have parents or grandparents who emigrated to the US from a European country and can claim citizenship based on that, it's a lot of work to get all of the paperwork together and verified and accepted by that government's consulate (at least it is for Germany, but German bureaucracy is ... special).
Second, the US is one of the only countries in the world that double taxes its citizens. If someone was born in the United States, they will have to file taxes reporting income to the US government every single year until they die, and PAY taxes to the US government on any income over a certain amount every year until they die, regardless of the source of that income, and regardless of the fact that taxes on the same income need to be paid to the host country.
While I have zero respect for the snivelling shitgibbon name Boris Johnson, he was born in New York and had to renounce his US citizenship to escape the IRS. You also have to PAY the US government $2350 (in cash) for the privilege of giving up your citizenship, which is also...unique.
Sometimes there are tax treaties that can take most of the sting out of the double taxation issue (Norway's is decent for US citizens), but it depends on the country.
Finally, it just never occurs to many Americans that leaving is even a possibility.
Money for the most part for a lot of people.
Passports are $400+ USD, then there are the plane tickets, which are hundreds of dollars. Then to top it off you need to have room and board while looking for a job and someplace to live.
Another thing I’ve heard is fear of leaving the known and family.
Do Americans not usually have passports? I just assumed most people had one (I'm not American though).
No. Most don’t leave the US, so there isn’t a need. Plus, until recently, Canada and Mexico only needed an ID card like a drivers license.
Pretty much the only time we need passports is if we travel outside the U.S. and territories. Those that take cruises or cross borders to other countries would, but generally speaking a majority of Americans don’t have passports.
Maybe I just suck at the research, but from what I can tell getting a permanent residence visa is not easy for Americans. If I'm wrong I would absolutely love to know.
France seems to be relatively easy to gain permanent residence and even citizenship, but they do expect you to learn fluent French. Most of the EU requires birthright citizenship. A few will grant it to the decedents of immigrants, like Ireland, though they only do it for two generations out.
Eh for me it's a lot of things. For one just roots, family and friends. Then next is work, I'd have to find a new job over there (doubtful my current one would let me work abroad), and I'd need to see if visas would let me work over there, and for how long. I would probably make less over there, but cost of living is lower too, so I'd have to do finances. Most countries don't let you own property unless you're a citizen, and I wouldn't be, so I'd have to rent for a while. Path to citizenship would then be difficult, and I would have to pay taxes for both countries. Then just pure logistics of what do I do with everything here, would have to basically start all over. It'd be much easier if I was in my early 20s, but I'm nearing 40 which makes it much more difficult.
Money mostly.
There is usually something like needing $250K in the bank to be considered for permanent residency. Then the paperwork costs money, so most Americans will have to wait until they get refugee status.
It's the boomers who do this primarily. I guess they were spoon fed this shit as babies.
In all fairness, we panic and reach for our guns at the mention of just about anything. Right this very moment, I'm pooping on company time, scared out of my wits, a nine millimeter at the ready atop my presently ankle adorning boxers.
WAS THAT THE DOORBELL!!!
By "socialism", are we talking:
A. Worker-controlled economic system, or
B. What American liberals think is socialism, which is just a capitalist system with welfare.
A.
Either.
Aka socdem vs demsoc
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism[1]
^[1] Eatwell & Wright 1999, pp. 80–103; Newman 2005, p. 5; Heywood 2007, pp. 101, 134–136, 139; Ypi 2018; Watson 2019.
Today I learned that Socialism is when you do Capitalism in a nice way.
Oh wait, no I didn't, because Capitalism and Socialism are completely different modes of Production.
No, they're not.
They're economic systems, not modes of production.
Today, you're still refusing to accept reality.
It's right there before your eyes. You're too brainwashed to see it.
In your own words, they are economic systems. What do you call a system built on Capitalism, but with a slightly larger welfare net? Socialism? No, you call it Capitalism.
You're calling me brainwashed for correctly pointing out that Capitalism is Capitalism, even if you dress it up nicely?
Believe me, I'm not conflating Capitalism with markets. Capitalism is a specific form of market economy by which individual Capitalists buy and sell Means of Production, or Capital, by which they can pay Workers to use and create commodities via wage labor.
Examples of Socialist market economies include Market Socialism, a form of Socialism built on competing worker-owned co-operatives.
Examples of Socialist Market Economies do not include Capitalist Social Democracies, because the primary defining feature of Social Democracies is Capitalism with generous social safety nets, a kind of "human-centric" Capitalism.
You on the other hand are making the misconception that Socialism is simply when the government does stuff. You're wrong, of course, as countless people here have pointed put.
Capitalism with regulation is still Capitalism. Socialism is when Workers share ownership of the Means of Production, simple as.
Why? OP clearly states "worker controlled systems," it's not difficult to see what they're talking about.
I agree, but nothing in this post is calling for deregulation and privatization, rather the opposite.
Nope.
Socialism is Worker Ownership of the Means of Production.
The Nordic Countries are in fact Social Democracies, not Socialist Democracies. Social Democracy is Capitalist in nature.
Your greatest source is misinterpreting a line in Wikipedia? You think that means your Capitalism is actually Socialism despite relying on Capitalism, because the welfare net is larger? Lmao
Your data is Wikipedia. That's it. Read perhaps any Socialist literature and you're immediately debunked.
If Social Democracy was truly under Socialism, then the Workers of your country would own the Means of Production.
A more accurate reading of what you are claiming is that Social Democracy takes influence from Marxism while rejecting the conclusions and thus the necessity for Socialism, instead relying on Capitalism.
Tell me, plainly, how you can have Socialism with Capitalists and Capitalism. Or, does Nestlé not exist in the Nordic Countries?
"yOuR dAtA iS wIkIPeDiA"
No, it isn't.
Here's my source: Eatwell & Wright 1999, pp. 80–103; Newman 2005, p. 5; Heywood 2007, pp. 101, 134–136, 139; Ypi 2018; Watson 2019.
Want to go and read those books? No? I'm schocked.
The information from those books is listed on Wikipedia, yes. Are you so childish that you'll now pretend "you can't find real information on wikipedia"?
Weirdly enough, you don't have ANY sources for the things you pull out of your arse. Almost as if you didn't know what you were talking about and didn't HAVE any sources for your faulty claims, because like I said, you've conflated market economies and capitalism and think socialism equals communism, because you don't understand communism is just one form of socialism.
"How can you have socialism with capitalism"
Since I've already explained you keep conflating "capitalism" with "market economies", the question is then translated into "tell me, plainly, how can you have socialism and market economies", for which the answer is really quite simple for anyone literate. However, since you also conflate "socialism" with "communism", then the question becomes "how can you have communism with market economies", to which the answer is "you can't, since communism relies on planned economies instead of market economies".
That's where your confusion comes from.
Due to our good regulations because of our social demoractic, well governed economies, capitalist companies can participate, but they can't do the shenanigans they can do in less regulated markets. The degree of regulation is the question. Even the US doesn't have "pure" capitalism. Things like the antitrust laws are by definition socialist policies, but this doesn't mean the US is socialist in any way. It just means even they understand the necessity of regulation over "pure" capitalism, because "pure" capitalism is unsustainable as it leads to monopolies which then kill the economy.
This is why for example I can actually drink my tapwater and eat raw eggs that don't even have to be refrigerated. This is why the quality of all products here is higher, and why it's more expensive for companies like Nestle to try their bullshit here, which is why they mostly aim for developing countries. To avoid the regulation that comes with properly functioning social democracy.
There are specific definitions and I'm sticking to them. If your economy has capitalists controlling companies with workers trading their labor for a wage underneath them, then it is capitalist, full stop.
Unless your economy is full of co-ops or something. I don't know the common typical structure for a nordic company.
You haven't even read a single "basic definition" my man.
Here's one :
Socialism
Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages
socialism
noun a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned OR REGULATED by the community as a whole.
Youre refusing (or unable, lol) to understand that "capitalism" does not equal market economies.
Selling things doesn't mean capitalism. Trading goods doesn't mean capitalism. Owning a company doesn't mean capitalism. Having companies with workers doesn't mean capitalism.
Jesus fucking God I'm tired of explaining concepts that my 8 year old niece could google and learn by her self in five minutes
"unless you have a planned economy you're not socialist"
Yeah, exactly the point I'm making. Brainwashed morons think socialism means full planked economy, when it's no such thing.
Fucking spend 2 min on Google, is it so much to ask?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism
Fucking perpetuating shitty 70's red scare propaganda mf sides are hurting.
I said nothing about a planned economy, now you're putting words in my mouth.
Ever hear of libertarian socialism?
Edit: I get the feeling we are talking about the same thing using different terms...
If you're going to continue to insult me and gaslight me, we are done here. Have a good day.
How am I "gaslighting" you?
You literally said "Unless your economy is full of co-ops or something [it's not socialist]".
You're referring to the collectives of the Soviet union. A distinct feature of PLANNED ECONOMIES.
"I never anything about a planned economy."
Yes, you did. And now you're pretending you didn't. Like pretending reality isn't what it actually is. Trying to convince me something that happened didn't happen. Is there a word for behaving like that...?
How is fascism in your country btw? Seems that capitalism has it fine to me.
"Most powerful empire the world has ever known"
Lol Americans
The Romans conquered the known world with pointy sticks and diplomacy.
The US hasn't been on the winning side since ww2 despite having nukes and spyplanes.
Even the British Empire spanned the globe, and all they had was cannons, rum, and syphilis.
Yeah they may not incorporate other countries like previous empires, but their sphere of influence is undeniable unfortunately.
Did they have taco bell tho
But if they fought I'd bet against the pointy stick guys and the syphilis guys.
Are you claiming that Victorian England could take modern America in a fight?
A few trolls can take America by installing a puppet red head president who will then dismantle the country in a few years time.
So are you trying to make him say what he didn't say because your butthurt ?
So you agree America is more powerful than the British Empire?
In military power, yes. Greatest empire ever, no.
I just wouldn't call it an empire, that's all. I'm not a historian but to me, empires are made by occupying other countries.
The US is a powerful nation of course, but they don't have the same focus on conquest as the other countries throughout history have had.
You seem to completely misunderstand American diplomacy.
Just because America doesn't have the same style of conquest, doesn't mean they aren't conquerors.
America was the first empire to realize that all empires eventually fall whose agenda is toppling nations and replacing their flags with their own.
The USA invented a unique twist: never replacing the country's flag.
Instead, as evidenced by countless examples such as Iran and Panama, the American agenda has always been installing a new national leader whose interests align with American ideals of democracy and "freedom" (predominantly of the white Christian variety). But they keep their "flag", or in some sense maintain a national identity through the new leader, so it feels a lot less like they were conquered.
Lol at the person who said Lemmy doesn't have many comments.
Ruh roh, you just rattled the hive mind
Unless you're over a 100 years old you lived in a totalitarian system masquerading as Communism.
See how you didn't even have to ask which country it was? Because a 100% of communist countries became dictatorships ridden with poverty for the working class and gold plated luxury for the ruling class.
I'm happy now somewhere in the middle in this terrible, terrible capitalism. Oh, and I'm free to leave anytime I want, if I don't like it.
So do 100% of Capitalist countries without a strong democracy. In fact capitalism is the one designed to do so by concentrating capital.
When we figure out communism or socialism there's a really good chance it's a strong democracy that prevents it from falling into totalitarianism. Will it be a bunch of anarchic communes in council? Lol no. Will workers share profit equally with executives? Probably.
So 60% of the time it works every time?
I am a worker and I share profit with the terrible evil corporation I work for, BTW.
Lol
Funny how that's always the result.
Funny how that's a fallacy, and there have been countless largely communist organizations of human labor over history, which lasted just as long as capitalist society.
Yeah I don't think we've figured out a good way past the charismatic sociopath problem. The best thing we're going to have in the short term is a democracy with a strong emphasis on socialism.
So... most European countries and some in Asia / Oceania. Those topping every social welfare and happiness indexes...
Pretty much. Except even they could push it further if they weren't still tiptoeing around the wealthy.
But prepare for a 25 year old who lives in his mom's garage in rural Indiana to try to debate you on the subject anyway.
Says the balding neckbeard living in Brexit-land.
Bald, not balding.
You mean living under capitalism?
Russia and Hungary are capitalist, China is a transitional stage economy run by a communist party.
Living in the first decade of capitalism after communism, where freedom of the media exposed all the reality, people were still broke but the state no longer provided free housing (and the build codes changed to no longer allow cheap crappy concrete blocks), old "communists" sold half of all infrastructure to their buddies (where did someone get billions during communism??) and professionals started charging higher rates because now they were free to migrate west if they didn't earn a decent wage at home. Among others.
As of 2024, things are quite different.
You mean the impressions of having lived in a dictatorship which discarded the idea of progressing towards communism? How is that relevant?
See how you didn't even have to ask which country it was? Because a 100% of communist countries became dictatorships ridden with poverty for the working class and gold plated luxury for the ruling class.
I'm happy now somewhere in the middle in this terrible, terrible capitalism. Oh, and I'm free to leave anytime I want, if I don't like it.
Grade-school level history: I didn't need to ask which country because all of the possible countries were puppet states of a single other country...
There are a total of 0 communist countries throughout history. Your lack of very basic knowledge is starting to make me cringe.
That's irrelevant. If you're happy while I'm driving a nail through your eyes, does that make driving a nail through someone's eyes a good thing? The fact that you are privileged doesn't make a difference.
No, you're not. Your statement is so completely uneducated, I couldn't even guess where to begin dismantling it.
Oh time for my link
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/19/925354134/frame-canada
I want to kick the dude in the face
Yeah, of course I have.
In particular, I've noticed how the pro-capitalist people don't seem to realize that we're not living in a pure capitalist system. Instead we're living in a mixed economy where key elements are socialist: road building, firefighting, postal services, food and drug safety testing, old age pensions, even ambulances (except for one minor exception).
A 100% socialist (a.k.a. communist) system might not be possible (at least not yet) due to human nature. The few times that it has been tried, at least in theory, it has quickly become an authoritarian system instead. But, AFAIK, it's so obvious that 100% capitalist would fail completely that no society has even bothered to try it. Hundreds of years ago there were brief experiments with things like capitalist fire services, and Pinkertons as police, but they failed so spectacularly that nobody even thinks of going back.
So, instead we quibble about "capitalist" vs "socialist" when we're really just arguing about whether the mix should be 80% capitalist, 20% socialist or 60% capitalist, 40% socialist.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what socialism and capitalism are. Simplified it's who owns the means of production, that is basically the "capital" in the name "capitalism", in socialism these means of production have a shared ownership. Now you can have a discussion of what that means, if state ownership counts or whatever but as long as individuals own the means of production it's not socialism no matter how much you tax them(it would still be an improvement to tax them more it's just not socialism)
Ummm excuse me, no, the CIA is an extremely based communist organization because taxes.
I can't tell if your agreeing or disagreeing with op comment.
This understanding of capitalism is a misunderstanding that both Marxists and neoclassical types share. It is not capital ownership that gives the employer the right to appropriate a firm's whole product. The employment contract is what gives them that right. Sure, capital ownership affects bargaining power, but the root cause is that contract. Abolishing the employment contract while still having individual ownership is possible (i.e. a market economy of worker coops)
Thinking of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists/The Great Money Trick, now.
Is the US socialist because nVidia is a public company, therefore the shares are owned by the public? Is it a socialist country because most workers have 401(k) plans containing index funds, so they own a tiny portion of every major company? The ownership of the company is shared, so it must be socialism, right? I'd say no, because it's not shared evenly.
What if a single individual owns a single "mean" of production, but everything else is owned by the state, is that whole system capitalist? To me, it's clearly not. You could argue that it's mixed, but I'd say if it's 99.9% not capitalist, it's not capitalist.
Modern economies are mixes of socialism and capitalism. The people (through the government) own certain things, and individuals own other things.
How did you mess up this badly? A "public company" [sic, the correct term is "publicly traded company"] is a regular private company where the owners are hundreds or even thousands of individuals. A publicly owned company is one where every single citizen owns the company simply by being alive or every single worker owns the company simply by working there.
I don't even understand what you mean by this...
No, they're not, and this shows a very serious hole in your knowledge of economic and social systems. While, informally, it's sometimes said to be the case, that's strictly an oversimplification to communicate a different idea. Countries like the US simply use a government-assisted capitalist model. Places like the Nordic countries have a more transitional system, but are ultimately still just capitalist.
Of course they are. How can you be so confused. Countries like the US are a mix of socialist and capitalist systems. Some things are owned and run by the government (socialism), other things are owned and run by private individuals (capitalism). No society has ever worked where it was 100% socialist or 100% capitalist.
Are you illiterate? I specifically pointed to why that's not the case...
Are you dumb? I specifically pointed out how you're wrong.
You couldn't specify your breakfast if you were in the middle of eating it. Grow up.
What "Human Nature" goes against the idea of sharing tools, rather than letting wealthy people hold dictatorial control over them?
Why do chimps kill chimps from other groups that come into their territory? Why do some chimps use aggression against other chimps to manipulate them, while other chimps use grooming?
A certain degree of sharing is part of our human / animal nature, but so is a certain degree of claiming ownership over things, and certain individuals have more sway over decisions than others. Flat hierarchies with nobody in command seem to work in theory, but in practice it's different.
That's the Naturalistic fallacy at work, though. We aren't chimps, nor is doing what humans did in the past necessarily better than what we do now. By that chain, you would be an Anarcho-primitivist.
We're apes, even if we're not chimps.
But we aren't chimps, and you shouldn't judge the effectiveness of economic structures on what chimps do.
Nor should you pretend that we're not apes, and that ape behaviour has no relevance to humans.
It has about as much relevance as the behavior of any other mammal, circling back to my comment about rats.
We could study what various apes do, and try to use that to guess at possible human behaviour - or we could literally just look at human behaviour directly. Surely the direct observations of what humans do is going to give us a more accurate and useful model of human behaviour compared to observations of other species.
Let me know when you start eating bananas naked in the woods and let me bring my camera.
You're a mammal, a rat is a mammal - should we just consider you the same as a rat?
We can learn a lot about humans by studying rats. It doesn't mean that humans are the same as rats, but clearly we're not completely different either.
Yes?
As humans, we are greedy by nature. Not always, but when push comes to shove, we are.
What part of that goes against sharing tools, rather than letting wealthy people hold dictatorial control over them? Doesn't your point mean that we shouldn't have Capitalism at all?
Exactly, this argument is so weird, even if the assumption was true. "People are naturally greedy so we should have a system that allows them to do as much damage as possible"
I don't think the poster who was down voted meant anything of the sort. They were just elaborating on their view of human nature.
The view shoved into their brain by the oligarchy, which is why it's the most unoriginal cope out there.
In any society, some people will be leaders, some will be followers, this is natural. You cannot have a society without someone organizing the work and setting the course.
Of those who are naturally leaders, some will be much greedier than most. Some will also be ambitious, corrupt, two faced etc.
These people will do their best to gather wealth and power for themselves, be it in a capitalist or communist system. In the capitalist system they'll become entrepreneurs if they also have good business acumen. In the communist system they'll become managers and state officials if they can also navigate politics well.
At the end of the day, the same people will get to power and will hold dictatorial control over the means of production. In communist countries a literal dictatorship seems inevitable, while capitalist ones usually favor democracy (can be better for business) but they can also descend into dictatorship.
If you disagree, show me an example where all this is not the case. I'm honestly curious
Capitalism is the opposite of democracy. In a capitalist firm, the managers are not accountable to the governed (i.e. workers). The employer is not a delegate of the workers. They manage the company in their own name not in the workers' name. Managers do not have to have dictatorial control. It is entirely possible to have management be democratically accountable to the workers they govern as in a worker cooperative.
Capitalism v. Communism is a false dilemma. There are other options.
Capitalists aren't leaders, but owners.
Secondly, you are just tying Socialism and Communism with dictatorship without proving why you think it's necessary. It's purely vibes for you.
Tell me this: why do you think a system where Workers have no say, only Capitalists do and serve as mini dictators, is more democratic than a system where Workers vote on how to run production?
Socialism is not when the government does stuff, so those institutions are not examples of socialism. Anti-capitalists are arguing for the complete abolition of exploitative capitalist property relations that violate workers' human rights.
This is a false dilemma. There are other alternatives to capitalism besides communism. It is entirely possible to have a non-capitalist non-communist system (e.g. an economy where every firm is democratically-controlled by the people that work in it)
Socialism is when the "means of production" are owned by the people as a whole rather than individuals. Capitalism is when the "means of production" are owned by individuals. Every modern state contains a mix of both.
If the US is 100% capitalist, then explain how the fire department is a capitalist institution.
Capitalism is not just when the means of production are owned by individuals. For example, in an economy where all firms are democratically-controlled by the people that work in them, the means of production can be owned by individuals, but such an economy is not capitalist because exploitative property relations associated with capitalism are abolished
Oh there are people who dream about going back. Mostly people who would profit and/or gain power.
Maga and libertarians seem to want to go back.
uhh you might want to brush up on your history there, the pinkertons are still around, still quite closely tied to the government, and still being used (among other things) to suppress union organizing at places like amazon and starbucks! Kinda ridiculous to hear that our government is somehow 'socialist' when it does stuff like this.
I didn't say they weren't still around, just that they're not the police.
I'd like to point out that the majority of people on Lemmy 100% think about this. Hence how many up votes it has :p
Any criticism of capitalism is the same as historical communism and therefore always wrong. Accept your fate, citizen.
That's just historical capitalism. I can fix him!
Real capitalism has never been tried!
Real capitalism would require:
You could still have a military, but injured soldiers would be treated by private MASH units, soldiers would be fed by Taco Bell (paid for out of pocket), on base housing would be contracted out to AirBnB, aircraft maintenance would be contracted out to Boeing, and of course Veteran's Affairs wouldn't exist.
Basically the fascist Chile of the Chicago Boys’ and Pinochet’s wet dreams.
Except, even there, it was only a dream. Fascism may have elements of capitalism, but fundamentally if the leader is above the law, then private individuals don't own the means of production, it's only the leader who truly owns everything, and so it's not really capitalism.
It's similiar, not the same. From what I recall, Americans didn't have their country violently buttfucked behind a curtain, something that is still visible where I live - thankfully less so in the country itself, but it's still embedded into people. And I don't fear communism. I despise it. I do admit, maybe unjustly. Hard to feel otherwise though, seeing effects of one of the greatest, or at least highest scale shots at it's implementation.
However, yeah, my definition of socialism must be fucked, will educate myself further before making fool out of myself again. :|
I’d quite happily argue that the USSR never tried to implement it in the slightest.
Can you imagine the politburo actually fighting to give up their privileged position? I can’t.
To be quite honest, it seems to me - and I can be wrong - that it simply substituted power of wealth for power of position. Where I live I know that during occupation people were deemed as important based on where they worked - because where they worked dictated what they could
stealobtain, be it items, access or favors.There always will be someone on top, one way or the other. In capitalist society, it's the guy who has the most money. In co- ... socialist...? society it's the guy with most connections.
Because there is not a way for communism to work... sounds great on paper but always ends the same.
Communism has never existed. What about it sounds good on paper but is separate from reality?
There’s no way for people to work together without someone at top benefiting?
X.
You can doubt it all you want, but communism's fatal flaw is humans. They will always want more.
Why is it bad for people to want more in Communism? Do you think once a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society would be reached, people would want to regress?
The problem is that people point to the problems of the USSR and say it's because of communism, but when the USA does similar things, it's just them fucking up, not because they're capitalist. It's a double standard hinted at by OP.
The problem with the USSR was not that they were communist. I think that communism worked well for them, which magnified both their successes (beating nazis, reducing poverty, increasing literacy, getting to space, etc), but also magnified their mistakes (suppressing religion, art, etc).
It fit USSR interests to say that they were the standard bearer of communism back in the day. It fit US interests to say exactly the same. Neither had any reason to think about how the word was used prior to the USSR and if it actually applies at all.
It's no wonder that people who lived behind the Iron Curtain have just as bad an understanding of communism as people in the US. The USSR certainly didn't want you reading theory outside of Marxist-Leninist material.
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-double-genocide-theory
What’s your point exactly? I’m not reading some poorly written 10,000 word essay to try to figure out what you’re wanting to say.
So it's actually a pretty interesting read but I think this paragraph gets the idea across pretty well:
(Obv out of context)
Most current antisemitism in Eastern Europe is closely related to these debates, as nationalists strive to “fix” their nations’ collaboration (or in the case of the Baltics and Ukraine, participation) in the Holocaust with revised paradigms that equal everything out. One of the poisons of ultranationalism is the perceived need to construct a perfect history (no country on the planet has one of those). Another is hatred of local Jewish communities who have memory, or family, or collective memory, of nationalist neighbors turning viciously on their neighbors in 1941, and of the Soviets being responsible for their own grandparents or parents being saved from the Holocaust. In America, this would be akin to someone hating African Americans for having a different opinion of Washington or Jefferson because they were slaveholders.
Okay, now I’m just confused as to the relevance of it being commented in response to my comment.
Hey man I'm just a third party don't look at me
A Jewish linguist/historian/activist talking about how equating the Soviets and the Nazis is rhetoric used to justify current and past antisemitism including holocaust collaboration.
Ah, so it’s being used as chud fud.
My comparison of the two stems from their harsh authoritarian/totalitarian nature as seen from an anarchist lens, nothing to do with genocide.
Yeah so the thing is you're still doing it, the whole "authoritarian" thing is another way of doing a false equivalence between the two.
If you want to do an anarchist critique compare the USSR to bourgeoise democracies, it is a closer comparison.
To do so would be to ignore the worst elements of the USSR, so I don't know why I would do that.
Socialism is not "Social Safety Nets," and if you were knowledgeable about what you were talking about, you would say Socialism and attempts at Communism. Socialism is Worker Ownership of the Means of Production, and the USSR was a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Communist party had stated goals of reaching Communism, a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society, by using Socialism. They never made it to Communism.
The USSR of course isn't the only form of Socialism, and isn't the only method to achieve Communism, but what you just said makes absolutely no sense.
Do you think that maybe people begin to understand what you're talking about if you refer to Social Safety Nets as Social, not Socialism, because Social Safety Nets are not in fact Socialism?
As a side note: terrible choice to use rape as a casual term for doing something bad. Be more empathetic.
Comrade pinko barbie!
This post is WAY more insightful than 99% of people realize. I would argue that the only people that fully understand are part of the corporate engine that drives it.
Are you implying you’re a corporate shill?
I'm a mole
its a dictatorship pretendintg to be an oligarchy pretending to be a democracy. i would call it 'captured democracy'.
but its just a dictatorship with extra steps.
The political compass is literally a propaganda tool created by right wing "libertarians." It's complete bullshit.
I like this new meme format
This was literally the next post in my feed, lol:
You can also take deductions for costs relating to criminal activity!
That’s it, I’m done for today. Nothing can top that.
All the time
Everyone talks about what the "best" system is but none have adequately solved the human corruption problem. Every system eventually falls due to human corruption imo. The US founders were on to something by trying to break up power and have each group kept I'm check but that too is failing.
Stop trying to fix the symptoms.
Yeah, separation of powers is a pretty old and workable concept, 8 times older than the whole history of the US, and has worked for most democratic countries since.
In addition to the corruption problem, there's also the problem of who gets to make the decisions. The people affected by those decisions want them to be made by smart people who have their best interests at heart. But, those aren't the kinds of people who end up in leadership positions. Whether it's capitalism, communism, even monarchies, the type of people who tend to be in charge are the ones who want power and know how to get it and use it.
The fact you think some old white englishmen created the partition of power tells us a lot about your level of education.
Lol talk more shit about things I never said loser
I don't think about this at all. My parents are from the former Soviet Union and I actually heard from them how life there was (mostly not great).
Also I think that fearing socialism is a very American thing.
What was not great about it?
The USSR was a developing country, and generally lacked luxury commodities, and depending on era, had a mostly unaccountable Politburo and a lack of food in the early stages.
By metrics, the Russian Federation has relatively recently surpassed life expectancy of the USSR, and now has more open travel and access to western commodities like smartphones, but you'll find many older people in Russia who wish the USSR never collapsed (the majority, in fact), though again that's also partially due to nostalgia for being an important global power.
I was asking them what their parents didn't find so great about it.
I'm not OP, but I can certainly give you my story from Hungary. Not USSR in name, but USSR enough for the distinction to be moot.
Story starts with parents and grandparents. They were around when the soviets put Rákosi into power. He installed communism - everything belongs to the people! Including our fucking house. My grandparents often retold how police came one night, told them their house now belongs to another family, and they were told to get lost by morning. They could bring whatever they could carry with them, but they had to leave all the farming equipment, all the animals, pretty much all their belongings behind. The few hectars of land and our animals all belonged to the Producer's Union anyway, we lost all rights to them virtually overnight.
Not that it mattered. The things you produced? Since everything belongs to the people, police would come and take away whatever quota the party set that year. Even if we produced it, it's not ours after all. We may or may not got some of it back, depending on what the allocations were set. Usually not - famines got common, becuase noone cared too much about their work if it got taken away anyway. It got so bad that the good communist people people revolted against Rákosi.
Then came Kádár. I actually lived in that system. Shortages were commonplace. At the start things were strictly planned (later on they opened up to allowing people to work for their own benefit... strictly after they put in their required hours at their workplace, though). There were five year plans, though for what I know, those were mostly for propaganda. But since there wasn't a free market, the planning bureau would decide how many tractors, shoes, bread etc would be produced. Well, this never worked out well. If you wanted to buy fruits, toilet paper, anything, you would need someone to tell you when the shipment would come. Then you got in line early and hoped the stock wouldn't run out by the time you got your turn. And you bought whatever you could, because if you had excess toilet paper and your neighbour had none, you could barter for something you needed.
We wanted a car. So we applied at the state car dealership (Merkúr). We paid upfront, waited a year... and got a totally different brand of car in a different colour. We were furious, so we demanded our money back and purchased a second hand Lada Samara from someone in town. It still wasn't what we wanted, but I'd have rather burnt my money than give it to Merkúr at that point. Turns out the Lada Samara 1300S was a great car though, I shouldn't have sold it like twenty years later :(
We wanted to build a house. Only everything was in short order. We had to drive three-four towns away, buying bricks and ceramic tiles left and right until we had enough that we could start construction. We didn't build what we wanted; we could've paid for it, but we had to build whatever we managed to find in stock around.
Now I know people called us the "happiest barracks" because say Caucescu in Romania was way worse... but people who are so fond of actual socialism should remember that our people were risking getting shot to escape this system.
Fair enough, haha.
LOL! "What was not great about the Soviet Union?"
That's the sort of thing I might expect to hear from a teen with broccoli head syndrome.
For me the main problem with the USSR was that they abused beautiful dogs to create cyborg creatures out of them, in a horrifying attempt to create cyborg soldiers.
Remember when Barbie didn't end with Will Farrells head in the guillotine?
Ugh you just reminded me of one of the right's comic strips where women put men's balls in a guillotine with "the left wants to do this" idea.
This question is being posed to centrists and conservatives, right?
Liberals too, I would imagine. Maybe even SocDems.
Ironically the same in left leaning countries just corps banging the workers and blaming someone else using insane propaganda every single fucking where
Sorry I don't get it
Hey, that meme looks familiar...
Yes!
Do you ever ponder the inverse for yourself?
Canadian here: socialism has been a part of culture since the outset. Even Americans have social systems in place to support the population. Many don't recognize it as such, but it's there.
One of the many outstanding examples of this is fire fighting. Everyone just assumes that the fire department is there and normal, but it's socialist. In the early days, fire departments were more privatized and several may show up at a blaze to basically quote the property owner to put out the blaze. This was widely inefficient at a time when spending more time to discuss the business of firefighting would take away precious minutes from the job of firefighting and it would put lives and property at risk for every minute the start of firefighting activities were delayed.
It was pretty much unanimously acknowledged that putting out a fire is more important than figuring out who is going to pay for it, or do the job; so social infrastructure was made common for fire fighting. Given that it would risk not only the structure and lives of those involved in the blaze but also that of the surrounding structures and the lives of those who lived/worked in those structures, is obvious why government/social fire departments exist. They are there to save the life and limb of those involved in a blaze and do their best to prevent as much property damage as possible from such an event.
Its very nature is socialist, by the people, for the good of the people, paid for by the people. This is, however, still more or less unanimously agreed upon as a necessary thing.
Canada has extended this to healthcare, since during an emergency, like a life threatening wound or condition (cardiac issues are a common one to cite), time is essential. Going to an "in network" hospital, like the Americans may need to do, could add minutes or even hours of travel time between getting to the patient and getting them to the care that they desperately need. That time could mean the difference between living through it, and dying on route. So we have socialized healthcare too, no matter where I am in Canada, or what the closest hospital is or who administrates it, I can get the help I need immediately, at no cost to me. This saves lives, but it mainly saves the lives of people who would otherwise not be able to afford healthcare, or to have a healthcare package that allows for any hospital to provide care. This has been extended, in Canada, to cover more than just emergency situations. So pretty much all my basic care is covered.
This is socialist and one of the things that America seems to be very strongly opposed to. This leads me to believe that the fire department situation is less about saving lives and more about saving property. To put it crudely: "I don't want my (thing) to be damaged by the fire happening with your (thing)." (Kind of mentality).... At least on the part of regulators. They're okay with fire departments since fire can spread and create a bigger problem, including a problem for those who control the government. Meanwhile with healthcare, the problem is your problem and they don't want any part of paying for your ability to resolve it. In this assertion: property > lives.
Most liberal/left/communal focused people (myself included) are more focused on the greater good for all, not just for you, or your loved ones. We want what's best for the majority of everyone. The people on the right are usually very capitalist and focused on what benefit do I get? above all else. They get no immediate benefit if you're in good health or survive a major medical issue. There are long term benefits from having a healthy, educated public, but it's all long term thinking that seems to escape most capitalists. "Why pay for something now hoping for a benefit later?"
Additionally, the benefits are a paradox, that you'll certainly get the benefit, but usually in the lack of long term costs, so the benefit is forged in the form of not losing money in the future, which, quantifying a lack of losses that didn't happen is nearly impossible. This was recently demonstrated in the analogy of rat poison, which some of you may be familiar with: "why do we have all this rat poison around? I haven't seen a rat in years! Stop putting out rat poison, it costs us money and serves no benefit" then later: "where did all these rats come from?"
You continue to pay for and cover people for their safety and security, and you don't have to deal with replacing them. You don't suffer those negative effects of not having their help, and that's a hard thing to prove when it didn't happen.
Capitalists, from my experience, lack this kind of theoretical thinking, only benefiting from the experience of making a bad decision to remove the rat poison, only to have their entire company overrun by rats causing a more significant loss than if they had simply continued to pay for the placement of the poison. That experience and thinking is dangerous when it comes to policy, as many people need to die before the losses are realized.
The recent loss of a large portion of the population due to this same short term thinking during COVID, is going to have ripple effects on the job market for decades. People who would otherwise be alive, well, and ready to work, are either suffering with life long illness, or a serious case of death, and it creates a worker shortage.
Workers who were happy to keep their jobs at a minimal pay increase are now being replaced by people who are demanding better conditions and pay. Which only serves to emphasize the struggle between companies and their employees. That struggle has been ongoing for decades or more.
I've seen rather poor job postings for my line of work, go unanswered for weeks because the company is offering too little for too much work, and have a reputation for overworking their employees. An extreme example of this is from Amazon. They're facing a shortage of people who are willing to cope with their insane working conditions. They're burning through the workforce at an unprecedented rate by demanding too much and providing too little. Their own internal analytics have identified this as a problem, and they're not doing enough, quickly enough, to curtail it so they don't end up with nobody who is willing to put up with their shit for what they're paying (specifically referring to warehouse and delivery workers here).
It's an ongoing problem and it's borne from the extreme capitalist way of doing things: burning through willing workers until none remain, all in the pursuit of profits in the short term.
The only way that Amazon has curbed the issue is in contracting out their delivery system, bringing on dedicated delivery contractors, and professional delivery companies like FedEx and UPS (or similar) who can "pick up the slack" for not being able to hire enough drivers to fulfill their orders.
Amazon is a good case study on capitalist business practices and the values of capitalists. But I digress.
Social services, and social/socialist philosophies will always be better at/for long term planning, while capitalist systems will be better in the short term. The two will always butt heads on what's important because they focus on wildly different things. Many capitalist Americans bring this business philosophy home with them; they don't, and will never support something that doesn't have a clear and direct benefit to them, and will continue to advocate for personal responsibility of anything that doesn't and cannot affect them directly, believing that doing otherwise will unreasonably increase the costs of the systems they use for those benefits and unreasonably benefit those they see as competition on their imaginary "ladder of success", which will, to them, unreasonably and unjustly elevate those who have not earned it, to a better position on the success ladder, which may, as a side effect, cause their position to become weaker as a result. They're better than those who can't afford what they have, and they'll fight with every tool they have to ensure that those whom are less than them, know that they are less. That may be in the form of denying them healthcare that they need but cannot afford, or wages that they cannot otherwise earn because of either job scarcity (or simply the scarcity of jobs offering more), or that they don't have the education to earn such a position.
They're "better" than others. Those that want stuff that doesn't benefit them are idiots and their "lessers", and should be "put on their place" to them.
This is, at its heart, thinly veiled classism, driven into the masses by propaganda, and reinforced by the ruling class, aka celebrities, the affluent, and government officials. The "Elite" class has convinced their lessers to fight the fight for them.
IMO, the only way to break someone of this thinking is to attack the root cause of the thoughts, that you're not better than your neighbors and the people you would consider to be less than you are. That we're actually all part of the "masses" and we, as the "masses" are in a sustained and ongoing fight with those that consider all of us to be their lessers, aka, the "elites". Only when they recognize that we're not fighting eachother or vying for some imaginary "rank" in an objectively unfair system, will they ever understand that social services are not only good for everyone, but a requirement for everyone. We all will have slightly more or slightly less than everyone else, and those slight differences are nothing compared to how much more the affluent "elite" class has by comparison. Having 0.01% vs 0.009% of the wealth of any one of these "elites" isn't significant enough to divide us in terms of purpose. We are the people. The government is supposed to serve the people. It isn't. Stand up and take action.
That's fine, I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do.
Have a good day.
Rome has influenced our ideas about socialism? Wat
But imperialism is really cool if you're on the benefiting end of it
Language is however most people define it. When the definition changes, you make new words or fight a losing battle.
leftist_meme.png
Maybe, but they've also been well assisted by those countries which are shining examples of SC&L but have failed to get their messages across the world. Perhaps replies to this comment could indicate which countries those are, for some independent research.
This propaganda is coming from the most prosperous, overachieving nation in the history of mankind, so it seems like there might be something to it. Now the propaganda coming from impoverished, third world countries saying how all their problems can be solved through communism, just doesn't have the same luster for some reason.
Now if you can point me to an example of a utopic nation where everything is wonderful and workers run the show, I'm all ears.
Not from “the west” from “the rich”. There are rich people in every type of economy that use their money to gain more power. One of the many ways that is done is with propaganda to convince those with less that the rich in power are not the problem.
Just look at the oligarchs in Russia.
Not every economic system, economic systems that place significant barriers against ballooning of individual wealth off exploitation see less disparity, and thus less of an impact of money on politics. Beaurocracy becomes a new kind of power currency, which is why much of the Politburo in the USSR was corrupt, though its worth noting that their disparity levels were lower than currently in the Russian Federation.
The Russian Federation's "Oligarchs" are a spooky word for Capitalists that dodges the fact that they are Capitalists that took advantage of the collapse of the USSR to gain massive outsized power and wealth. The Russian Federation is Capitalist, not Socialist.
You say not every economic system, but then you say less disparity, less impact.
Less disparity means there is still disparity. Less impact means there is still impact.
Because like I said, as long as there are human beings who want more power, there will be a struggle in any economic systems to prevent disparity.
That is because it isn’t the economic system that deregulates or undermines protections.
It is those who seek more power who deregulate and undermine protections.
And those people exist in all types of economic systems.
Even capitalist America had a point in history where disparity was low and the middle class and lower class thrived.
That is no longer the case because of those who removed regulations and changed the laws to suite themselves. And again, those people exist in every type of economy.
I did not say you could not eliminate the influence of money on politics, did I? You did. I countered it, and now you're implying that it's impossible to completely get rid of.
You can account for bad actors and power-seekers woth egalitarian distribution of power and a prevention against gaining in power.
How? Without stating how this is accomplished, you’re response is only really saying,
‘you can account for bad actors and power-seekers by living in a perfect world where bad people don’t exist’
If there were an economic system that achieved that it would be a utopia. I don’t know of any utopias on earth.
Equal ownership of the Means of Production. Socialism.
There are still hierarchies in socialist economies. Thats why there is still disparity in socialist economies.
Do you have an example of one of these socialist societies where everyone has equal power?
What hierarchy? Statist hierarchy? That's why the goal of Socialism is Communism, and nobody has reached Communism yet. Do you think we live at the end of history?
Do you guys realize the world is larger than the memeverse and there are real people who lived under "socialist" governments?
Jesus H. Christ, all you need my dear is a holiday in Cambodia.
So.... Your answer is no?
I may not want the USSR at all, but a large majority of Russians want it back: https://www.statista.com/chart/7322/25-years-soviet-union-collapse-ussr/
Now, a large part of this is also obviously due to wanting to be a part of a more powerful state, which the USSR was in comparison to the Russian Federation, but this point isn't great. I could make the same point and say that we should send pro-Capitalists to Somalia, it just doesn't work well logically.
Large majority of Russians also want Ukrainians dead in a most fascinating ways. Weak argument.
Large, overwhelming majorities of Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians (hope it's a word), Moldovans, Estonians, Poles don't want to let USSR come closer than a shot distance.
Do the actual Russian citizens want that, or are they just silenced? I remember hearing about protests in Russia over the Ukrainian war, but that just leads to a bunch of arrests.
Hur Hur Hur Russians good Putin bad. This argument aged like milk since before any of the commenters here were born.
Let me know where in my comment I lost you. I didn't say Russians good Putin bad. I said there are Russians that don't agree with the Russian authoritarian government. What a revolutionary concept.
My argument isn't that Russians want good things, but that many people who lived under systems that can be considered Socialist absolutely do want them back. Of course the Ukranian war is unjustified, but that doesn't mean that we can make up ideas about what people living in now-Capitalist states believe.
Again, this is the Somalia argument. You can find people in Capitalist nations that hate it too, does that nullify your point?
Ok let's try to revisit it again. Of all the countries that freed themselves of a Soviet dictatorship literally zero want back, or are building 'socialist' economies. How about taking their experience as a measure?
Full disclosure, I'm living in a Western social democratic nation and am horrified by the capitalist and/or neoliberal ideologies. I am of a strong belief that neither of opposite ends of political philosophies bring good and prosperity for ordinary people.
Many do want the USSR back, because it was generally a better organization of the economy than what Capitalism and in some cases fascism has done for these countries. People who lived farther from Moscow had it far worse under the USSR, of course, but the people legitimately seem to have more of a longing for the USSR than anything else.
If approval rating was anything to go by alone though, then we could say Mao, Putin, and Kim Jong Un were some of the most successful leaders in history, and I don't think either of us are saying that.
My point is firmly against the idea that Socialism is bad because many people who lived in one form of Socialism hated it, that's an incomplete logical chain.
For what it's worth, I'm firmly pro-Socialist, just not pro-USSR. I firmly believe that workers should own and control the Means of Production.
Primo, I respect you and your point of view even if I find it wrong.
Secondo, first sentence is factually incorrect and there are plenty of evidence. In particular about soviets, for starters I recommend you reading memories of Zara Witkin.
Tertio, you find opinions of russians valuable, and simply discard reference to the half a dozen of Independent nations who (willingly or not) share origin story with USSR
I'll mirror your point and say I respect you and your point of view, even if I find it wrong.
Secondly, I'll also mirror you and state that the majority of Russians that lived in the USSR that are alive today want it back. 1932 was just the beginning of the USSR, barely a quarter century from Feudalism! Absolutely nobody is saying they want to go back to a developing country.
A more accurate look would be what the USSR looked like post-WWII, pre-collapse.
Blackshirts and Reds is a pretty good book, not too long, that might give you a different perspective. Additionally, Robert Thurston is a historian who actually lived in the USSR and participated in local elections, despite not being a citizen, because he was a Worker. Additional, conflicting views, if you want to check.
Again, I'm not pro-ussr, but I am trying to dispel some myths here.
Does Cuba not exist?
Information provided by the Levada Center, which is currently declaring an 82% approval rating for Putin.
Gonna go ahead and say that this isn't a reliable statistic.
Putin is a dictator, and a terrible fascist leader, but he does legitimately have a high approval rating, mainly because you can't go against him without putting yourself in trouble. I would not say that that means an unrelated question isn't reliable, especially because Putin is a fascist and the USSR was Socialist, if anything it's anti-putin to want the USSR back,
That... isn't legitimate.
While I like the idea of socialism to an extent, it hardly has an appealing track record.
How so? Do you think tools turn people evil or cease working if they are owned by the collective?
What track record are you looking at, the one I'm seeing is a much lighter shade of gray than the capitalist track record.
No, because the majority of people do not live in the US.
So the amount of influence is the same from the US and Russia and China.
We aren't as uninformed as this meme suggests about the concept. We know it has positives, but we also know the negatives, of which there are many.
What negatives? Do people turn evil, or do tools stop working, if tools are owned by a collective?
In advocating for privately owning and operating a business without excessive state interference, you highlight a core tenet of capitalism. This economic system champions individual freedom and autonomy, allowing entrepreneurs in a free-market environment to introduce innovative products, with relative ease and without burdensome regulatory approval.
However, concerns about state intervention under socialism introduce a nuanced perspective. While socialism aims to address issues of inequality and social welfare, it often involves more centralized control over economic activities. This centralized approach could potentially impact the entrepreneurial freedom to choose what products to sell and how to manage a business.
This dichotomy underscores an ongoing debate, weighing the advantages of a free-market capitalist system that fosters entrepreneurial independence against the goals of socialism, which seeks to address social and economic inequalities through collective decision-making and regulation. It prompts consideration of the trade-offs between individual liberty and the pursuit of societal equality and welfare.
Moreover, criticisms of socialism often include the potential for increased economic inequality. Centralized control might lead to bureaucratic inefficiencies and disparities in resource allocation. Additionally, concerns about AI companies taking advantage of stringent regulations add complexity, as the regulatory landscape could inadvertently favor larger corporations, potentially exacerbating economic imbalances and hindering smaller businesses, including startups in emerging fields like AI, from thriving and innovating. The multifaceted nature of these concerns contributes to the ongoing dialogue about the merits and drawbacks of different economic systems.
Yikes. I know it shouldn't surprise me anymore, but I'm still shocked at how deeply so many people have absorbed this nonsense.
What did I get wrong?
My guess? Watching too much CNBC or Fox Business.
Your understanding of regulation only considers freedom on the side of business and not the freedoms of everyone those regulations protect from corporate malfeasance. You don't get that "socialism" includes things like worker cooperatives that should be the ideal of market commerce. Your concept of freedom seems to exclude the concept of positive freedoms. Your idea of capitalism ignores the coersive reality that workers without the means of production live under. I could go on but I'm not sure I could ever stop finding new issues, which is quite amazing.
In short, your comment contains nothing that isn't straight up corporate propaganda from someone with not enough curiosity about the world and privileges that have allowed you to remain ignorant.
Not to mention the Fed is centralized economic control.
Nah I wanna keep all the money I make from my private business and I don't want state approval to sell product or following some burdensome bullshit regulation. Socialism is dog shit compared to capitalism, I wouldn't want to give up any of my individual freedoms. If you don't like the system, simply go move to another country that has it. No need to get all upset.
LOL, that's not anger. At best it's exhaustion, which has become my typical reaction to people taking a dump on a thread and demanding answers to tired old bullshit that's been answered a thousand ways before.
No one can prove me wrong still
You can lead a horse to water, but when his health fails or his business burns down he'll be looking to the big bad government for a handout.
I really dont see any Romans pressuring me around here.
Gestures half heartedly at all the Roman inspired government buildings.
Gestures at the 1%, who are overwhelmingly descendants of the aristocracy created by Rome and managed by the holy Roman empire
Rome didn't have aircraft carriers and tactical nukes.
Rome lasted long enough to find its own ancient artifacts.
What's a few hundred millions of lives lost to that anti-semite moron's ideology over the last hundred years, eh comrade? Progress!