People are scared of it because every incarnation of it has been hellish shit show. No matter how many times people moralise about it that simple truth is always looming.
Just because a state self-proclaims to be socialist, doesn’t mean it is.
What you have to remember is that socialism means everyone paying their fair share, and some people don’t want to do that.
It’s the PR and marketing campaigns. Capitalism concentrated the wealth with the bosses so they can send a coherent message. A message people can buy into.
Socialism marketing makes it sound like a MLM scheme. The lack of centralization puts different unions against each other.
The hate against socialism is the idea that someone who doesn’t work as hard as you, gets the same benefits as you, and that’s not fair.
Something like that could never work under capitalism. Everybody knows that rich people work extremely hard to be rich. I work hard, and I’ll be rich some day too.
Those who are educated on the matter and oppose socialism do so because of a belief that continuing high-intensity development of the economy is preferable, for one reason or another.
Many of us would argue that, with the economy in developed countries at the point where everyone could very easily be guaranteed a good quality of life without further improvements, and that, in fact, further improvements at this point are more likely to come from the cultural and technological development enabled by a more equal and less labor-intensive society, capitalism has overstayed its welcome.
A lot of people mix up “socialism” with “people being good neighbors.” That’s not actually what the term means. Socialism is specifically about who owns the big stuff, the means of production. In a socialist setup, people still work jobs, they still get paid, and daily life still involves employment and compensation. The difference is that major industries aren’t privately owned by large corporations. They’re controlled collectively by the public or by the workers themselves.
Small private businesses can still exist; they’re not eliminated outright. What changes is the ownership of large-scale systems: energy, manufacturing, transportation, resources, things on that level. These are shifted away from private corporate control and toward collective control.
The fundamental issue of socialism and why it doesn’t and has not worked historically is because of human nature. A corporateocracy or a capitalist based society aligns much better to human nature than socialism does which is why it’s significantly more “successful”.
Maybe the real problem is people wanting to apply one answer to all problems. I’m fine with a capitalist economy where an ethical government regulates the market to serve the people and there are socialist structures where appropriate
You’re referring to social democracy there are several social Democrats in office right now in the United States they are among the politicians I would vote for for president.
The fundamental issue of socialism and why it doesn’t and has not worked historically is because of human nature. A corporateocracy or a capitalist based society aligns much better to human nature than socialism does which is why it’s significantly more “successful”.
Except the only major sovereign socialist experiments have been either crushed by non-economic forces, or been Soviet-style totalitarianism.
The idea that capitalism is more based on ‘human nature’ ignores why capitalism actually works. You could argue, with much more validity, I would say, that feudalism is more in-tune with human nature than capitalism, yet almost no one disputes that feudalism is worse than capitalism.
decades of red scare propaganda and purposefully sabotaging public education
Seriously. People don’t seem to remember or understand how intense anti-communist feelings were during the Cold War. It would be un-American to assume anything different than capitalism.
I heard that most of my life, so it feels extremely unsettling to experience MAGA love affair with some of the tyrants their forbears would have most hated
Anti-socialism is just collateral damage
Also Cubans who act like they weren’t children when their family left. Souith Florida Spanish radio is wild!
“Socialism is when the government does stuff 😭” - Average American, unfortunately
Nah seriously this is what they legit believe, they just think the government doing it means it’s going to be shitty. Which is not entirely untrue. But at least it’s not trying to actively rip you off while continuing to offer less and less, like any publicly traded company has a good track record of doing.
If everyone does better, then you’re doing worse by comparison.
I want 10% unemployment and 0% interest rates. That’s the magic formula where I can sexually harass my au pair and she has no choice but to put up with it.
Someone should print this on a t-shirt. Or stickers. Both!
The ultra rich have successfully convinced a lot of people that they, too, could become ultra rich some day - but there’s no place for ultra rich under socialism.
Then further, a lot of people have been convinced that only the very very poor would be better off and everyone else would be worse off. That is of course also untrue.
I think this is true, but id add that most socialist societies we have seen have been awful. Lots of corruption and poverty. Turns out whichever system you have there will be evil scumbags seeking to self-enrich.
Thats not to say it couldn’t work, but that there are no shining examples of success and lots of examples of failure.
Some of y’all need to go live in a socialist country for a few years and learn something about how it actually works.
Spoiler alert. You don’t want any part of it.
What are you on about? I’ve been living in Denmark for five months now, I fucking love it.
Crime is virtually non-existent, everyone is paid a fair wage, the streets are clean, addiction rates are down, nobody goes bankrupt from medical treatment, and everybody has the option for higher education.
What’s so bad about that? Do you like living in a rural area with high rates of alcoholism, property crimes, domestic violence, crumbling infrastructure, and monopolies bankrupting your main street?
Meanwhile I’ve just walked 2 km from the flat past hundreds of small locally owned businesses on nothing but pedestrian plazas to a small farm to table cafe for brunch.
You live there and you’re still wrong.
Denmark has a free‑market capitalist economy.
Go learn what socialism is.
Oh thank fuck you know the difference between democratic socialism and actual socialism, now go ahead and tell me what you think countries are truly socialist.
I mean Denmark isn’t socialist. It’s capitalist with sane regulations to protect the people, which is ALSO something that the American right has labeled as communism, despite the fact that you do, in fact, still have a free market economy with plenty of private ownership in these countries. It is IMO the best system we currently have, because it has good elements from both socialism and capitalism. Capitalists can take risks and profit off it, but nobody has to be in poverty.
Right, I agree with you, but these knuckle draggers use Denmark, Norway, and Finland as their primary examples of socialism.
It is due to lobbying and astroturfing.
Simple as.
It’s definitely not based in data, because that overwhelmingly shows massive economic and happiness growth happens in these states
Where in the world has socialism been successful in the past?
I’ll wait.
Anarchist Catalonia, Socialist Yugoslavia, any number of modern workers’ coops and corporations, including Mondragon Corp.
I’m Canadian and my country is extremely successful. We’re also pretty socialist. Obviously socialism isnt a binary, but we have universal Healthcare, strong financial regulations, and a stronger more centralized federal government than the US. We’re doing very well, and the elements which cause us the most pain tend to be where we are more like the states, not where we’re more like Denmark.
I’m Canadian and my country is extremely successful.
That‘s a stretch, isn‘t it? What‘s the housing market like over there?
Worlddata.info - Canada 26th in World Quality of Life index vs. US rank 38 IM Global Wealth News - 10th in quality of life, US not listed U.S. News - 4th overall to US third. Wagecenter.com - Canada has the highest rated standard of living, US not listed in the top 10 UN Happiness report - We’ve dropped to 18th, vs the US 24th.
It is absolutely not a stretch to say Canada is extremely successful. Perfection is an awful long way off, of course. Costs are up, happiness is down. American influence has caused a rise in right-wing hate groups. But I’ll repeat - the more socialist we lean, the better we seem to do.
Off the top of my head: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland.
Here is an important example of the disconnect between liberal and conservative interpretation of the word “socialist”. Economists would not label Scandinavian countries as socialist. Meanwhile conservatives point to Cuba and Venezuela as examples of socialist failure when that’s not entirely true either. We’re talking past each other in these debates.
That’s because Conservatives have no argument other than pedantry when it comes to their villifying of “socialism”.
“They aren’t socialist, they’re Democratic Socialism or Social Democrats, which are totally different from each other and not socialism at all!” (Is their pedantry, in case anyone was wondering)
It’s ALL socialism, just with a few different policies at play. But that would destroy the conservative argument that you can’t have a successful capital economy under socialism. So they play the “They aren’t real socialists” bullshit game.
In the same vein you could argue that US is not true Capitalism because trickle down doesn’t happen and many means of production are still owned by the government.
And yet we call them a Capitalist country, no?
To me the hate is quite simple to understand. Socialism means that the extremely rich will be worse off financially. The 1% have an unnatural love for money, and the idea of being less wealthy for the greater good is totally abhorrent to them.
For generations they’ve been able to demonise socialism using their disproportionate influence through the media, to the extent that the majority of the population now fear it.
We’ve really not moved on that far intellectually from the witch trials. People are collectively ignorant and fearful, and with the right nudges are easy to control to the point where they’ll literally vote against their own good. They are the proverbial Turkeys voting for Christmas and I honestly don’t know how we will ever get past it.
Thankfully, we’re now reaching a turning point where PragerU will be used to teach directly in schools, letting kids know why socialism is bad and capitalism is good. Wait, that’s the opposite of what we want, fuck!
Freedom is such a pain in the neck.
Conservative reactionaries since the French Thermidor Reaction opposed it, believing communalism and eventually socialism undermines their existing hierarchical, feudal system. Stalin also did not help matters at all.
Yeah Stalin was like “You want to see totalitarianism with socialist window dressing?”
This is also why I can’t stand tankies. Worshipping the Soviet Union, China and even modern day Russia. Clearly the “is not The West™” is the important part for them, not socialism or communism. Also, I’ve had interactions with people on reddit where they said that the mass deportations were absolutely justified, etc.
Look, I also want a lot of the things socialism offers, without necessarily going full communist. But I’ll argue all day that Nordic countries do it better. Not perfectly of course, there’s still billionaires and there are still issues. But people are by and large much more free than they are or were in any of the countries tankies love, and those who aren’t well-off still have it much better than they do in, say, the US.
Socialism by its barest definition is great.
Socialism as outlined in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is a little sketchier because it makes a lot of unrealistic assumptions about human nature and is just generally super hard to implement without creating a power vacuum.
Socialism as in the USSR’s Socialism is a century old practice of the crullest and most war hungry culture imagineable, having taken advantage of the afforementioned power vacuum to starve and torture millions at home, ally with the Nazis in WWII and then change sides halfway through, tear down democracies around the globe, and push us all the closest we have ever been to thermonuclear annihilation. A threat so great that even 30 years into its grave is still a great stone over our heads, having crafted a world power balance that will threaten our destruction for generations to come.
But Socialism by its barest definition is great.
Socialism as outlined in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is a little sketchier because it makes a lot of unrealistic assumptions about human nature and is just generally super hard to implement without creating a power vacuum.
Marx’s general proposals for the implementation of a socialist government:
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Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
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A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
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Abolition of all right of inheritance.
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Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
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Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
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Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
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Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
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Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
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Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries: gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
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Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc., etc.
Which of those do you think is hard to implement or makes unrealistic assumptions about human nature?
So right around step 1 you’ve got either
A) An Authoritarian state who controls all property with no method to implement such state.
B) An Anarchy where, since nobody owns anything, the influential will go wherever they want and take whatever they want.
A) An Authoritarian state who controls all property with no method to implement such state.
… what?
Abolition of private land ownership in favor of state land ownership is not inherently ‘authoritarian’, nor is it particularly impossible to implement.
B) An Anarchy where, since nobody owns anything, the influential will go wherever they want and take whatever they want.
You… you do realize that public lands does not mean “First come first serve”, right?
Man, this is basic pre-modern society shit. Read up on medieval village commons. Shit, read up on public lands today.
Let me put it this way: in many places around the world the people are allowed to challenge the state’s claim to properties in courts with varying success. Your step one would take that away, so it is leaning in the direction of authoritarian.
But I’m pretty sure Marx was more interested in Option B, I don’t think he was interested in using politics to build a strong democracy but rather wanted to topple any current system and hope a firect democracy pops up over night.
“It would perhaps be as well if things were to remain quiet for a few years yet, so that all this 1848 democracy has time to rot away.”
“…it happens that society is saved as often as the circle of its ruling class is narrowed, as often as a more exclusive interest asserts itself over the general. Every demand for the most simple bourgeois financial reform, for the most ordinary liberalism, for the most commonplace republicanism, for the flattest democracy is forthwith punished as an assault upon society and is branded as Socialism.”
“…the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle for democracy.”
These are three separate Karl Marx quotes and they’re extremely vague, but he has been somewhat consistent that any form of government that is not direct democracy must be “overthrown” or “fought” or “toppled”.
Let me put it this way: in many places around the world the people are allowed to challenge the state’s claim to properties in courts with varying success. Your step one would take that away, so it is leaning in the direction of authoritarian.
Bruh, in state societies without widespread private land ownership there remains a distinction between state and public lands, and the state can be challenged with regards to ownership or usage rights in courts.
But I’m pretty sure Marx was more interested in Option B, I don’t think he was interested in using politics to build a strong democracy but rather wanted to topple any current system and hope a firect democracy pops up over night.
Reformism was not his first choice, but he mused at several points that bourgeois democracies with strong workers’ movements, like the USA and the UK at his time (big RIP to our labor movements), could potentially reform without mass revolution.
“It would perhaps be as well if things were to remain quiet for a few years yet, so that all this 1848 democracy has time to rot away.”
I’m unfamiliar with that quote or its provenance, but considering that the entire point of the disappointments of 1848 was that the revolutions, both liberal and socialist factions failed, and the ‘concessions’ offered in response by the established authoritarian regimes were nothing more than window dressing (with executions for flavor), thinking that the sheen of that farce needed to fade before further action could be taken is not unreasonable.
“…it happens that society is saved as often as the circle of its ruling class is narrowed, as often as a more exclusive interest asserts itself over the general. Every demand for the most simple bourgeois financial reform, for the most ordinary liberalism, for the most commonplace republicanism, for the flattest democracy is forthwith punished as an assault upon society and is branded as Socialism.”
How is that in any way in opposition to democracy or even reform?
“…the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle for democracy.”
I repeat the second statement.
These are three separate Karl Marx posts and they’re extremely vague, but he has been somewhat consistent that any form of government that is not direct democracy must be “overthrown” or “fought” or “toppled”.
In the long term, sure. If your goal is direct democracy without a state (“Communism”), then the goal is to eventually get there. But Marx was always very clear that intermediate steps were not fucking nothing, and in many cases were necessary.
You may need to jump over the gap on a broken bridge, but better a broken bridge to jump over than the whole goddamn river.
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Socialism as outlined in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is a little sketchier because it makes a lot of unrealistic assumptions about human nature and is just generally super hard to implement without creating a power vacuum.
And is still pretty vague. There was a lot of colouring in for the Bolsheviks to do.
Socialism as in the USSR’s Socialism is a century old practice of the cruellest and most war hungry culture imagineable, having taken advantage of the afforementioned power vacuum to starve and torture millions at home, ally with the Nazis in WWII and then change sides halfway through, tear down democracies around the globe, and push us all the closest we have ever been to thermonuclear annihilation. A threat so great that even 30 years into its grave is still a great stone over our heads, having crafted a world power balance that will threaten our destruction for generations to come.
I’m glad it fell (plz don’t ban), but there’s hella artistic licence there.
The power vacuum came from the Tsar. They were always enemies of the Nazis, although they did temporarily agree not to fight them, and then afterwards they basically won the war themselves. The US went first with the nukes. I don’t even know what you mean about the current power balance - Russia is laughably weak, China is behind where it would have been if it took the Japan path. And, the thing about their cruel culture just sounds like bigotry.
The power vacuum came from the Tsar.
The Bolsheviks literally couped the democratically elected and socialist post-Tsar government of Russia, kickstarting several years of civil war.
They were always enemies of the Nazis, although they did temporarily agree not to fight them,
Funny, then, that they invaded Poland and the Baltics in tandem with the Nazis and spent several years supplying the Nazi war machine.
and then afterwards they basically won the war themselves.
Fucking what.
Even Stalin regarded the Soviet position as unwinnable without the Western Allies.
I didn’t expect to end up arguing with you, Pug.
The Bolsheviks literally couped the democratically elected and socialist post-Tsar government of Russia, kickstarting several years of civil war.
It was itself months old. Just like in France a century and a bit earlier, revolutions have a way of getting overthrown. And the one that stuck was itself autocratic.
If the Tsars had made actual concessions to liberalism earlier, maybe history would have developed differently. But, as it is, they waited until the late 19th century to abolish actual tied-to-the-land serfdom, were similarly reluctant to stop being autocratic feudal dicks in other ways, and set up the Duma right as revolutionaries of various stripes were trying to knock in their door. With the unpopularity of WWI and the necessity of having a lot of angry soldiers running around during it, instability became fait accompli.
Funny, then, that they invaded Poland and the Baltics in tandem with the Nazis and spent several years supplying the Nazi war machine.
The Nazis saw communism as right up their with the Jews as their main nemesis, and invented the term Judaeo-Bolshevik to describe how they’re actually the same. Yes, they did agree to not fight each other and split up some weaker nations (and trade? I’m not sure what you mean by supplying), but calling that an alliance seems like a stretch. I can’t believe both sides weren’t gauging when to break it off and attack the other from the start. Stalin spent that time shifting his defense production base to the Urals in preparation, even.
Compare Britain and France, or Italy and the Nazis, who were definitely allies.
Fucking what.
Even Stalin regarded the Soviet position as unwinnable without the Western Allies.
Yes, it would have been a very different war if the Nazis weren’t already fighting. But, as it was, they were in a stalemate circa 1941 when they started Barbarossa, and the Soviets ended up taking the lion’s share of casualties tipping the balance hard against them. Being a history student, I’m sure you as well have seen actual historians explain that human wave tactics weren’t a thing - Soviets died in spades because they were fighting hard against an enemy that saw them as subhuman.
In a few words “they basically won it themselves” is the best I could do. Since there were many topics at play I didn’t want to start pulling out statistics and narrative to explain the nuances behind that, or talk about counterfactuals relating to it being a 1-on-1 fight.
You didn’t answer the question. Today’s definition of Socialism genius. Stop sniffing the fingers that have been up you own ass so you can type your answer the question. I bet you’re a terrible test taker.
Yeah, and capitalism has never lead to the toppling of foreign democracies or threatened thermonuclear annihilation
Ah, shit wait
Top of the line Whataboutism
It actually wasn’t. The comment I responded to was posing socialism as being at the root of these issues. It’s hardly the cause of any of these, much like how capitalism itself also isn’t the cause of toppling foreign democracies or threatening thermonuclear annihilation, which is what I was contrasting.
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Not Socialism, I specifically said tbe USSR in this example.
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I didn’t call it the root, I don’t think Joseph Stalin invented being a King, I just think he has forever stained the word Socialism.
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When people talk about an apple that is rotten because somebody specifically asked about it, talking about all the rotten oranges and pears in the world is top of the line whataboutism.
You mean to say you weren’t actually talking about socialism, just like I wasn’t actually talking about capitalism, but instead the US hegemony in particular? 😝
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My dad was Finnish, and I think it helps to remember, Finns were fighting Russians before and during the time Russia called itself Communist and Socialist. The western side of that divide, the Nordic countries, practiced a very different version of “socialism”, with democracy, and they seem to be reaping a lot of benefits.
the cruellest and most war hungry culture imagineable
America?
BuT hER eMaILs!
Gonna go bomb a wedding, maybe torture some Muslims at Gitmo? You sick fucks can’t go a year without invading a country or brutally toppling a government. What’s the longest you ever not been in a war/conflict/or any other word you created to downplay your crimes?
bUt TrUmP iS tHe OnLy PrObLeM wItH aMeRicA
Yes, you have several EmAiLs to complain about instead of actually addressing anything. I doubt anyone here thinks the US is perfect, but that’s not the question.
I did address something, I addressed that the US is everything that American thought about the Soviets.
The question had noting to do with perfect, the question was about unmistakable evil.
No, the question was about the Soviet Union. That’s why talking about the US is a cop-out.
“Socialism by its barest definition is great.” That’s what I thought too until I learned about the USSR’s Socialism and how it led to starvation, torture, war, and nearly caused a nuclear apocalypse. It’s easy to romanticize socialism in theory, but we must remember the horrors it has caused in practice.
Lmao thats just the short version of my comment
Propaganda. Generations of propaganda because the one major power that had the ability to potentially topple the US from their self-determined position as World SuperLeaders called themselves the USSR
