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https://defcon.social/@protimetheft/112269169354516773People worried that communism
or socialism would take your freedom: capitalism stole your pension, took your savings, destroyed the climate, shipped more jobs overseas, robbed you of quality healthcare, defunded the educational system, shackled you with constant and mounting debt, and left you with only fear in the form of racism, xenophobia, patriarchy, and imaginary enemies you feel the need to hoard guns to protect against.
brooklynite
(96,882 posts)edhopper
(34,441 posts)Because any measure to help the populace or address inequity is decried as socialism by the Right.
But thank you for repeating THEIR talking point.
brooklynite
(96,882 posts)When you say "But it's DEMOCRATIC Socialism" you've already lost the argument.
And again, no nation, even those without RW political movements, seems to have thought Socialism ("the State controls the means of production" is a good idea.
paleotn
(18,799 posts)brooklynite
(96,882 posts)COMMUNISM was an unachievable vision that imagined that once socialism was installed, the Government would fade away and the "commune" would take care of all matters.
What Bernie Sanders claim as "Democratic Socialism" is merely a social safety net provided within a capitalist economic system.
paleotn
(18,799 posts)Do you really follow such a black and white views of things or do you think it better to incorporate the best of various systems and ideas? As an insufferable pragmatist, I don't give two shits about ideology.
Voltaire2
(14,470 posts)goes away. Social Democrats.
Of course the fact that Democratic Socialist political parties in power have generally implemented social democratic reforms and only rarely nationalized industries belies just how pedantic the argument is.
Zeitghost
(4,249 posts)Communism is a social/political system that, among other things, utilizes socialist economic policies.
Socialism is not communism-lite.
Celerity
(46,154 posts)We have a very robust (and yet also highly regulated) private capitalist sector that synergistically works with an expansive public social welfare state that combine to produce some of the highest (if not the highest) standards of living on the planet.
We most definitely are NOT socialist nations, democratic or otherwise.
So frustrated that some of the left Democrats falsely self-label as democratic socialists, when none of them argue for state control of the means of production, which is a core tenet of socialism. Even Sanders has said NO, he doesn't believe in pushing for state control of the means of production on multiple occasions.
I have been battling this almost since I joined here in summer 2018. It is such a self-defeating (and false) self-labelling to grasp onto in the hyper-capitalist, reactionary US.
https://bigthink.com/the-present/what-is-socialism-bernie-sanders/
snip
He goes a bit into the particulars of policy and explained that his conception of socialism would require this is what it would look like universal health care, total employment, free college education, more public spending, a living wage, environmental regulations, and a robust democratic culture to come into existence. He flatly denied any interest in nationalization, telling the audience:
The contents of this speech were very similar to other statements he has made about socialism across his entire political career. The entire speech could have been summed up neatly in a quote he gave to the Associated Press back in 1997:
snip
WAIT A MOMENT, PRAISE FOR THE NEW DEAL? NO INTEREST IN NATIONALIZATION? THAT DEFINITION SOUNDS A LOT LIKE CAPITALISM!
snip
paleotn
(18,799 posts)I think he was into smörgåsbords or something but I'd have to check.
Celerity
(46,154 posts)Plural
smörgåsbord - indefinite form
smörgåsbords - indefinite form genitive
smörgåsborden - definite form
smörgåsbordens - definite form genitive
Singular (with the Swedish names for the forms, they mirror the English labels for the plural forms above)
ett smörgåsbord - obestämd form
ett smörgåsbords - obestämd form genitiv
smörgåsbordet - bestämd form
smörgåsbordets - bestämd form genitiv
Voltaire2
(14,470 posts)The system is manifestly broken. Instead of debating how to fix it, what to replace it with, we are forced into defending the status quo in order to hold back 21st century fascism.
This is a truly shitty situation.
paleotn
(18,799 posts)Reminds me of a chat with some of my Swedish colleagues. Sweden has one of the highest rates of millionaires and billionaires per capita on the planet. And yet has a massive social safety net, with taxes to fund it. How can that be? Their simply answer was, unlike Americans, Swedes don't have to worry about healthcare coverage and basic income, so they're free to follow their dreams and ideas as far as work is concerned. And sometimes those ideas hit it big. That's a gigantic risk few can take in the US. Not the whole answer, certainly, but it is an interesting factoid.
Capitalism works, just like fire works. But both can kill you if not well controlled. In my mind, that's where socialism comes in. On the other hand, communism, like libertarianism, is illogical and an abject failure.
onecaliberal
(35,161 posts)Of people. Making 4,000% what your workers make might seem to work for you. But not so much for the people doing the work for slave wages.
paleotn
(18,799 posts)Drives me nuts when we fail to see the nuance and get just as black and white as the right. That's a simplistic view that doesn't work in the real world.
Capitalism works very well. It's efficient and meshes well with human nature. Sometimes too well and you get the example you mentioned. Like most things, it has to be controlled and that's where socialist ideas come in. Equality before the law. Equality of opportunity. And we are our brother's keeper to an extent and must ensure they don't starve or lack medical care.
BUT, if you're looking for equality in all outcomes, that's never, ever going to happen. We are most certainly not created equal and the differences will show over time. Sorry, but that's how the world works.
onecaliberal
(35,161 posts)Idgaf how it should work, this is reality. Condescending remarks arent going to change it,
Fuck the patriarchy!
paleotn
(18,799 posts)onecaliberal
(35,161 posts)This is even more heartbreaking.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218858982
Voltaire2
(14,470 posts)From the late 70s onwards the neoliberal consensus has deregulated capitalism globally. It is at this point nearly impossible to reverse that because of the well financed global fascist political parties that actively obstruct reform and force their opposition into a defense of a status quo that everyone knows isnt working.
paleotn
(18,799 posts)And you're substituting a different boogeyman for the one the right uses, .i.e. George Soros. Amazing how we fall into exactly the same illogical thinking the right does. I guess it's just being human.
But to your point, yes, we have rolled back regulation too far in a number of ways. And sometimes Democratic administrations supported it. The Financial Services Modernization Act, signed by Bill Clinton, is quite possibly the most horrible thing a Democratic administration ever did short of escalating the Vietnam War.
Zeitghost
(4,249 posts)With social welfare policies. Social safety net programs are not socialist. Socialism is the state owning all or most of any business operation.
Sweden is not a socialist country. They also do not have more millionaires per capita than the US.
paleotn
(18,799 posts)A democracy where the means of production are owned by the state? Now that's a conundrum.
Zeitghost
(4,249 posts)Is still socialism, it's just chosen by the people democratically instead of forced upon them by a revolutionary authoritarian single party government as it is in communism.
The economics are still largely the same with the state controlling the means of production and the allocation of resources.
The Bernie crowd has tried to sugar coat it and focus on the positive side, but at the end of the day, it's socialism and the American people will reject it. We are all pretty much fine with socializing certain things like defense, public safety and roads. Many of us are fine with socializing medical care and public utilities. But outside a handful of radicals, nobody wants to socialize food production or manufacturing.
Celerity
(46,154 posts)This was not the case until a series of centre right neoliberal Swedish governments in the Riksdag (our unicameral parliament) started changing the tax code to extract far higher tax rates from labour than from capital gains profits and specualtive equity and bond trading/investing. I have posted on all this multiple times in the past here.
Per capita
(Hong Kong and Guernsey are not nation states and they both are also tax havens, as is Switzerland, Singapore, and all the rest above us)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_billionaires
Total Number
Only 11 actual completely recognised nation states (so no Hong Kong or Taiwan) have more billionaires in TOTAL (not even per capita) than we do, and we only have around 10.7 million people as of today.
DFW
(55,980 posts)Socialism and communism, whenever implemented, have always taken peoples freedom away. Thats why people apparently prefer to tinker with capitalism than embrace socialism. Under capitalism, people have always tried to speak truth to power. Under communism and socialism, power is the only truth allowed, which is probably why they have such trouble catching on. Nobody except a control freak likes living where control freaks have total control.
Voltaire2
(14,470 posts)elected socialist government. It is almost as if what our government fears most is just that.
Emile
(27,864 posts)Predatory Capitalism in check.
pandr32
(11,978 posts)DENVERPOPS
(9,646 posts)if this group of so-called new Republican's win, they will toss the constitution on the first day, and the Corporate Fascists will take control forever more....
It will read like Orwell's ANIMAL FARM, or 1984.......of course it isn't the government we had to fear, like Orwell stated....It was the Corporations taking over the Gov't which is what we have to fear. Dictionary definition of Fascism: A merger of Corporations and Government......
Instead of the United States of America, it will be the Corporate States of America, or Facist States of America.... We are already mostly there, folks.....this is the last stand !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
markodochartaigh
(1,716 posts)were rich, mostly White, people in suits and ties. Wage theft is one of the most common types of theft in the US and is rarely mentioned.
GiqueCee
(1,201 posts)... is the control of capital MONEY and is in no way, shape, or form synonymous with free enterprise, in fact, capitalists hate free enterprise because it gets in the way of their ultimate goal of establishing Feudalism v.2, where the oligarchs have total dominion over the lives of their vassals that's us and they have zero compunction about employing any and every means at their disposal to achieve that nefarious end.
The Soviets gave socialism a bad name, and capitalists harped on it constantly, but it is simply putting the best interests of people ahead of the best interests of corporations, which have NEVER given two shits about the harm they do to working people, the environment, and the world in general.
Here's an idea: Make every corporation a Benefit Corporation. From Wikipedia: "In business, and only in United States corporate law, a benefit corporation is a type of for-profit corporate entity whose goals include making a positive impact on society. Laws concerning conventional corporations typically do not define the "best interest of the corporation", which has led some to believe that increasing shareholder value (profits and/or share price) is the only overarching or compelling interest of a corporation.[1] Benefit corporations explicitly specify that profit is not their only goal. Their activities may or may not differ much from traditional corporations.[2] An ordinary corporation may change to a benefit corporation merely by stating in its approved corporate bylaws that it is a benefit corporation." Might want to stiffen the B-Corp requirements a bit.
Capitalism and predatory corporatism will not only be the death of America, they will ultimately spell the death of humanity, and all life on Earth if they are not brought to heel, and we are gaining speed toward that horrific end a lot faster than anyone wants to admit, but the science doesn't lie. Corporatists do. Their motto might as well be: "What has posterity ever done for me?"
To paraphrase Sun Tsu in "The Art of War," such people will burn the world to the ground just so they can rule over the ashes.
The Unmitigated Gall
(4,319 posts)Where everything is exposed to market forces, including our access to healthcare and education, where other advanced nations seem to draw a reasonable boundary at where these market forces can penetrate.
But don't ask Empty-G was socialism is. Little Miss "PPP forgiven" will tell you it's about Joe giving money to people who don't deserve it.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,517 posts)I just found out Eddie Albert was blacklisted because his wife was a leftist from *gasp* Mexico.
Margo held progressive political views, but she was not a member of the Communist Party. In 1950, her name and that of her husband, Eddie Albert, were published in Red Channels, an anti-Communist pamphlet that purported to expose Communist influence within the entertainment industry.
Robbers, gamblers and cheats are the biggest supporters of unfettered Capitalism. And they make enemies of some of the most admirable people this country has produced.