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.
IMHO remnants from the cold war indoctrination.
The people who hate it are those who think themselves better than their peers. They think they deserve more than their peers, and that socialism transfers their superior effort to the benefit of their inferiors.
They see socialism not as everyone helping everyone, but as the successful being forced to support the lazy.
Yes. My one note would be that it may be more to the root of it to say that they see it as the good (anything they like) having to help the bad (anything else). These sorts almost always reduce down to good/bad, me/them, clean/dirty because they (like all of us in our own ways) simply desire understanding and the surety it provides. Framing things as 0/1 is much easier to understand than actually facing the grey of reality. It’s easy to want easy. Not often good or helpful, but just so dang easy to abide by.
People don’t really like change.
Think about free public libraries. They’re fairly popular, and not controversial outside of fringe libertarian types and assholes. People like that you can borrow books and other media for free. Usually there’s a bit of a backlash if there’s a movement to shut down libraries or limit their services.
Imagine if free public libraries didn’t exist, and someone tried to invent them today. People would be having screaming fits about communism. It’s stealing from the authors. it’s ruining publishing. We don’t need tax dollars for this when we have amazon. Blah blah blah.
It’s the same with other things we could socialize. health care is a privatized nightmare. If we somehow got a public option in, eventually people would start reflexively defending it.
So what I’m saying is many people don’t really have a set of internally consistent beliefs. They just don’t like change.
Such a good point. Every once in a while I come across a particular social policy in a European country that someone from there is astonished doesn’t exist in other countries and on paper you think this would be great but you would know it would be such a hard sell in your / other countries. I think on a city / regional level there is a lot more about looking what other places are doing well top adopt them but don’t see it as much on an international level (outside of the EU anyway)
You need a definition. You didn’t define it, and people who hate it rarely define it. If nobody knows what everyone is talking about, then it’s all a waste of time.
So, what do you think it means?
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”.
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.
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.
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!
Socialism, as far as Marx was concerned, is a transitional stage to Communism. This is why it gets a lot of push back. Because of that connection. Worse, youve got generations of people conflating the two. And worse still, you have a few examples of people who were claiming to be socialist, who were really just using socialism for their own ends.
The reality is that Socialism is about everything being about the betterment of the people. That assets are a shared ownership, rather than privately owned. This in turn creates a fairer distribution of the wealth generated. So everyone’s lives improve.
The issue, the real issue, is that socialism needs a very large government in order to work. The fear is that this would create out of control bureaucracy. With middle mangers everywhere doing middle manger things that would create a system that was slow and worse far easier to corrupt. On top of that, you have the issue of competition not being the driving force of innovation. The government would control and mandate investment and innovation. Which again comes back to the middle mangers. There is also an issue with free speech. After all, if the government controls everything, where do you go if that government doesnt see the issues that its created? And worse still, how might it handle those dissenting voices?
The reality is that no one system is “the best” and really what would work best is a mixed system. One that builds a well regulated economy while maintaining a safety net for the people. So you would have private businesses, competition, innovation combined with free healthcare, free education, unemployment support, worker rights, high taxes, and high transparency and accountability.
It gets really hard to make money and exploit people when they don’t fear for their livelihoods.
It’s propaganda. The reality is that much of our system is already Socialized. In fact, some of the best stuff in our society is Socialist.
Schools, libraries, fire departments, police, military, parks, roads, etc. are all Socialist concepts at their foundation.
Fire Departments used to work by subscription. A building owner would pay a local fire brigade for protection. He would get a small cast iron badge that he’d place next to his doorway. If a building caught fire, the fire brigade would show up, and if there was a a “fire mark,” they’d fight the fire. If there wasn’t a fire mark, they’d let it burn down. That is a strictly Capitalist concept.
It was eventually decided that public tax money would be used to protect EVERYBODY from fire, which is a Socialist concept. The old subscription-based fire brigade concept evolved into the predatory insurance industry, a Capitalist concept which has been preying upon us ever since.
Like most political philosophies, Socialism has its positives and negatives. Any political philosophy, taken to its most extreme ends, would be a disaster. The best governments take the most successful parts of any philosophy, and rejects the bad parts. A pure Democratic/Republican/Socialist government would be terrible, but a combination of the best elements, could be really great.
MAGA is not a legitimate political philosophy. it’s core tenets include treason, corruption, racism, bigotry, violence, pedophilia, misogyny, intolerance, ignorance, and incompetence. MAGA is a criminal enterprise disguising itself as a legitimate political movement, and it’s influence must be fully purged from our government and our society.
No, its means workers control the means of production.
Edit: Im getting really tired of people conflating socialism with social programs. Its not socialism when the government does something, stop saying it is.
Socialism. Production and distribution is owned by the community (government).
It has nothing to do with “Handouts”. Or helping your neighbor really.
There is no redistribution of wealth. That is communism.
Socialism with handouts is communism.
You could have a completely Socialistic society that let’s some of it’s people starve because it benefits the majority.
A great example to look at socialism is the nazi party creating Volkswagen.
People in Germany needed an affordable car. They created the production and distribution of affordable cars, owned and operated by the controlling government party.
Now, you can debate all you want on if it was a good or bad idea.
Average German looking for simple affordable car? Probably would think it was a good idea.
Rich German looking for a Duesenberg? Probably hates the idea of Volkswagen and spending their tax dollars on it.
Poor German? They aren’t getting a car anyways
A large government can easily have a monopoly on a good or service.
If that’s a good or bad thing is debatable
For example, say America was 100% Socialistic.
Government would gain access to all satalites and towers and issue the Volkstelefon. Affordable phone and internet for everyone!
Sounds great?
Imagine if tomorrow Trump issued his phone in that style.
Probably not a good idea?
So why all the hate?
ELI5: Because socialism is not always the right answer just like capitalism isn’t always the right answer.
Yeah, you show some spirit, but no, that’s not what those words mean, you even use them with different meanings - wiki/Socialism, wiki/Communism.
You misrepresented the two terms so badly I was looking for funny sarcasm/parody/trolling (eg “100% socialistic”, “hangouts/wealth redistribution is communism and socialism is communal ownership”, etc). Same with VW example.And alleging “socialism” (actually ‘communism’, the communal ownership of production factors) is less secure for your personal freedoms than private companies owning your data is just lol. The gov has the same access. Atm private companies control a lot of gov too so you just don’t really have a gov of the people anymore.
Not to mention that socialism/communism is not incompatible with democracy.
You can have 0 private (mega)corps (for simplicity sake: that just means no stock markets) and still have a perfectly normal & representative democracy.In fact, with people more engaged & putting the work into governance (not voting like a sports fan), that’s how you safeguard from fascism.
And yes, Trump can issue a phone in that style, since nobody is overthrowing him (is there even a codified procedure for that?).
You could have a completely Socialistic society that let’s some of it’s people starve because it benefits the majority.
Besides the word “socialistic” not meaning that (unless you meant that the choice was between ‘everybody starving’ and ‘a minority starving’) a majority can always outvote the minority, that is their moral prerogative. That is the opposite of a minority rule where the majority can starve (or be otherwise hindered/stolen from/enslaved/etc).
The difference is that with communal wealth the food production isn’t motivated by profit, but way more by food production quantity.
I think you might be confusing socialism and state capitalism here.
Socialism. Production and distribution is owned by the community (government).
This is a somewhat inaccurate definition. Socialism is the social ownership of means of production that does not necessarily mean the government. It comes in many forms such as democratic ownership by the employees (worker cooperatives), community ownership like utility providers being owned by the town and townsfolk, or state ownership if the state is democratically elected and accountable to the working class.
The concept of democratic and social ownership would be lost in an authoritarian state.
It has nothing to do with “Handouts”. Or helping your neighbor really.
There is no redistribution of wealth. That is communism.
Socialism with handouts is communism.
Both socialism and communism are concerned with redistribution of wealth. They just disagree on the method. Socialists believe that by eliminating capitalism and with progressive taxation wealth redistribution becomes inevitable, whole communists thinks this will only be achieved with a powerful state to oversee the redistribution process.
You could have a completely Socialistic society that let’s some of it’s people starve because it benefits the majority.
This scenario contradicts the core moral and political goal of socialism which is ensuring the wellbeing of all member of the community by ending the exploitation inherited in capitalism. A system that allows this scenario is just unethical authoritarianism regardless of what people call it or think it is.
A great example to look at socialism is the nazi party creating Volkswagen.
The nazi party was socialist in name only. It was essentially a fascist regime that crushed actual socialist and communist movements, and imprisoned and murdered labour leaders. They also didn’t nationalize the majority of industry and relied heavily on forced labour.
Again this fits state capitalism better than socialism. It’s essentially the state controlling corporates instead of the social and democratic ownership by the working class that socialism seeks.
A large government can easily have a monopoly on a good or service.
For example, say America was 100% Socialistic.
Government would gain access to all satalites and towers and issue the Volkstelefon. Affordable phone and internet for everyone!
Imagine if tomorrow Trump issued his phone in that style.
thats a valid point but primary against state control not socialism itself.
In an ideal socialist system this Volkstelefon would be owned by a democratic entity rather than an elite group of politicians in a flawed democratic government. This entity would probably consist of worker and consumer representatives with the common goal of providing affordable high quality service that’s also fair to both the workers and consumers.
Your concern here is also shared with most socialists.
While yes socialism can some time manifest itself in the form of state ownership that’s never the ideal situation since it can easily transform into state capitalism if the state decisions weren’t representative of the workers’ will (which is usually the case in non-direct democracy systems).
the argument against it that I see the most is that governments are corruptible and inherently bad at managing taxpayer money and so it’s all a big scam.
fair enough, to be honest
yeah but it does that shit anyway under Capitalism. XD
One reason I can think is we haven’t yet seen a working socialist society, which often fail for external reasons.
For example, the socialist government in Cuba was severely undermined by the USA imposed blockade.
A more recent example is Venezuela, while you can think what you want about its current government, I don’t think USA should interfere with any sovereign nation.
There’s almost like a pattern, like someone, somewhere doesn’t like the idea of socialism to succeed.
China needs Taiwan to fail because the Chinese Communist Party maintains that democracy is incompatible with the Chinese culture. Having a very successful Chinese democracy shows that Chinese culture is compatible with democracy.
In a similar way, capitalists do everything they can to scuttle socialist countries, because a working socialist country would show that it was viable. Hence endless embargoes, wars, and a steady stream of propaganda. This was true for the entire life of the Soviet Union, and continues to this day for socialist countries.
Indeed my friend… Sad state of affairs.
There are plenty of surviving socialist states, and Cuba, Venezuela, and Vietnam for that matter still exist despite extensive US meddling so it’s weird to call them non-surviving.
Whether you want to call China socialist is a whole different kettle of worms, but I think it demonstrates rather handily that socialism’s second greatest burden beyond the necessity of fighting off capitalists is the authoritarianism of Marxists.
I’m a total lamen but what makes Marxism authoritarian?
Marxism posits that socialism is best achieved through a command/centralized economy. There’s plenty of room for interpretation and of course being a Marxist doesn’t mean you have to agree with 150 year old socioeconomic theories on every point but generally that’s the form Marxist governments have assumed, probably because it is in the interest of the people running a government to take all the power they can.
If the government controls production from the ground up there’s just no other model to call it but authoritarian, everything within that society can only happen by their consent or by breaking the law.
China produced more billionaires than the US this year.
Sure, and they do plenty of capitalist hellscape shit in general and I’ll shitpost about that all day. They’ve also raised nearly a billion people out of poverty since 1978 and one of the original conceits of Marxism is that capitalism might be necessarily to build the industrial foundation for socialism to be viable in the first place so… We’ll see what happens as they come closer and closer to undeniably a society that could enact true socialism if it wanted to.
We do know their state has absolutely no qualms about disappearing billionaires as is. Or, you know, millions of Muslims.
This is a great perspective and it always helps me with gloom and doom. There are billions of people infinitely better off than twenty years ago in regards to access to food, electricity, and clean water.
You don’t need to wonder what will happen as China has already embraced fascism. Once wealthy individuals and their corporations gather enough power China will be no different than the rest of the world. I would love for them to prove me wrong.
Capitalism always results in the same outcome and China is no different. Such is life.
I agree, that’s why I called them non-working socialist states.
My point is we haven’t yet seen how well (or bad) could a socialist state work if left alone.
The entirety of civilization is based on socialism to one degree or another. Even dictators depend on socialism. The tipping point is where that socialism becomes leveraged for personal ambitions.
Where do dictators support workers owning the means of production?
Another person who doesnt understand socialism.
