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Socialism is scary and way worse than capitalism in many ways
What you’re thinking of is social democracy.
minimum wage, universal healthcare, all the nice stuff here in Europe is social-democratic, not socialist
The only real problem I have with capitalism is the people that refuse to consider any other way of operating, refuse to rein it in, or immediately make it a binary choice between capitalism and “scary” communism.
Economic systems don’t need to be corralled into boxes and never be allowed cross lines. The people forcing that take are the ones profiting from the status quo, by power and/or wealth.
Any of the systems can be combined, the problem is fight against greed that makes people bend the system to funnel power money to a specific group. Whether it be the dictator and his cronies or a bunch of oligarchs. If this cannot be prevented, then no system will work without eventually crushing the average person.
People don’t realize that not every implementation of Socialist policies have to involve a vanguardist dictatorship like China or USSR (which is what almost every American have in mind when they think of “Socialism”)
Well it depends on how you define “socialism” which is used to mean anything from a socialist policy to a fully socialist society. For some socialist policies, you can simply vote in some socialists into a parliamentary system and get them to pass some.
But there’s never been enough socialists peacefully voted into power to make a fully socialist/communist society, so those attempts have always come at the barrel of a gun, which so far has always resulted in an authoritarian regime.
I’d love to see one actually get voted into power someday, but I have a feeling I will be waiting for a very long time.
There are many examples of elections won by socialist/communist parties. There would have been more of they weren’t outlawed or suppressed historically.
There are also examples of revolutions that didn’t end in authoritarian regimes, for example the ones that ended in anarchist communities.
Yes as I said if we are talking about a share of parliament, that’s true. But fully socialist (communist) governments? Only by force so far.
Does Kerala (though only a state and receives national funds) or Allendé’s Chile (Overthrown by US supported military coup after a couple of years) count, or do they not for the reasons in brackets or others?
Kerala: As you mention, not a country. Also didn’t really seize the means of production. But when I think of Communism working well, it’s at a local level like this rather than at the level of a country. There are communes and kibbutzes that lasted decades. Generally a tough life but at a small level you can have a government controlling everything without hopefully making as many huge mistakes. Worst case you can more easily just leave if they do (hopefully they let you).
Chile: Also didn’t fully seize the means of production, it’s more or less a perfect example of a government that’s run by a socialist majority for a small amout of time and which enacts socialist measures during that time, but never reaching full communism. This is the kind of thing I would hold up as the ideal case. Socialism for long enough to strengthen the situation of the people, but not long enough to wreck the economy and grow into full blown authoritarianism.
Thanks for the detailed responses.
Sounds like, to me, that you have a bigger issue with government than Socialism or Communism themselves. Are you much of an anarchist?
No, I’m more of a social democrat. I’m a believer that the best we’ve come up with is to have a government who’s job is to fill in the holes (economic externalities) of capitalism, while curbing it’s worst instincts (monopolies, tragedy of the commons issues like global warming).
Indeed this is the system the most successful and happy countries use. Go too far to the capitalist side or too far to the socialist side and things deteriorate quickly, as history shows over and over.
Right now, especially in the USA, we are experiencing what happens when things go too far to the capitalist side.
Unfortunately it seems that this combined with misinformation leads to fascism which will destroy even capitalism and likely leave us only with war and authoritarianism. Which is what you get at both extremes of the political spectrum.
When it comes to personal liberties, I am more of a libertarian though. I am against the war on drugs or most wars, proxy or otherwise, unless they are in defense. The non aggression principle in libertarianism is something that appeals to me.
How about you? Full blown socialist I’m guessing?
There is no distinction. A socialist/communist party with a majority in a parliament forms a government, and there are examples of those elected. Even a lot of the authoritarian ones established in a revolution had a parliament with non communist parties having representatives.
Of course there’s a distinction. A partial socialist/communist government has never implement full communism (seize the means of production and guarantee equal distribution of resources). That’s only ever been done by force.
They have achieved things like universal health care and education, however, and for that we should all be grateful. IMHO the best case scenario really is a parliamentary system with a socialist majority to get these kind of things passed but leave a heavily regulated capitalist economic system in place.
You are repeating false statements. There have been fully communist elected governments in Nepal, India, San Marino and probably more. In Spain we had a elected republican government run mainly by socialists and even an anarchist president.
The reason why most of them have been through a revolution is because they were declared illegal.
Nepal: Installed by force in the armed uprising against Rana rule in 1951
India: Never seized the means of production (or really got very powerful IMO)
San Marino: Attemped a coup and never seized the means of production.
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Socialism and capitalism have a lot of overlap. This belief and meme that they are completely separate is incredibly simple-minded and indicative of US thinking patterns. US Americans have had it beaten into their heads that there are only two sides for so long that it permeates their very being.
To have a fair system, components of multiple philosophies and systems will have to be mixed. Treating capitalism as all bad is plain dumb.
I mean it’s a tweet. The very essence isn’t long from and open to discussion of every permutation of capitalism. It’s like taking a snarky sarcastic comment and fully flushing it out and realizing there are hella holes in the comedy. Well yeah. There are ways to make it work. But those ways are being ignored for the profits. Which is implied in the sarcasm.
So I can reduce anything complex to a misrepresentation, tweet it, and claim “well, you know what I mean right? I don’t have enough characters to express my actual belief, so this is fine”. Got it.
I’m saying it’s a consequence of the format. Not the subject. Which I clearly stated. The whole context is that the format limits the interaction and in essence is part of the enshitification.
We’re angry about unbridled end-stage capitalism
Just like with everything in life, there’s a right amount of something and its not zero. Properly regulated free market is probably the best economic system we’ve come up with. I challenge you to come up with a better system.
Its the fact that we’ve voted in greedy leaders and have such lax rules about lobbying and open bribery that’s allowed so much shit to happen.
Greedy people vote for greedy leaders. Money mattered more than morals in at least the last federal elections since 2000.
By the way, commerce is not the same thing as capitalism.
It’s not but it can’t be divorced form capitalism either.
A farmer does not produce grain out of the goodness of his heart. He’s doing it to provide for his family’s needs and wants, maybe new clothes for his kids or a new stove, etc. We work jobs to get paid so we can feed ourselves and our families and maybe buy something nice or shiny once in a while and save for retirement.
Production of commodities and services, profit-motive, capital accumulation, If that’s not the basis of capitalism, I’m not sure what is?
That has been gone over by Marx over 150 years ago. I’m not going to go over everything Marx said about capitalism, he wrote an entire book called Das Kapital about it. Here’s a summary that does a pretty good job at getting Marx’s ideas across. You can skip the first 2-3 chapters as the main criticism of capitalism starts around chapter 4. But some things refer back to the previous chapters so you might want to watch them if some parts of Marx’s ideas aren’t very clear.
As for you points, I’ll do a short summary:
- Production of commodities and services is not capitalistic, we’ve been producing commodities and services for more than a millennia before capitalism was even a concept.
- Profit-motive is a poorly defined concept if we want to divorce it from capitalism. Profit-motive in the sense that I want to make all the money is capitalistic. But if we talk about the “profit-motive” in the sense that I want money so I could buy things I want to use, Marx argues that is not capital and not capitalism.
- Marx has a very specific definition of capital where capital is something that exists for the purpose of making more capital. If you make $10 mil and you buy a fancy house, that $10 mil you got is not capital and the house you bought is also not is not capital, but if you take that $10 mil and you for instance invest it with the purpose of getting $20 mil later, now it’s capital. The capitalist definition of capital doesn’t acknowledge the purpose money or things, so everything is capital which also makes it impossible to separate capital accumulation from just owning things you need to live your life. Your house is not capital, your car is not capital, your phone is not capital, the money you’re saving up for a trip to the Bahamas is not capital. But if you own a company and the means of production within that company and you’re buying in labor to use your means of production so you could siphon surplus value from the laborers work, that’s capital.
The things you’ve brought up aren’t necessarily the basis of capitalism. They’re the basis of capitalism only if you want them to be the basis of capitalism.
That’s why you need to define the term. Here’s the first result I got when I searched for a definition of capitalism.
An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development occurs through the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.
Can commerce occur in other systems? Of course it can. It has, it does, it will continue to do so.
Capitalism is private control over the factors of production. So you can for example have a socialist society in which the factors of production are owned by the community, but there’s still markets and commerce.
One hurdle we have to deal with is the assumption by the general public that markets = capitalism.
You tell people capitalism has failed them and they worry that you mean to take away their ability to buy a latte.
To answer your rhetorical question, a lot of people think Capitalism stands for the corrupt ignoble western governments, unlike their own glorious reputable eastern “socialist” governments. /ironic
No…not everyone hates capitalism. Everyone hates uncontrolled capitalism.
Socialism isn’t some magical bandaid that will make everything better. It has a shit ton of it’s own problems and downfalls…nearly all of which are conveniently glossed over by leftists.
Then you have a fundamental problem. Capitalists hate control. They hate regulation. They hate competition. And they spend a lot of money in power trying to get rid of all of it. The system is broken by design. Or rather, it was designed to benefit someone who is not you.
capitaliststhe upper class / those in power. This exists in communism and every other system as well.Yes, some people will try to twist any type of system to benefit themselves. That’s true, and it’s also true that capitalism celebrates those evil motherfuckers, whereas some other forms of government don’t.
Exactly. Greed and self-interest are not eliminated by changing economic systems. They wil justl manifest differently (for example, the nomenklatura in the USSR).
Was it not improved by upgrading from Feudalism to Capitalism?
At first, yes. To make that shift you have to throw the aristocracy, and perhaps a monarchy here or there, into the trash and divvy up the spoils. Over time, the new system can (and some say will inevitably) revert. Once you have enough wealth concentration in the hands of a few, you essentially re-create an aristocracy and the feudal system that goes with it.
It can also be argued that a feudal system is capitalist to begin with. Land and laborers to work it, used to be the key deciding factor in wealth and therefore, power. Wars are where you steal land from others, assuming control of the people that live on it, thereby securing more wealth and power. The industrial revolution saw a gradual shift towards energy production and consumption as a defining factor. So still somewhat land based, but with very different constraints and far less dependence on who lives on it. Now, in the late information age, access to energy and data are emerging as the main deciding factors. But it’s also not hard to imagine players that have the most access to energy and data as feudal lords, provided they can influence politics and people’s lives in the same way a feudal system can (just without borders). And all of that is top-to-bottom running within a capitalist framework.
Did we improve things? Well, moving towards a central government that supports an actual justice system that isn’t prey to your employer or landlord’s whims (feudal lord) is a huge win. For instance in the UK, that happened a long time ago. In practice, I think that is still mostly true, but there are some lingering artifacts and maybe even some creep backwards. Consider de-facto class systems, institutionalized bigotry, and racism. On balance, I’d say yes, but I can’t say with certainty that it’s an absolute win.
So the government who regulates is simultaneously the enemy of and the definition of capitalists?
You clearly have never read anything about it, so I’d be curious to know specifically which part of socialist theory you disagree with.
Everyone hates uncontrolled capitalism
Yeah, that’s capitalism. By definition, capitalism demands to be uncontrolled and without rules to bring the most profit. So when you’re done pulling stuff out of thin air, let us know
In that case why do we have so many good examples of regulation in capitalist systems, the most effective being the “Scandinavian model” countries which effectively blended large amounts of socialism into a capitalist system and enjoy the best health and happiness rates in the world?
Indeed there is no such thing as an unregulated capitalist economy anywhere in the world. They all have staggering amounts of regulation.
But have you read enough theory? I think you need to read more of the theory.
I have definitely read enough to not write something as incoherent as
No…not everyone hates capitalism. Everyone hates uncontrolled capitalism
and just proving the OP’s post right.
I think you need to read more of the theory.
I truly could not care less about the opinion of someone like you who is defending capitalism with such passion in these comments
You know there is a lot of great points in this comment, some of which I will now argue against:
You should read the theory, clearly you haven’t read enough theory.
I don’t think it’s the theory most people disagree with.
Oh so now we’re moving the goalpost?
We started with “socialist theory is the problem!” but when pressured, suddenly it’s “well the theory is not really the problem”.
Go figures
I hate that people are shit and will ruin any economic/political system no matter how high-minded it may have otherwise been.
Similarly capitalism wouldn’t be a burning pile of diapers and old wigs if those involved didn’t have a complete and total disregard-bordering-on-antipathy for humanity and the common good.
Socialism invariably fails and ends ups corrupted into some shithole authoritarianism decorated with leftie-sounding slogans. It is however meant to do the greatest good for the greatest number, it’s just that in practice in the real world it’s crap at it so it doesn’t work because of human nature.
Capitalism doesn’t even try to do the greatest good for the greatest number - it’s quite literally The Sociopath’s Credo: “do what’s best for yourself and screw what’s good for everybody else”
Ultimately they both fail at making most people’s lives better, but Capitalism doesn’t even try.
The best we’ve achieved has been Capitalism narrowly applied to just Trade and overseen by some other separate political theory that actually tries in some way to go towards the greatest good for the greatest number, such as Social Democracy, but as we’ve been seeing right now in realtime, with enough time Capitalism ultimately grounds down such bounds and oversight and corrupts everything.
To me, left means progressive reform, so leftists definitely aren’t the anarchists or authoritarians who rant all day and night about the capitalism boogeyman.
Propaganda works
You can tell by some of these comments
“There was a famine in China, which means we now only can have the most extreme forms of capitalism!” - 70% of the propaganda.
“It’s either fully privatised Healthcare or it’s Stalinism”
“Nuance is for Communists!!” /s
Where funny?
It’s here in the comments by someone called the word police. I think they are cousins of the wambulamce.
It’s not funny, but it’s still irony.
Memes are supposed to be funny. I didn’t laugh at this
Memes are not supposed to be funny. Them being funny has just become a side effect if memes.
This looks more like a prompt to an AI meme generator than an actual meme.
The most boomer take I’ve ever heard about memes 💀
I mean… If you say so. But I guess you’ve never seen any political memes that dunk on the opposition, or “so relatable” memes, or memes with encouraging themes…
Hot take: I don’t think those are memes either😶. Although so relatable can be kind of funny in their own right. Those get a special pass
Then your personal take is in conflict with the definition of a meme.
Socialism won’t keep dragons from hoarding their gold. You would just be taken advantage of for the same thing, your labor, through a different channel.
Which channel specifically are you referring to?
Your comment smells of “enlightened cantrist trying to sound reasonable (but failing at it)”
What a dumb question. Ya’ll really act like that dude is obligated to give you a free economics lesson with such a vague pointless question.
On a broad scale any economy is simply how money is created and used.
When the federal state has complete control over the money supply and dictates how it is allocated to firms in various markets, as is the case in both “socialist” dictatorships and some highly involved social democracies: the channel through which your labor is bought is purely through the government via offices and contract bids with industry suits attempting to maximize profits for themselves.
When the federal state takes a more unregulated hands off approach, letting banks create money organically through loans and only taxing enough to fund itself: the channel through which your labor is bought is purely through industry suits attempting to maximize profits for themselves.
Anarchist Society theoretically works very different, but they tend to only exist for about 5 minutes before devolving into the former case.
When the federal state takes a highly regulated and invested approach (“The Market System”), much like a social democracy, where money supply quickly becomes convoluted but strictly managed based on economic needs: your labor is bought via your association to one or more of a series of small firms competing to fill demands to maximize profits for themselves. Some industries are allowed to operate at larger “economy of scale” for the sake of efficiency but ideally such a state wouldn’t allow businesses to grow too large and would tax them such that doing so much more work would yield fast diminishing returns on investment.
And then like a million more grey inbetweens.
As an Indian guy, I-
Yes…
“Everything is fucked… how can this be?!”
Well, sometimes events pushed into motion or accelerated by a “root cause” develop lives of their own. Without concerted effort neither with capitalism nor with the absence/alternative of/to capitalism will we solve climate change or patriarchy.
Patriarchy appears to have been solved in Rojava/Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Though I’m afraid not for much longer.
While I welcome some developments in NE Syria, this is propaganda.
I don’t mind being corrected. Would you care to explain?
Well, you cannot just declare the dissolution of Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition and expect everything to follow along. We need centuries of conditions of antipatriarchial policy to be able to claim eradication of patriarchy.
I would not even be saying we eradicated classist aristocracy in European republics, because the ideology is still relevant.
Good point. I’ve read that the Kurdish leadership is trying hard to integrate Arabs into government, making everything available to read in Arabic, etc. I just hope they can hang on and continue to improve. I don’t trust HTS at all, and the Turkish government are doing their damnedest to eradicate Rojava.
Here’s an idea from WAAAAY out there, but what if they both suck? Because it’s just bad logic to assume that one is good because the other is bad.
We have no choice but to compare imperfect systems and pick something.
Quick! Name a negative life experience capitalists experience that socialists don’t.
American healthcare?
There’s nothing capitalist about American healthcare. If we had a free market I’d be able to buy my antidepressants ($15/mo) without seeing a doctor ($120).
It sounds like you’re describing a free market, not capitalism.
Crippling medical debt.
Crippling student debt
By “crippling” here you mean unable to participate in the market. That’s the thing that’s crippled when debt affects a person’s life.
A socialist had no access to the market anyway. They’re born into that crippled state.
I need to rate my employees based on a matrix with 9 fields so my boss can decide whom to fire because made up numbers are not as high as they anticipated them to be.
Raises below inflation
Leading to lack of material resources?
Here’s some socialists feeling the effects of centrally-controlled economic distributuon:
“It’s socialism when the government does things”
So glad to see some actual sanity in these comments in response to the ridiculous OP.
