Most Americans definitely do not want socialism. People simply want things to be affordable, and be able to live with the social services we need readily available, and to have the freedom to do what they want. That’s not socialism, that’s a well functioning democracy with a strong economy.
A lot of Americans “definitely do not want” Obamacare either, but they sure don’t want to give up the improvements that came with the Affordable Care Act.
In other words, Americans hate the label, but not the policies.
(By the way, regarding your other comment: FDR doesn’t get to decide what words mean. It doesn’t matter whether he called himself a socialist or not; what matters is whether he acted like one.)
Communism entails the collective ownership and administration of all means of production and the absence of social classes, while socialism advocates for worker control over means of production within a democratic society, allowing for some individual ownership and social stratification.
I agree with what you’ve said. That’s how I saw it too.
Communism is the last stage, while Socialism is a transition period, as a Communist friend once told me.
P.S. WTF am I getting downvoted for asking a question?
In addition, there are different levels of socialism. “Some” individual ownership turns people off. “The State owns the house I worked so hard to pay off?”
You can have full private ownership of your things AND have single-payer health care, top-tier public education, reining in predatory banks, etc.
We want to be Norway, not Venezuela.
Your government is directly responsible for Venezuela’s instability. Your government’s entire foreign policy is destabilizing different parts of the world to float the Dollar as the main currency and you the citizens benefit the most from it, this is why I cringe inwardly when Americans complain of Capitalism’s adverse effects, if you enjoyed it while it was good, you must enjoy it while it gets bad.
As a venezuelan, no. What happened and still happens here was the sole responsibility of the socialist party’s government and the ultimate reason why I don’t trust leftists as they don’t own up their failures and just disregard them as “not true socialism”
The government of Venezuela isn’t blameless but to think that American sanctions didn’t affect the Venezuelan economy are the words of a true partisan. Your kind set up piano wire and beheaded civilians on motor bikes in Venezuela and I find that despicable.
Communists believe in abolition of capitalism through communist revolution and eventually want to reach a Communist society. Given that such vision has not actually happened yet, Communists often support Actually Existing Socialism (AES).
Socialism is some varying degree in between that and capitalism. On the one hand, there are democratic socialists like Bernie. On the other, there’s also AES countries (e.g. USSR, China).
(P.S. If any other communists see any problems, feel free to correct my mistakes.)
While democratic socialism is a variety of socialism, Bernie isn’t really a democratic socialist, but a social democrat. Social democracy is the left of capitalism, which is right of socialism in any form.
Before some moron turns up, Nazism is not socialism.
In general, I find the term “democratic socialism” to be pretty cringe. It’s like saying right up front “I’m not like those OTHER socialists!” Socialism is a liberatory project. Socialism is the auto-emancipation of the working class. THAT is what democracy looks like. Rule of the people.
Liberation comes hand in hand with revolution though. Socialism will certainly NOT be very democratic for the people who own vast amounts of real estate, productive machinery, and propaganda media empires. Those people will certainly need to end up on the wrong side of a gun for the project to succeed. The wise ones among them won’t force us to pull the trigger.
It will be a hostile take-over. It will be a break from the constitutional order. It will be a break from the “rule of law.” When the ruling class starts losing the game, they will flip over the table. All your precious civil liberties will be torn to shreds. Fascism is simply capitalism under crisis.
The Liberals commit themselves to playing by the rules even when the fascists never would. Salvador Allende (the world’s first elected Marxist head of state) tried to do this, and in three years it ended in his death and a fascist military dictatorship. There is no room for idealism in revolution. The stakes are very real. You need to crush your enemies by any means necessary. Maybe you don’t give Rupert Murdoch the freedom of speech. Maybe you don’t respect Jeff Bezos’s property rights. Maybe you stuff all the Groypers into a mineshaft.
A lot of people whine about authoritarianism in the English speaking left, but the English-speaking left has no power to speak of. Just a bunch of very online sectarians bickering. We run around trying to cancel internet forums which amount to little more than fucking book clubs, as if they were the embodiment of high Stalinism.
Wow, I disagree with every single word of this. You seem to be saying that it’s worth sacrificing liberal rights to attack the right (which you are falsely claiming to be fascists - fascism is a specific ideology, not just an insult for anyone on the right). But in doing so, you become worse than the right.
As a social democrat, I am willing to support and ally with democratic socialists. While we have some differences, we’re both pulling in the same direction. Your revolutionary leftism, on the other hand, is further beyond the pale for me than any liberal ideology.
If this is what your project requires to succeed, then may your project fail.
A theoretical question: How do you think social democratic politics could be implemented in a peripheral or semi-peripheral country? In the core countries, it’s evident that successful social democracies are built not only on national resources but also on the exploitation of the periphery and semi-periphery, through which corporations and capitalists generate profits which are then taxed back into the country. So, what would make a social democratic world fairer than other forms of capitalism? There have been attempts to implement social democratic economies in peripheral regions, for instance, the often-mentioned Venezuela and Bolivia are much closer to the Norwegian economic model than to Cuba.
What could a peripheral social democratic government do at all if, after winning an election, the capitalists would simply withdraw their capital from the country and/or sabotage the government, while using their media to portray every measure taken by the government in a negative light?
I’m gonna leave out utopian communism because it’s not what we’re talking about and isn’t really relevant.
Communists are working toward a classless, stateless society. Viewing the world through the lens of class struggle, they see the state as a tool of class repression and seek to use it to get to that stateless classless society. Its important here to recognize that communists want to use the tools of capitalism to develop the productive forces on the way.
Socialism is worker control of the means of production.
Social democracy is a set of policies enacted by bourgeois societies to keep people from revolting.
Americans want socialism. This is spun as “communism” to distract and distort the argument.
Most Americans definitely do not want socialism. People simply want things to be affordable, and be able to live with the social services we need readily available, and to have the freedom to do what they want. That’s not socialism, that’s a well functioning democracy with a strong economy.
A lot of Americans “definitely do not want” Obamacare either, but they sure don’t want to give up the improvements that came with the Affordable Care Act.
In other words, Americans hate the label, but not the policies.
(By the way, regarding your other comment: FDR doesn’t get to decide what words mean. It doesn’t matter whether he called himself a socialist or not; what matters is whether he acted like one.)
Tell me a time in history when this existed without FDR’s socialism.
FDR said he was not a Socialist.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/16/democrats-socialism-fdr-roosevelt-227622/
And what really is the difference between Socialism and Communism?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq0EYo_ZQVU
/s
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=Sq0EYo_ZQVU
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Communism entails the collective ownership and administration of all means of production and the absence of social classes, while socialism advocates for worker control over means of production within a democratic society, allowing for some individual ownership and social stratification.
I agree with what you’ve said. That’s how I saw it too. Communism is the last stage, while Socialism is a transition period, as a Communist friend once told me. P.S. WTF am I getting downvoted for asking a question?
Don’t worry, votes don’t mean anything here. Feel free to speak your mind :)
In addition, there are different levels of socialism. “Some” individual ownership turns people off. “The State owns the house I worked so hard to pay off?” You can have full private ownership of your things AND have single-payer health care, top-tier public education, reining in predatory banks, etc. We want to be Norway, not Venezuela.
Your government is directly responsible for Venezuela’s instability. Your government’s entire foreign policy is destabilizing different parts of the world to float the Dollar as the main currency and you the citizens benefit the most from it, this is why I cringe inwardly when Americans complain of Capitalism’s adverse effects, if you enjoyed it while it was good, you must enjoy it while it gets bad.
As a venezuelan, no. What happened and still happens here was the sole responsibility of the socialist party’s government and the ultimate reason why I don’t trust leftists as they don’t own up their failures and just disregard them as “not true socialism”
The government of Venezuela isn’t blameless but to think that American sanctions didn’t affect the Venezuelan economy are the words of a true partisan. Your kind set up piano wire and beheaded civilians on motor bikes in Venezuela and I find that despicable.
My kind? Thanks for the uncalled xenophobic racism.
Venezuela has been going to shit since the 2000 with Chavez.
Sanctions were stablished from 2015 and only to 7 individuals from the venezuelan government.
Keep your lies up. Maybe you will start believing them.
Lol racism card when I don’t even know your ethnicity? I was talking about you being a rich asshole.
The things is the path to one of the other begins the same, of course, paved with good intentions
As opposed to being paved with bad intentions up front?
Honesty or lie. Mmm a hard bargain
Communist and socialist terms have been conflated for a long time.
See https://existentialcomics.com/comic/123 for an illustration.
Communists believe in abolition of capitalism through communist revolution and eventually want to reach a Communist society. Given that such vision has not actually happened yet, Communists often support Actually Existing Socialism (AES).
Socialism is some varying degree in between that and capitalism. On the one hand, there are democratic socialists like Bernie. On the other, there’s also AES countries (e.g. USSR, China).
(P.S. If any other communists see any problems, feel free to correct my mistakes.)
While democratic socialism is a variety of socialism, Bernie isn’t really a democratic socialist, but a social democrat. Social democracy is the left of capitalism, which is right of socialism in any form.
Before some moron turns up, Nazism is not socialism.
In general, I find the term “democratic socialism” to be pretty cringe. It’s like saying right up front “I’m not like those OTHER socialists!” Socialism is a liberatory project. Socialism is the auto-emancipation of the working class. THAT is what democracy looks like. Rule of the people.
Liberation comes hand in hand with revolution though. Socialism will certainly NOT be very democratic for the people who own vast amounts of real estate, productive machinery, and
propagandamedia empires. Those people will certainly need to end up on the wrong side of a gun for the project to succeed. The wise ones among them won’t force us to pull the trigger.It will be a hostile take-over. It will be a break from the constitutional order. It will be a break from the “rule of law.” When the ruling class starts losing the game, they will flip over the table. All your precious civil liberties will be torn to shreds. Fascism is simply capitalism under crisis.
The Liberals commit themselves to playing by the rules even when the fascists never would. Salvador Allende (the world’s first elected Marxist head of state) tried to do this, and in three years it ended in his death and a fascist military dictatorship. There is no room for idealism in revolution. The stakes are very real. You need to crush your enemies by any means necessary. Maybe you don’t give Rupert Murdoch the freedom of speech. Maybe you don’t respect Jeff Bezos’s property rights. Maybe you stuff all the Groypers into a mineshaft.
A lot of people whine about authoritarianism in the English speaking left, but the English-speaking left has no power to speak of. Just a bunch of very online sectarians bickering. We run around trying to cancel internet forums which amount to little more than fucking book clubs, as if they were the embodiment of high Stalinism.
Wow, I disagree with every single word of this. You seem to be saying that it’s worth sacrificing liberal rights to attack the right (which you are falsely claiming to be fascists - fascism is a specific ideology, not just an insult for anyone on the right). But in doing so, you become worse than the right.
As a social democrat, I am willing to support and ally with democratic socialists. While we have some differences, we’re both pulling in the same direction. Your revolutionary leftism, on the other hand, is further beyond the pale for me than any liberal ideology.
If this is what your project requires to succeed, then may your project fail.
A theoretical question: How do you think social democratic politics could be implemented in a peripheral or semi-peripheral country? In the core countries, it’s evident that successful social democracies are built not only on national resources but also on the exploitation of the periphery and semi-periphery, through which corporations and capitalists generate profits which are then taxed back into the country. So, what would make a social democratic world fairer than other forms of capitalism? There have been attempts to implement social democratic economies in peripheral regions, for instance, the often-mentioned Venezuela and Bolivia are much closer to the Norwegian economic model than to Cuba.
What could a peripheral social democratic government do at all if, after winning an election, the capitalists would simply withdraw their capital from the country and/or sabotage the government, while using their media to portray every measure taken by the government in a negative light?
Fair enough — got the two confused
I’m gonna leave out utopian communism because it’s not what we’re talking about and isn’t really relevant.
Communists are working toward a classless, stateless society. Viewing the world through the lens of class struggle, they see the state as a tool of class repression and seek to use it to get to that stateless classless society. Its important here to recognize that communists want to use the tools of capitalism to develop the productive forces on the way.
Socialism is worker control of the means of production.
Social democracy is a set of policies enacted by bourgeois societies to keep people from revolting.
Isn’t this the comic where Marx is playing Monopoly, starts losing and Flips the fuck out the table?
I think that’s https://existentialcomics.com/comic/19
I find it funny they portray Marx always doing communist revolutions.