European here.
This seems to mainly only be an issue in the US. Socialism = Communism = Enemy
If at all anything, the opposite seems to be the case here. We’re looking at the US as a “this is how bad it will get if we let go” example
In addition: government programs that help everyone = helping black people = no.
I think this is the fundamental reason why the US never went to public/universal anything, be it healthcare, education, whatever.
Yep. We should have told the colonies of Georgia and Carolina to fuck off, and we’ll get around to conquering them, after we kicked The King out of the other 11 colonies.
If one person had voted differently during The Continental Congress, we would have started abolishing slavery
Fascinating history.
Yeah y’all really don’t want to end up like us. We’re not the land of the free. The streets are most definitely not paved with gold. We’re just a giant ponzi scheme.
Paved with gold? Lucky they’re paved at all this time of year.
No kidding. Their “fix” every year is to either fill all the potholes with asphalt, which the spring rains promptly loosen and get kicked out, or a thin “repaving” layer, which gets destroyed by the summer monsoons. I’m convinced Caltrans is a jobs program for people that can’t get a job otherwise, because those guys can’t seem to get anything done correctly.
Well, French president and several of its ministers are saying that socialist left, or radical left, is extremist. So no, it’s not an America problem. It’s very much a Europe problem too.
the opposite seems to be the case here
Cries in Lindner
Europe uses the word socialism differently. It’s a difference in how the words are used and the time they are used. If we consider socialism shared responsibility, we have it America in many ways but we are hesitant to expand it. That’s because of our fear of large government power.
If we me socialism as the workers owning the means of production. Well no country does that. Normally it’s the government owning everything and the workers being abused such as the Soviet Union or Cuba. That’s the large governments Americans dislike.
Socialism = Communism = Enemy*
*Unless Russia 🤑
The USSR collapsed several decades ago. Russia now is fascist, over a Capitalist economy.
There are elements of capitalism there, but I wouldn’t call it a capitalist economy. Capitalism requires that private individuals own the means of production. But, in Russia does anybody outside Putin’s inner circle really own anything?
Yes, absolutely. The Russian Federation is the direct result of a collapsing Socialist system in the hands of Capitalists, just because fewer and fewer people own things doesn’t mean it isn’t a direct result of Capitalization of the economy.
The USSR wasn’t really socialist at its core, and the new Russia really isn’t capitalist at its core.
In the former system, the theory was that the people / workers owned the means of production. The reality was that it was the leader and those close to him who really “owned” them in the sense that they had power over them. It was all about who you knew in that system. In a true socialist system, it should have been up to the people to make decisions, but in the USSR it was up to the party’s elites, and the people just had to live with it.
In the current system, it’s Putin and his close circle who own everything. While they allow capitalist type activities to happen, the capitalists don’t really own anything. If they displease Putin anything they have can be taken away on a whim. If you stay on Putin’s good side, or at least stay beneath his notice, you can operate as a capitalist. But, become too successful and you’ll be reminded who’s in charge.
Both true socialism and true capitalism require that the rule of law apply to everyone, even the leaders. If the leader can just ignore the laws and seize the “means of production” without facing consequences, it’s authoritarianism, not capitalism or communism / socialism.
The USSR was a flawed form of Socialism, but was fundamentally Socialist. The majority of the economy was run by Worker Soviets, in a process called Soviet Democracy. The Politburo, ie the highest Soviet, had a massive amount of influence and power, but day to day decisions were made locally. I would agree, I don’t think it was a particularly good form of Socialism, but I would still consider it Socialist.
Modern Russia is absolutely Capitalist at its core, that’s the entire foundation of the Russian Federation. The Capitalists are the Oligarchs! The Inner Circle are Capitalists! just because it’s a higher stage of Capitalism doesn’t mean it ceases to be Capitalism.
The USSR was a flawed form of Socialism, but was fundamentally Socialist
Was the rule of law strong enough that decisions were being made by the people, or were they being made by authoritarians? Because if key decisions weren’t being made by the people, it wasn’t socialist.
The Capitalists are the Oligarchs!
The Oligarchs are feudalists, not capitalists.
I think you missed the point
As a european it’s always been fucking WERID how americans panic and reach for their guns at the mention of socialism.
It’s the boomers who do this primarily. I guess they were spoon fed this shit as babies.
In all fairness, we panic and reach for our guns at the mention of just about anything. Right this very moment, I’m pooping on company time, scared out of my wits, a nine millimeter at the ready atop my presently ankle adorning boxers.
“Most powerful empire the world has ever known”
Lol Americans
The Romans conquered the known world with pointy sticks and diplomacy.
The US hasn’t been on the winning side since ww2 despite having nukes and spyplanes.
Even the British Empire spanned the globe, and all they had was cannons, rum, and syphilis.
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Did they have taco bell tho
I too would like a Medieval Meal
More importantly, did they have the ability to deploy a Taco Bell, McDonald’s, and Wendy’s anywhere in the world, within 72 hours, just so their troops would have variety of food?
Nope. The Japanese knew they had royally fucked up when they realized that we had ships that were dedicated to ice cream supplies. You have to have everything else needed for war covered, before you start the logistical supply train of ice cream.
Nothing like a cone after a long day of killing japs, hits the spot. knowhatimsayin?!
No they just had the latrines too close to the food prep area, same effect
Is that your food prep hack? 🤤
Find out the one weird trick to lose weight fast - generals hate it!
But if they fought I’d bet against the pointy stick guys and the syphilis guys.
James Cameron’s avatar be like
You seem to completely misunderstand American diplomacy.
Just because America doesn’t have the same style of conquest, doesn’t mean they aren’t conquerors.
America was the first empire to realize that all empires eventually fall whose agenda is toppling nations and replacing their flags with their own.
The USA invented a unique twist: never replacing the country’s flag.
Instead, as evidenced by countless examples such as Iran and Panama, the American agenda has always been installing a new national leader whose interests align with American ideals of democracy and “freedom” (predominantly of the white Christian variety). But they keep their “flag”, or in some sense maintain a national identity through the new leader, so it feels a lot less like they were conquered.
Lol That’s just a bunch of mental gymnastics to justify why the “mighty” US can’t even win a war against an impoverished SE Asian nation with 50 year old Soviet weapons
Exactly. Wilson fucked up with Wilsonian Doctrine, among a ton of other things. Teddy had it right. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Get in, get out, get done.
Lol at the person who said Lemmy doesn’t have many comments.
Oh time for my link
Frame Canada
Wendell Potter spent decades scaring Americans. About Canada. He worked for the health insurance industry, and he knew that if Americans understood Canadian-style health care, they might… like it. So he helped deploy an industry playbook for protecting the health insurance agency.
I want to kick the dude in the face
I’d like to point out that the majority of people on Lemmy 100% think about this. Hence how many up votes it has :p
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Nazi Germany was modelled on America.
Yeah, of course I have.
In particular, I’ve noticed how the pro-capitalist people don’t seem to realize that we’re not living in a pure capitalist system. Instead we’re living in a mixed economy where key elements are socialist: road building, firefighting, postal services, food and drug safety testing, old age pensions, even ambulances (except for one minor exception).
A 100% socialist (a.k.a. communist) system might not be possible (at least not yet) due to human nature. The few times that it has been tried, at least in theory, it has quickly become an authoritarian system instead. But, AFAIK, it’s so obvious that 100% capitalist would fail completely that no society has even bothered to try it. Hundreds of years ago there were brief experiments with things like capitalist fire services, and Pinkertons as police, but they failed so spectacularly that nobody even thinks of going back.
So, instead we quibble about “capitalist” vs “socialist” when we’re really just arguing about whether the mix should be 80% capitalist, 20% socialist or 60% capitalist, 40% socialist.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what socialism and capitalism are. Simplified it’s who owns the means of production, that is basically the “capital” in the name “capitalism”, in socialism these means of production have a shared ownership. Now you can have a discussion of what that means, if state ownership counts or whatever but as long as individuals own the means of production it’s not socialism no matter how much you tax them(it would still be an improvement to tax them more it’s just not socialism)
I can’t tell if your agreeing or disagreeing with op comment.
Is the US socialist because nVidia is a public company, therefore the shares are owned by the public? Is it a socialist country because most workers have 401(k) plans containing index funds, so they own a tiny portion of every major company? The ownership of the company is shared, so it must be socialism, right? I’d say no, because it’s not shared evenly.
What if a single individual owns a single “mean” of production, but everything else is owned by the state, is that whole system capitalist? To me, it’s clearly not. You could argue that it’s mixed, but I’d say if it’s 99.9% not capitalist, it’s not capitalist.
Modern economies are mixes of socialism and capitalism. The people (through the government) own certain things, and individuals own other things.
Is the US socialist because nVidia is a public company, therefore the shares are owned by the public? […] The ownership of the company is shared, so it must be socialism, right? I’d say no, because it’s not shared evenly.
How did you mess up this badly? A “public company” [sic, the correct term is “publicly traded company”] is a regular private company where the owners are hundreds or even thousands of individuals. A publicly owned company is one where every single citizen owns the company simply by being alive or every single worker owns the company simply by working there.
What if a single individual owns a single “mean” of production, but everything else is owned by the state
I don’t even understand what you mean by this…
Modern economies are mixes of socialism and capitalism. The people (through the government) own certain things, and individuals own other things.
No, they’re not, and this shows a very serious hole in your knowledge of economic and social systems. While, informally, it’s sometimes said to be the case, that’s strictly an oversimplification to communicate a different idea. Countries like the US simply use a government-assisted capitalist model. Places like the Nordic countries have a more transitional system, but are ultimately still just capitalist.
Of course they are. How can you be so confused. Countries like the US are a mix of socialist and capitalist systems. Some things are owned and run by the government (socialism), other things are owned and run by private individuals (capitalism). No society has ever worked where it was 100% socialist or 100% capitalist.
Are you illiterate? I specifically pointed to why that’s not the case…
Are you dumb? I specifically pointed out how you’re wrong.
You couldn’t specify your breakfast if you were in the middle of eating it. Grow up.
What “Human Nature” goes against the idea of sharing tools, rather than letting wealthy people hold dictatorial control over them?
Why do chimps kill chimps from other groups that come into their territory? Why do some chimps use aggression against other chimps to manipulate them, while other chimps use grooming?
A certain degree of sharing is part of our human / animal nature, but so is a certain degree of claiming ownership over things, and certain individuals have more sway over decisions than others. Flat hierarchies with nobody in command seem to work in theory, but in practice it’s different.
That’s the Naturalistic fallacy at work, though. We aren’t chimps, nor is doing what humans did in the past necessarily better than what we do now. By that chain, you would be an Anarcho-primitivist.
We’re apes, even if we’re not chimps.
You’re a mammal, a rat is a mammal - should we just consider you the same as a rat?
We can learn a lot about humans by studying rats. It doesn’t mean that humans are the same as rats, but clearly we’re not completely different either.
But we aren’t chimps, and you shouldn’t judge the effectiveness of economic structures on what chimps do.
Nor should you pretend that we’re not apes, and that ape behaviour has no relevance to humans.
It has about as much relevance as the behavior of any other mammal, circling back to my comment about rats.
We could study what various apes do, and try to use that to guess at possible human behaviour - or we could literally just look at human behaviour directly. Surely the direct observations of what humans do is going to give us a more accurate and useful model of human behaviour compared to observations of other species.
Let me know when you start eating bananas naked in the woods and let me bring my camera.
Oh there are people who dream about going back. Mostly people who would profit and/or gain power.
Pinkertons as police, but they failed so spectacularly
uhh you might want to brush up on your history there, the pinkertons are still around, still quite closely tied to the government, and still being used (among other things) to suppress union organizing at places like amazon and starbucks! Kinda ridiculous to hear that our government is somehow ‘socialist’ when it does stuff like this.
I didn’t say they weren’t still around, just that they’re not the police.
This post is WAY more insightful than 99% of people realize. I would argue that the only people that fully understand are part of the corporate engine that drives it.
Are you implying you’re a corporate shill?
I’m a mole
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Socialism is not “Social Safety Nets,” and if you were knowledgeable about what you were talking about, you would say Socialism and attempts at Communism. Socialism is Worker Ownership of the Means of Production, and the USSR was a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Communist party had stated goals of reaching Communism, a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society, by using Socialism. They never made it to Communism.
The USSR of course isn’t the only form of Socialism, and isn’t the only method to achieve Communism, but what you just said makes absolutely no sense.
Do you think that maybe people begin to understand what you’re talking about if you refer to Social Safety Nets as Social, not Socialism, because Social Safety Nets are not in fact Socialism?
As a side note: terrible choice to use rape as a casual term for doing something bad. Be more empathetic.
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It’s similiar, not the same. From what I recall, Americans didn’t have their country violently buttfucked behind a curtain, something that is still visible where I live - thankfully less so in the country itself, but it’s still embedded into people. And I don’t fear communism. I despise it. I do admit, maybe unjustly. Hard to feel otherwise though, seeing effects of one of the greatest, or at least highest scale shots at it’s implementation.
However, yeah, my definition of socialism must be fucked, will educate myself further before making fool out of myself again. :|
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I’d quite happily argue that the USSR never tried to implement it in the slightest.
Can you imagine the politburo actually fighting to give up their privileged position? I can’t.
To be quite honest, it seems to me - and I can be wrong - that it simply substituted power of wealth for power of position. Where I live I know that during occupation people were deemed as important based on where they worked - because where they worked dictated what they could
stealobtain, be it items, access or favors.There always will be someone on top, one way or the other. In capitalist society, it’s the guy who has the most money. In co- … socialist…? society it’s the guy with most connections.
Because there is not a way for communism to work… sounds great on paper but always ends the same.
There’s no way for people to work together without someone at top benefiting?
X.
You can doubt it all you want, but communism’s fatal flaw is humans. They will always want more.
Why is it bad for people to want more in Communism? Do you think once a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society would be reached, people would want to regress?
Communism has never existed. What about it sounds good on paper but is separate from reality?
Like the USSR has more in common with the Nazis than any actual implementation of a classless, hierarchical less, stateless system.
What’s your point exactly? I’m not reading some poorly written 10,000 word essay to try to figure out what you’re wanting to say.
A Jewish linguist/historian/activist talking about how equating the Soviets and the Nazis is rhetoric used to justify current and past antisemitism including holocaust collaboration.
Ah, so it’s being used as chud fud.
My comparison of the two stems from their harsh authoritarian/totalitarian nature as seen from an anarchist lens, nothing to do with genocide.
Yeah so the thing is you’re still doing it, the whole “authoritarian” thing is another way of doing a false equivalence between the two.
If you want to do an anarchist critique compare the USSR to bourgeoise democracies, it is a closer comparison.
To do so would be to ignore the worst elements of the USSR, so I don’t know why I would do that.
Any criticism of capitalism is the same as historical communism and therefore always wrong. Accept your fate, citizen.
I like this new meme format
I don’t think about this at all. My parents are from the former Soviet Union and I actually heard from them how life there was (mostly not great).
Also I think that fearing socialism is a very American thing.
What was not great about it?
The USSR was a developing country, and generally lacked luxury commodities, and depending on era, had a mostly unaccountable Politburo and a lack of food in the early stages.
By metrics, the Russian Federation has relatively recently surpassed life expectancy of the USSR, and now has more open travel and access to western commodities like smartphones, but you’ll find many older people in Russia who wish the USSR never collapsed (the majority, in fact), though again that’s also partially due to nostalgia for being an important global power.
I was asking them what their parents didn’t find so great about it.
I’m not OP, but I can certainly give you my story from Hungary. Not USSR in name, but USSR enough for the distinction to be moot.
Story starts with parents and grandparents. They were around when the soviets put Rákosi into power. He installed communism - everything belongs to the people! Including our fucking house. My grandparents often retold how police came one night, told them their house now belongs to another family, and they were told to get lost by morning. They could bring whatever they could carry with them, but they had to leave all the farming equipment, all the animals, pretty much all their belongings behind. The few hectars of land and our animals all belonged to the Producer’s Union anyway, we lost all rights to them virtually overnight.
Not that it mattered. The things you produced? Since everything belongs to the people, police would come and take away whatever quota the party set that year. Even if we produced it, it’s not ours after all. We may or may not got some of it back, depending on what the allocations were set. Usually not - famines got common, becuase noone cared too much about their work if it got taken away anyway. It got so bad that the good communist people people revolted against Rákosi.
Then came Kádár. I actually lived in that system. Shortages were commonplace. At the start things were strictly planned (later on they opened up to allowing people to work for their own benefit… strictly after they put in their required hours at their workplace, though). There were five year plans, though for what I know, those were mostly for propaganda. But since there wasn’t a free market, the planning bureau would decide how many tractors, shoes, bread etc would be produced. Well, this never worked out well. If you wanted to buy fruits, toilet paper, anything, you would need someone to tell you when the shipment would come. Then you got in line early and hoped the stock wouldn’t run out by the time you got your turn. And you bought whatever you could, because if you had excess toilet paper and your neighbour had none, you could barter for something you needed.
We wanted a car. So we applied at the state car dealership (Merkúr). We paid upfront, waited a year… and got a totally different brand of car in a different colour. We were furious, so we demanded our money back and purchased a second hand Lada Samara from someone in town. It still wasn’t what we wanted, but I’d have rather burnt my money than give it to Merkúr at that point. Turns out the Lada Samara 1300S was a great car though, I shouldn’t have sold it like twenty years later :(
We wanted to build a house. Only everything was in short order. We had to drive three-four towns away, buying bricks and ceramic tiles left and right until we had enough that we could start construction. We didn’t build what we wanted; we could’ve paid for it, but we had to build whatever we managed to find in stock around.
Now I know people called us the “happiest barracks” because say Caucescu in Romania was way worse… but people who are so fond of actual socialism should remember that our people were risking getting shot to escape this system.
Fair enough, haha.
LOL! “What was not great about the Soviet Union?”
That’s the sort of thing I might expect to hear from a teen with broccoli head syndrome.
For me the main problem with the USSR was that they abused beautiful dogs to create cyborg creatures out of them, in a horrifying attempt to create cyborg soldiers.
All the time
