How to save socialism in the US (and other western countries

[Broader Confederate States]

Socialism works on small scale. Within the home for instance it's not purely capitalistic. However, Sweden in the 1990s showed that when actually confronted with it on a national scale, most people don't actually enjoy living under it. IMO, if socialism fails, it fails as a national ideology. It can still work on the small scale as it always has, but go beyond everyone knowing everyone else in the system and their quirks, motivations, and aspirations and it suddenly just breaks down. If socialism has any future, in my view, it's going to be on at most the municipal level as the systems that would be enacted nationally are actually devolved to individual townships' economies, since those townships are the largest entities that actually know the situation and needs of its own people.

[Plzen]

However, Sweden in the 1990s showed that when actually confronted with it on a national scale, most people don't actually enjoy living under it.

First, at no point did Sweden run a socialist economy, and second, if you’re referring to Swedish social democracy as socialism then Sweden was doing very well until the right-wing started winning elections and liberalising the economy in 1976.

[Nilrahrarfan]

Simply put, Socialism works better in places richer in natural resources.

It would work in somewhere like Australia, but not somewhere like Japan.

[Broader Confederate States]

However, Sweden in the 1990s showed that when actually confronted with it on a national scale, most people don't actually enjoy living under it.

First, at no point did Sweden run a socialist economy, and second, if you’re referring to Swedish social democracy as socialism then Sweden was doing very well until the right-wing started winning elections and liberalising the economy in 1976.

The Swedes seem to have considered it socialistic, and if I got my definition of socialism right this week, it's when A) the workers have a significant say in how industry is run, and B) the welfare of the public is prioritized over the individual, right? Or am I getting that wrong? If so, then it meets both criteria because the Swedish government at the time had several state-run monopolies into the 1990s (or at least, 1980s) which would be directly or indirectly controlled by the people, and the latter is pretty patently obvious with how many welfare programs were being offered.
Let's give you the benefit of the doubt, and say every word I just said was completely incorrect. Why would they burn their own meal ticket if it was working, giving them a high quality of life and happiness? It was their own decision, nobody forced them into it.

[Plzen]

Why would they burn their own meal ticket if it was working, giving them a high quality of life and happiness? It was their own decision, nobody forced them into it.

For the 1976 election in particular I’d argue the oil shock. The 1970s were an economically difficult time for pretty much every western country, whether left-leaning or right-leaning, and Sweden was no exception.

Afterwards, well, after the 1980s the prevailing trend was towards the right. The communist movement disintegrated, Reagan/Thatcher completely revolutionised the American and British economies... Sweden isn’t a large enough country to have its own zeitgeist independent of the global one.

Of course, nowadays the SAP’s unpopularity has much more to do with their globalist-liberalism in a country that is growing increasingly nationalistic, not anything to do with their economic policy.

[The Bio-Regional Cooperative of States]

I believe a moderate/social-democratic model would be able to provide the most success for the US and Western Countries. From my understanding, numerous European countries have adopted this stance with success. But considering the phobia of leftism in the US I think it would be a while until we have someone officially in power, though from what I've seen leftist thought is gaining traction. I'm no professional in any of this, but that's just my thought.

[Broader Confederate States]

Why would they burn their own meal ticket if it was working, giving them a high quality of life and happiness? It was their own decision, nobody forced them into it.

For the 1976 election in particular I’d argue the oil shock. The 1970s were an economically difficult time for pretty much every western country, whether left-leaning or right-leaning, and Sweden was no exception.

Seems like things are gearing up to be even worse for the left then by around the middle of this century. A source that's been proven to be reliable in his prediction so far (as in, off only by a year or two) has suggested our supply of conventional oil should run just about dry by 2060; other predictions say oil will become insanely expensive by 2035 or 2040. Nobody's taking it the least bit seriously, at least not anyone who can actually change things. That oil thing I put importance in my nation on, that's not a sci fi scenario, that's all based on real experts' real predictions.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

For the 1976 election in particular I’d argue the oil shock. The 1970s were an economically difficult time for pretty much every western country, whether left-leaning or right-leaning, and Sweden was no exception.

Seems like things are gearing up to be even worse for the left then by around the middle of this century. A source that's been proven to be reliable in his prediction so far (as in, off only by a year or two) has suggested our supply of conventional oil should run just about dry by 2060; other predictions say oil will become insanely expensive by 2035 or 2040. Nobody's taking it the least bit seriously, at least not anyone who can actually change things. That oil thing I put importance in my nation on, that's not a sci fi scenario, that's all based on real experts' real predictions.

So much citation of sources ... so little source.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

Simply put, Socialism works better in places richer in natural resources.

It would work in somewhere like Australia, but not somewhere like Japan.

Oh joy! Here in Australia we have much resources, small population, much spirit of egalitar- uh, beer.

Nationalize BHP, Rio Tinto and Telstra for starters.

Turns out they're mostly foreign owned, and when we raid their headquarters all we get is paperclips.

[Plzen]

Nationalize BHP, Rio Tinto and Telstra for starters.

Telstra is such a disaster that even I’ve heard of it despite living nowhere near Australia with no particular interest in Australian life or economy.

Still, I’m given to understand that it’s a disaster that the government let happen, so nationalisation might not actually help.

[Aureumterra]

Simply put, Socialism works better in places richer in natural resources.

It would work in somewhere like Australia, but not somewhere like Japan.

Could you elaborate? Russia was very rich in natural resources, yet obviously they didn’t achieve "real socialism"

[Broader Confederate States]

Seems like things are gearing up to be even worse for the left then by around the middle of this century. A source that's been proven to be reliable in his prediction so far (as in, off only by a year or two) has suggested our supply of conventional oil should run just about dry by 2060; other predictions say oil will become insanely expensive by 2035 or 2040. Nobody's taking it the least bit seriously, at least not anyone who can actually change things. That oil thing I put importance in my nation on, that's not a sci fi scenario, that's all based on real experts' real predictions.

So much citation of sources ... so little source.

I'm lazy, but here.
U.S. military caution about potential oil shortages, pre-fracking
World oil production, 2003-2015
Dr. Sadad Ibrahim al-Husseini, Ph.D. prediction
EIA

[Federation of American States]

The first thing socalists should do is Reject Antifa. And remove them from your movement.
Associations with Antifa and the SJWs community makes you look like toddlers throwing a tantrum demanding things be given to you for free. ( Medicare and college) to the non socialist American.
Second thing you should do is stop comparing America to Europe or Americans to Europeans
Most self respecting Americans hate that.

[Mirjt]

The first thing socalists should do is Reject Antifa. And remove them from your movement.
Associations with Antifa and the SJWs community makes you look like toddlers throwing a tantrum demanding things be given to you for free. ( Medicare and college) to the non socialist American.
Second thing you should do is stop comparing America to Europe or Americans to Europeans
Most self respecting Americans hate that.

I am sorry, but I must disagree with everything you just said.

1. Antifa is not an organization, its an ideological position. It means anti-fascism (fascism in general is hard to define and this is not the thread for it). Saying remove antifa from our movements has the same ridiculousness as saying remove specific ideology (anarchism, communism, green politics, etc...) from our movements. However, given that socialism stands for everything fascism is against, and vice versa, socialists are naturally anti-fascist. Explicit opposition to fascism (also known as antifa) has been a part of socialist movements since fascism first emerged in the 1930s.

2. How are you even defining SJWs? If you are defining them as liberal identity politics, then good news, socialists are not associates of liberal politics. Yes we do care about marginalized communities who are being oppressed and we do fight against all types of bigotry, hatred, prejudice, and intolerance, but we seek true freedom. Liberals tend to think the problem is we don't have more people from marginalized communities becoming CEOs, politicians, and other high income and wealthy positions; whereas socialists fight against the system itself; having a woman or a racial minority be president for instance won't get rid of sexism or racism, which is what liberals think.

3. I do want free stuff for myself and everyone else. I believe that certain things are a right and should be freely given, such as healthcare, education, public transportation, housing, etc... However, while many leftists and socialists may agree with that sentiment (though I imagine quite a few my disagree with my diction and phrasing), that is not the definition of socialism, that is a concept called decommodification. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/01/ ... ff-is-good

Socialism - (1) Democratic control of the economy; (2) The people have collective and democratic ownership and/or control of the means of production, society's resources, specific decommodified industries, and the workplace.

This collective and democratic ownership can be through the government, but it does not have to be; it can be public ownership (public libraries), or social ownership (cooperatives), or communal ownership (community land trusts), or common ownership (shared body of water that everyone has access to but no one owns), etc... It can exist as market socialism, or centrally planned economies, or locally and decentralized planned economies, or indicative planning (which is a kind of mixed economy that uses both planning and markets), or gift economies, or participatory economics, or a variety of other economic models.

4. It is helpful to look abroad for good ideas that we can implement, it is helpful to compare and contrast our current systems with others to see what is more or less effective and why and how to improve our own system, and it is important to recognize our own faults so we may overcome them.

[Federation of American States]

No skin off my back.
But if you want better Optics
Id really do suggest that you guy's stop associating socalism with the rioters in portland or those who created the Chaz/Chop zone In Seattle. They give you guys a bad reputation.

[New Rogernomics]

As far as the US is concerned, you can't have socialism by believing in the Democratic Party, you need a third party system that splits the vote both for Republicans and Democrats. If the US had a more left party i.e. a green party or progressive party, and another right party i.e. a libertarian party or a more social conservative party, then you could probably see a resurgence in the US left. That said, both the GOP and Dems have manipulated the system to stop meaningful reform, and use the election system to prevent third parties ever winning a seat or getting a minute on TV to state their policies.

Europe I would say has more hope, though they have taken a beating because of the migrant crisis, and need to offer a counter-narrative of how to fix the problems with migrant slums and unemployment. A lot of the right is taking advantage to slam the left for just wanting to 'open the floodgates', and the right are pretty much encouraging xenophobia and paranoia over a long list of ills from a 'Muslim invasion' to the 'destruction of the family'.

[Broader Confederate States]

As far as the US is concerned, you can't have socialism by believing in the Democratic Party, you need a third party system that splits the vote both for Republicans and Democrats. If the US had a more left party i.e. a green party or progressive party, and another right party i.e. a libertarian party or a more social conservative party, then you could probably see a resurgence in the US left. That said, both the GOP and Dems have manipulated the system to stop meaningful reform, and use the election system to prevent third parties ever winning a seat or getting a minute on TV to state their policies.

We have both of those, a Green party and a Libertarian party, both being the runners-up in terms of popularity. The last time a state voted for a third party was in 1968. In total, the Green and Libertarian parties only drum up about 4.4% of people to vote for them instead of the two parties that actually have any chance of winning.

The first thing socalists should do is Reject Antifa. And remove them from your movement.
Associations with Antifa and the SJWs community makes you look like toddlers throwing a tantrum demanding things be given to you for free. ( Medicare and college) to the non socialist American.
Second thing you should do is stop comparing America to Europe or Americans to Europeans
Most self respecting Americans hate that.

I am sorry, but I must disagree with everything you just said.
1. Antifa is not an organization, its an ideological position. It means anti-fascism (fascism in general is hard to define and this is not the thread for it). Saying remove antifa from our movements has the same ridiculousness as saying remove specific ideology (anarchism, communism, green politics, etc...) from our movements. However, given that socialism stands for everything fascism is against, and vice versa, socialists are naturally anti-fascist. Explicit opposition to fascism (also known as antifa) has been a part of socialist movements since fascism first emerged in the 1930s.

First off, antifa is (or at least was) an actual organization, which is what I'm assuming you were referring to.
First and a halfly, unless I missed the memo I'm pretty sure like half the things in Adi-boy's 25-point plan were things socialists would totally agree with like punishing the military-industrial complex, offering social services to children and the elderly, and regulating the loan market... or totally nationalizing it, as it suggested they wanted to do to any major industry. Even if it's not true fascism or whatever, it's still branched off of it.
Secondly, even if it wasn't, someone has to be the one to start lobbing molotov cocktails at cars with people inside or mobbing some random person while they're trying to drive past, right? And more often than not, they put "antifa" on their twitter bio. Even if that's 100% not true, that's the public view of what antifa is.

[Mirjt]

As far as the US is concerned, you can't have socialism by believing in the Democratic Party, you need a third party system that splits the vote both for Republicans and Democrats. If the US had a more left party i.e. a green party or progressive party, and another right party i.e. a libertarian party or a more social conservative party, then you could probably see a resurgence in the US left. That said, both the GOP and Dems have manipulated the system to stop meaningful reform, and use the election system to prevent third parties ever winning a seat or getting a minute on TV to state their policies.

We have both of those, a Green party and a Libertarian party, both being the runners-up in terms of popularity. The last time a state voted for a third party was in 1968. In total, the Green and Libertarian parties only drum up about 4.4% of people to vote for them instead of the two parties that actually have any chance of winning.

I am sorry, but I must disagree with everything you just said.
1. Antifa is not an organization, its an ideological position. It means anti-fascism (fascism in general is hard to define and this is not the thread for it). Saying remove antifa from our movements has the same ridiculousness as saying remove specific ideology (anarchism, communism, green politics, etc...) from our movements. However, given that socialism stands for everything fascism is against, and vice versa, socialists are naturally anti-fascist. Explicit opposition to fascism (also known as antifa) has been a part of socialist movements since fascism first emerged in the 1930s.

First off, antifa is (or at least was) an actual organization, which is what I'm assuming you were referring to.
First and a halfly, unless I missed the memo I'm pretty sure like half the things in Adi-boy's 25-point plan were things socialists would totally agree with like punishing the military-industrial complex, offering social services to children and the elderly, and regulating the loan market... or totally nationalizing it, as it suggested they wanted to do to any major industry. Even if it's not true fascism or whatever, it's still branched off of it.
Secondly, even if it wasn't, someone has to be the one to start lobbing molotov cocktails at cars with people inside or mobbing some random person while they're trying to drive past, right? And more often than not, they put "antifa" on their twitter bio. Even if that's 100% not true, that's the public view of what antifa is.

1. The Wikipedia page you linked to literally has the following text:

"In the postwar era, the historical Antifaschistische Aktion inspired a variety of different movements, groups and individuals in Germany as well as other countries which widely adopted variants of its aesthetics and some of its tactics. Known as the wider Antifa movement, the modern Antifa groups have no direct organisational connection to the historical Antifaschistische Aktion."...

"In the United States, Antifa of the early 21st-century has drawn its aesthetics and some of its tactics from the original German organization."

1.5. It is historical revisionism to try to imply that socialists are not opposed to fascists.

2. The violence is being started by the police. Impeding traffic is not violence. The public view is being manipulated by the President, the media, and the discourse - and by that logic it does not matter what aesthetics we use because it will always be redemonized by the capitalists.

[Broader Confederate States]

We have both of those, a Green party and a Libertarian party, both being the runners-up in terms of popularity. The last time a state voted for a third party was in 1968. In total, the Green and Libertarian parties only drum up about 4.4% of people to vote for them instead of the two parties that actually have any chance of winning.


First off, antifa is (or at least was) an actual organization, which is what I'm assuming you were referring to.
First and a halfly, unless I missed the memo I'm pretty sure like half the things in Adi-boy's 25-point plan were things socialists would totally agree with like punishing the military-industrial complex, offering social services to children and the elderly, and regulating the loan market... or totally nationalizing it, as it suggested they wanted to do to any major industry. Even if it's not true fascism or whatever, it's still branched off of it.
Secondly, even if it wasn't, someone has to be the one to start lobbing molotov cocktails at cars with people inside or mobbing some random person while they're trying to drive past, right? And more often than not, they put "antifa" on their twitter bio. Even if that's 100% not true, that's the public view of what antifa is.

1. The Wikipedia page you linked to literally has the following text:

"In the postwar era, the historical Antifaschistische Aktion inspired a variety of different movements, groups and individuals in Germany as well as other countries which widely adopted variants of its aesthetics and some of its tactics. Known as the wider Antifa movement, the modern Antifa groups have no direct organisational connection to the historical Antifaschistische Aktion."...

"In the United States, Antifa of the early 21st-century has drawn its aesthetics and some of its tactics from the original German organization."

1.5. It is historical revisionism to try to imply that socialists are not opposed to fascists.

2. The violence is being started by the police. Impeding traffic is not violence. The public view is being manipulated by the President, the media, and the discourse - and by that logic it does not matter what aesthetics we use because it will always be redemonized by the capitalists.

1.5: I'm not saying they're not, just that it's kind of a brothers' war and there's common ground if you sit them down and talk. Hence why I disagree with both.
2: Impeding traffic isn't violence. Dragging people from their cars and beating them is. So is shooting a 16 year old boy dead, or a 24-year old mother. The media isn't doing any of the "redemonization", if anything, it's helping you. And no, local media outlets doing stories about things that happened isn't demonizing, it's reporting what happened. At least, wapo, new york times, the guardian, and similar outlets are. Now, maybe it's unwanted help since it involves downright lying about publicly available footage, which doesn't look good on you, but it's still nowhere near close to "the media is being mean and right wiiiiing!"; it's actually pushing pretty hard to tell the tale of the completely innocent and never once in the wrong protestor who never once participated in any riots at all, and in fact the riots never happened at all (or if they did, only once or twice) vs the always wrong and never once justified police.

[Alcala-Cordel]

North Korea
Socialist

Bit of a contradiction there, mate.

You don't understand Socialism or North Korea do you? North Korea is a classical Socialist State according to Marx.

I find that hard to believe considering Marx died over 50 years befor the DPRK was founded.

[Alcala-Cordel]

The first thing socalists should do is Reject Antifa. And remove them from your movement.
Associations with Antifa and the SJWs community makes you look like toddlers throwing a tantrum demanding things be given to you for free. ( Medicare and college) to the non socialist American.
Second thing you should do is stop comparing America to Europe or Americans to Europeans
Most self respecting Americans hate that.

Lots of names thrown around, but all based on stereotypes and strawmen. Anti-fascism is an idea that we have to reason to push away, America can learn things from other countries, and the left isn't about free stuff.

[Aureumterra]

Maybe stop saying the Nordic countries are socialist?

Oh and not associating with the clowns who came up with the whole CHAZ/CHOP thing

[Alcala-Cordel]

Maybe stop saying the Nordic countries are socialist?

Oh and not associating with the clowns who came up with the whole CHAZ/CHOP thing

We're not a collective and I've never said that.

[Hellslayer]

Look, even the most socialist places in Europe are still heavily capitalist. The Nordic countries, so-called the "Socialist Haven" are still massively capitalist. They have a "mixed-market capitalist economic system that features high degrees of private ownership" (wikipedia), meaning that they are not really socialist.

[South Odreria 2]

Building class consciousness takes generations. In 1381, peasants and even many middle class artisans and tradesmen in England rose up in revolt against their social and economic oppression by the nobility. As John Ball, a radical priest in the movement, asked, “When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?” It was nearly five centuries, in 1867 later that a German academic named Karl Marx published a book called Capital. 78 years after that, the United Kingdom elected a socialist government, whose accomplishments benefit the people of that country still today, even after the forces of capital attacked them will all their might. It has barely been one century since we overthrew the tsar! The road to socialism is long and hard. It will not be won by arguments with confused middle class hyperliberals, or by any one electoral campaign. But it is worth it - socialism has lifted millions of people out of poverty in every continent on Earth. Never give up. Onward and upward.