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

[Duvniask]

No.

The capitalist welfare system originated from Bismarck's measures to ease the contradictions between the government and the working class. This is a bourgeois reform in order to ease the contradiction with the proletariat.

It does beg the question of why you then go on to suggest that welfare is somehow a thing with "socialist attributes", given that it is, in your own view, also a product of bourgeois reformism seeking to dampen working class action.

Since feudalism can enter the stage of capitalism through social improvement, capitalism can also enter socialism through social improvement.

This does not follow from what you said just previously, and I'm not really sure what you mean by this.

Since its birth, welfare bears the socialist attribute of social equity and ensuring the interests of the proletariat. Although it is still different from the true socialist welfare

The hell does this mean? "Social equity" is just that, it tells us not whether something is socialist. As for "ensuring the interests of the proletariat", well, it is in the interests of the proletariat to once and for all expropriate the bourgeoisie and abolish class society.

What you're saying is like claiming it is in the interests of a slave to get a bigger food ration - sure, but that does not make the increase in rations (living standards, more broadly) equivalent to the abolition of slavery or mean the success of the movement pertaining thereto.

The welfare society in Northern Europe exists as a compromise that dampens working class fervor in return for social benefits. It's only "socialism" to the extent that the word has become a watered-down, meaningless term that obfuscates what the real revolutionary movement set out to accomplish.

Because it has not become real socialism. In the capitalist society, it is impossible for the socialist policy to bring its real effect into full play

And China is a capitalist society like any other. The degree of state intervention is irrelevant, because all that state intervention is a mediating influence on the powers of capital, not their abolition.

Precisely the reason why all these states are capitalist. They accumulate capital. It's not hard to understand.

It certainly existed in all of the Eastern Bloc countries, with their respective national incomes derived from surplus activity on the part of their workforces (or that of other workforces being exploited around the world) - more reason for them to be capitalist, mind you.

A socialist society is not within the paradigm of value; it is a post-value society, in other words a moneyless society. It doesn't steal surplus "value", because value would be an anachronism. What it does do is direct the necessary surplus labor toward socially useful ends, as decided upon by the working class as a whole, not to satisfy a profit for some owner - indeed, there would be no such thing as profit. Societies like the Soviet Union exploited surplus value from their working population the same as any other capitalist system - surplus value which could then be consumed by a long line of nomenklatura parasites until being reinvested into whatever the state apparatus saw fit; just like a businessman investing into new machinery to generate more revenue.

Socialism cannot be separated from money. -Snip-

I'm going to stop you right there, because money evolves as the universal equivalent to facilitate the exchange of all other commodities - its dominance, in other words the society wherein exchange occurs everywhere (where it is universalized), is precisely the society of capitalism: that of commodity production by commodified wage labor, with the goal of capital accumulation for the owners.

The difference between it and capitalist countries is whether it represents the interests of the proletariat. It is obvious that the social welfare of the governments in Britain, America and Western Europe is to maintain the dominant position of capitalists, not to really solve the problems encountered by the people in production and life.

Again, "the interests of the proletariat" is a vacuous thing. Any small improvement in their living standards conceivably represents the interests of the proletariat, but any piece-meal welfare solution does not ultimately signal the triumph of the establishment of socialism.

When the Soviet Union was just established, under the leadership of Lenin, it was aimed at solving the problems encountered by all the Soviet people and improving their living standards.They are no longer socialism when they have formed bureaucrats and began to carry out hegemonic activities.Because their purpose of action is no longer for the interests of the proletariat.This turned them into imperialism under the banner of socialism.

"No one, I think, in studying the question of the economic system of Russia, had denied its transitional character. Nor, I think, has any Communist denied that the term Socialist Soviet Republic implies the determination of Soviet power to achieve the transition to socialism, and not that the new economic system is recognized as a socialist order." —V.I. Lenin, The Tax in Kind (The Significance Of The New Policy And Its Conditions) (1921).

More nonsense. Capitalism doesn't stop being capitalism just because you, theoretically, split the capital among a large group (or even the entire population). And that's just theoretically speaking, the working classes of China or Cuba only own the means of production in the abstract, to the extent that the state is somehow equivalent to the working class (spoiler, it isn't). And questions of ownership only pertain to the superstructure; it is a legalistic expression that obscures the base, the true relations of production, which are still geared towards the production of commodities in return for profit.

That's just what you think.The composition of production relations is determined by the owners of the means of production.Private ownership and public ownership are not separated from capitalism,because the theoretical basis of utopian socialism and Marxism are all built on public ownership.The socialist country advocated by Marx is the public ownership of means of production and the large-scale socialized production it brings.Its rulers are the proletariat as a whole.It has nothing to do with whether to produce goods for profit, because that is the issue to be dealt with at the Communist stage.

You don't understand Marx at all.

Marx used the terms communism and socialism interchangeably. He distinguished between a lower-stage of communist society and a higher stage of communist society. The lower stage is what Lenin would later define as "socialism" whereas he would call the higher stage "communism". The lower-stage of communism, or "socialism" in later Marxist usage, is a society that has abolished value (and its appearance in the form of money) but still keeps a somewhat similar principle of exchange (something for something) where you are rewarded according to your labor time, in other words "to each according to his contribution":

"Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.

What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption." —Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875)

[Ceranapis]

After Bernie Sanders lost the Democratic nomination for president to Joe Biden, a moderate, some concerns have arisen to the survival of socialism in western democracies.

After a huge Labour defeat in the UK election, a substantial loss of seats from the NDP and a large right-wing resurgence in the EU, the general socialist ideology has suffered in the past 5 years or so in the West.

I would challenge this premise, slightly. Yes, the "aesthetically socialist" parties and candidates have not done well electorally in recent years. Corbyn was an electoral disaster, Sanders failed to diversify outside of his base to win the nomination. Sanders moved the conversation to the left, however. Biden's platform is to the left of Clinton's, and Clinton's platform was to the left of Obama's. The DSA has grown incredibly fast. Philadelphia has a city council member from the "Working Families Party", a party to the left of the Democrats.

From the socialist perspective, having Sanders or Corbyn win would have been preferable, but there have been practical and tangible socialist victories. But I think that the losses feel worse than they actually are, because there was the potential for greater power that did not pan out.

What can we do to save it?

And what has been the instrument of it's decline?

I do know that in some western countries, like Mexico and the Nordic Countries, socialism has prevailed to an extent, so what has kept it going there but not in other places? (sorry about having to delete the poll, but this thread needed a major makeover.)

IMO, drop the aesthetics. Disavow the MLs and Soviet apologists. The Soviets were bad and lost the cold war. They are not a model that anybody outside of niche communities looks to. Venezuela is bad, don't defend their kleptocratic regime. Cuba has no appeal outside to anyone over 30. If this is your vision of socialism, there is no future for it and you will be continuously disappointed.

In the countries where socialism has been politically reasonably economically successful in the modern world, it hasn't been because the party members won by talking about how cool they think Rosa Luxemborg is. The social democrats in the Nordics focused on providing practical benefits to their supporters. They have been pragmatic in achieving their goals- where socialism works, they use socialist thought, and where markets are more efficient at achieving social democratic goals, they've used them to help deliver more socialist outcomes. I am not well versed in Mexican politics, but my understanding is that AMLO won by on focusing pressing issues in Mexican society, while his opponents didn't do enough to address them.

This has also been the success of socialism in the United States, both historically and recently. "Sewer Socialists" did very well in the Upper Midwest because they promised, then delivered, practical benefits to a broad enough swath of supporters to keep electoral power. Unions were a force in the United States because they delivered practical benefits to their members, and the economic structure of the time allowed them to build and wield that power. Bernie Sanders did well in 2016 because he attracted a broader coalition- people interested in his social-democratic reforms, and people who really didn't want Hillary Clinton. He obviously lost that election, but I would argue he did worse in 2020 because he failed to build beyond that base, and this time, Hillary wasn't running so he lost that leg of his coalition. His strategy for the nomination was always the Trump strategy- hope that the rest of the party is too divided, and win with your base even though it's not 51% of the party.

If socialists want to win, they need to broaden their appeal. That means focusing on the practical side of things, and above all, putting practicality and pragmatism above theory. Hire people who are committed to practicality, winning, and objective analysis, not hacks and sycophants.

[Anti Defense League]

After Bernie Sanders lost the Democratic nomination for president to Joe Biden, a moderate, some concerns have arisen to the survival of socialism in western democracies.

After a huge Labour defeat in the UK election, a substantial loss of seats from the NDP and a large right-wing resurgence in the EU, the general socialist ideology has suffered in the past 5 years or so in the West.

I would challenge this premise, slightly. Yes, the "aesthetically socialist" parties and candidates have not done well electorally in recent years. Corbyn was an electoral disaster, Sanders failed to diversify outside of his base to win the nomination. Sanders moved the conversation to the left, however. Biden's platform is to the left of Clinton's, and Clinton's platform was to the left of Obama's. The DSA has grown incredibly fast. Philadelphia has a city council member from the "Working Families Party", a party to the left of the Democrats.

From the socialist perspective, having Sanders or Corbyn win would have been preferable, but there have been practical and tangible socialist victories. But I think that the losses feel worse than they actually are, because there was the potential for greater power that did not pan out.

What can we do to save it?

And what has been the instrument of it's decline?

I do know that in some western countries, like Mexico and the Nordic Countries, socialism has prevailed to an extent, so what has kept it going there but not in other places? (sorry about having to delete the poll, but this thread needed a major makeover.)

IMO, drop the aesthetics. Disavow the MLs and Soviet apologists. The Soviets were bad and lost the cold war. They are not a model that anybody outside of niche communities looks to. Venezuela is bad, don't defend their kleptocratic regime. Cuba has no appeal outside to anyone over 30. If this is your vision of socialism, there is no future for it and you will be continuously disappointed.

In the countries where socialism has been politically reasonably economically successful in the modern world, it hasn't been because the party members won by talking about how cool they think Rosa Luxemborg is. The social democrats in the Nordics focused on providing practical benefits to their supporters. They have been pragmatic in achieving their goals- where socialism works, they use socialist thought, and where markets are more efficient at achieving social democratic goals, they've used them to help deliver more socialist outcomes. I am not well versed in Mexican politics, but my understanding is that AMLO won by on focusing pressing issues in Mexican society, while his opponents didn't do enough to address them.

This has also been the success of socialism in the United States, both historically and recently. "Sewer Socialists" did very well in the Upper Midwest because they promised, then delivered, practical benefits to a broad enough swath of supporters to keep electoral power. Unions were a force in the United States because they delivered practical benefits to their members, and the economic structure of the time allowed them to build and wield that power. Bernie Sanders did well in 2016 because he attracted a broader coalition- people interested in his social-democratic reforms, and people who really didn't want Hillary Clinton. He obviously lost that election, but I would argue he did worse in 2020 because he failed to build beyond that base, and this time, Hillary wasn't running so he lost that leg of his coalition. His strategy for the nomination was always the Trump strategy- hope that the rest of the party is too divided, and win with your base even though it's not 51% of the party.

If socialists want to win, they need to broaden their appeal. That means focusing on the practical side of things, and above all, putting practicality and pragmatism above theory. Hire people who are committed to practicality, winning, and objective analysis, not hacks and sycophants.

"Broaden the base" is simply code for more pandering to POC communities and is where Sanders went wrong in 2020; he did better in 2016 by staying focused on the issues that appeal across class-not racial-lines and this made him more palatable to Working-Class Whites who saw someone fighting for their interests rather than lecturing them about their original sin of Whiteness while they're struggling paycheck to paycheck. Same goes for Blacks and Hispanics; they don't, quite frankly, give a fuck whether you're "down with the struggle" but are, like normal people, much more concerned about if they can afford a trip to the doctor.

[Steppe Khanate]

Maybe the self proclaimed socialist candidate should have avoided praising Fidel Castro’s brutal dictatorship during a nationally televised debate?

[-Astoria-]

Maybe the self proclaimed socialist candidate should have avoided praising Fidel Castro’s brutal dictatorship during a nationally televised debate?

Mm, gonna need some good sauce to back up that.

[Ceranapis]

"Broaden the base" is simply code for more pandering to POC communities and is where Sanders went wrong in 2020

Sanders had terrible outreach to the Black community in 2020. He had 4 years to get it right, and didn't. He could have made inroads with prominent figures in the Black community and worked to build solid relationships, but he didn't. There was some evidence of successful Latino outreach in the Nevada Caucus and pre-Super Tuesday, but ultimately it was too little and too late.

The problem wasn't that he tried to broaden the base, it's that Sanders didn't really try- he doubled down on the same sorts of people that voted for him in 2016 (young and very liberal voters), but no longer had the advantage of getting all the anti-Hillary votes. A lot of what you are calling pandering to POC communities was not actually directed towards those communities- it was directed towards Sanders' base. In hindsight, Sanders needed a more culturally diverse (and frankly, competent) campaign staff to seriously contest the nomination.

[Steppe Khanate]

Maybe the self proclaimed socialist candidate should have avoided praising Fidel Castro’s brutal dictatorship during a nationally televised debate?

Mm, gonna need some good sauce to back up that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwmqQw90OjY

[-Astoria-]

Mm, gonna need some good sauce to back up that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwmqQw90OjY

I watched it; seems more like praising the Cuban literacy programme, & less Castro; & earlier in the video (italics mine):

''I have been extremely consistent & critical of all authoritarian regimes all over the world, including Cuba.''

And now, here's a video in response, building up on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTW8r3xpPWs

[Zedeshia]

Maybe the self proclaimed socialist candidate should have avoided praising Fidel Castro’s brutal dictatorship during a nationally televised debate?

I by no means wish to appear rude, but in no way did Sanders ever praise Castro's dictatorship. Clearly much of what happened in the country under Castro was horrible, and he agreed that there was much to criticize. Just because one is trying to have a more balanced approach on such a topic by acknowledging that not everything was or is absolutely terrible does not mean they support such a thing.


His actual comments on the matter:

"We're very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but you know, it's unfair to simply say everything is bad. You know? When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?"

"A lot of political dissidents were imprisoned in Cuba."

"That's right. And we condemn that..."

[Anti Defense League]

"Broaden the base" is simply code for more pandering to POC communities and is where Sanders went wrong in 2020

Sanders had terrible outreach to the Black community in 2020. He had 4 years to get it right, and didn't. He could have made inroads with prominent figures in the Black community and worked to build solid relationships, but he didn't. There was some evidence of successful Latino outreach in the Nevada Caucus and pre-Super Tuesday, but ultimately it was too little and too late.

The problem wasn't that he tried to broaden the base, it's that Sanders didn't really try- he doubled down on the same sorts of people that voted for him in 2016 (young and very liberal voters), but no longer had the advantage of getting all the anti-Hillary votes. A lot of what you are calling pandering to POC communities was not actually directed towards those communities- it was directed towards Sanders' base. In hindsight, Sanders needed a more culturally diverse (and frankly, competent) campaign staff to seriously contest the nomination.

This analysis doesn't mesh with the actual campaign data; Michigan in particular coming to mind.

[Nilrahrarfan]

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.

The REAL solution is to become self-sufficient

We can't have socialism if we get our shit from more capitalist countries

[Lower Nubia]

Oof, you shot yourself in the foot, because, oh look:

It doesn't matter to my point if a different part of the article now says it. The point is that such edits yield you uncertain grounds, because it is a matter in dispute.

Course they can, I'm sure a doctor of philosophy would have difficulty grasping biochemistry.

That does not reflect on what's here though. This is academics within the sphere of political science. This is their home turf, so again, they either are an academic, or have surface knowledge. Pick one.

First of all, being an academic does not mean you have mastered your field, nor does it mean your work is coherent and semantically refined. Being a student of political science myself, I'm all too aware of the misleading usage of terminology applied in the field. Such problems have been pointed out by others, because it makes the field of comparative politics a nightmare to work in:

"My focus is conceptual —about concepts— under the assumption that concepts are not only elements of a theoretical system, but equally tools for fact-gathering, data containers. The empirical problem is that we badly need information which is sufficiently precise to be meaningfully comparable. Hence we need a filing system provided by discriminating, i.e., taxonomic, conceptual containers. If these are not provided, data misgathering is inevitable; and statistical, computerized sophistication is no remedy for misinformation. The theoretical problem can be stated, in turn, as follows: we grievously lack a disciplined use of terms and procedures of comparison. This discipline can be provided, I suggest, by awareness of the ladder of abstraction, of the logical properties that are implied, and of the rules of composition and decomposition thus resulting. If no such discipline is obtained, conceptual mishandling and, ultimately, conceptual misformation is inevitable (and joins forces with data misgathering).

Thus far the discipline has largely followed the line of least resistance, namely, "conceptual stretching." In order to obtain a world-wide applicability the extension of our concepts has been broadened by obfuscating their connotation. As a result the very purpose of comparing —control— is defeated, and we are left to swim in a sea of empirical and theoretical messiness. Intolerably blunted conceptual tools are conducive, on the one hand, to wasteful if not misleading research, and, on the other hand, to a meaningless togetherness based on pseudo-equivalences." —Giovanni Sartori, Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics (1970)

Second there is a difference between what I said, which is that of academics treating something superficially, and having superficial knowledge; a professor can be aware of the complicated history of the socialist movement yet still choose, for whatever reason, to confine it to its most vacuous meaning.

Of course my dear, which is why I can also go here and, my god, what's this, it's the encyclopedia Britannica:

"Meanwhile, the socialist parties of Europe were modifying their positions and enjoying frequent electoral success. The Scandinavian socialists set the example of “mixed economies” that combined largely private ownership with government direction of the economy and substantial welfare programs, and other socialist parties followed suit. Even the SPD, in its Bad Godesberg program of 1959, dropped its Marxist pretenses and committed itself to a “social market economy” involving “as much competition as possible—as much planning as necessary.” Although some welcomed this blurring of boundaries between socialism and welfare-state liberalism as a sign of “the end of ideology,” the more radical student left of the 1960s complained that there was little choice between capitalism, the “obsolete communism” of the Marxist-Leninists, and the bureaucratic socialism of western Europe."

But no, I'm sure the Emeritus Professor of Political Science, from Arizona State University, has got this more fucked up than yourself.

I can disagree with the methodology and rigor of (my) professors just fine when it comes to semantics. This isn't a debate over laws of physics, it's a debate about the usage of words, which, as I laid out above, is subject to constant misuse and stretching, resulting in certain people fitting everything into a simplified but vacuous little package that holds little consistency and becomes largely useless for accurate comparison. Socialism is perhaps the most misused and least understood term of all, but it is hardly alone.

Which of course raises the point, why do men so learned on this matter not come to some agreement if you have outlined the definition so cleanly? That's because the definition isn't so clean - which is why it's so. Fucking. Broad.

How many feet you do have with holes in?

"Learned men" cannot come to agreement on many matters, especially those of semantics. The broadest definitions are the most useless when applied, because, as argued above, they defeat the purpose of comparison. A broad definition of democracy, for example based on holding elections and having differing political parties represented in parliament, will mean that authoritarian states like Russia, which regularly engage in vote manipulation, murder of dissidents and crackdowns on free speech, are democracies just like any other.

Having a very broad definition of socialism, like you propose, is a case of conceptual stretching so absurd that it leads to socialism being reduced from a genuinely different socioeconomic system to just being another form of capitalism; capitalism with state intervention and social welfare, which is honestly absurd. This has been my point, consistently. You refuse to engage with it, because your only shtick is to fall back to what certain, and I do emphasize certain, academics say on the matter.

I contend that these academics are wrong, because their appliance of the term is ill-suited for actually describing what have always been the goals of the socialist movement from the beginning, which has always been to challenge and overthrow capitalism; and capitalism is a distinct epoch in history characterized by the universalized production of commodities for exchange, wage labor (which is but another term for commodified and alienated labor), and capital accumulation.

Different sources are good, unlike yourself, they seem to provide a breadth of competing positions.

That has nothing to do with my point, which is that we can only be certain that the authors who actually say that "social democracy is a form of socialism" will agree with that statement. All the other cited authors have, for all we know, no opinion or may even disagree entirely, yet they are still cited because their input in an article about social democracy was deemed relevant elsewhere.

Obviously.

Which further shows you as a fool: if it was as simple as you defined, academics wouldn't have such difficulty. But, oh wait, they do. Which is, again, why they pick a. Broad. Fucking. Definition.

You need another foot.

My definition is itself a simplification, but it much more accurately captures what the socialist movement sets out to accomplish. Yours, and the one used by these people, is just a co-opted usage where socialism has been collapsed into a meaningless term where it is just another form of capitalism and therefore cannot be said to exist in opposition to it; it fully obscures the history and theoretical underpinnings of the socialist movement, and it is also in opposition to the stated aims of most self-identified socialists.

Which is the fucking problem you idiot.

If I could predict what you were going to say based off of the Wikipedia criticism section, it's because you're not presenting any new information into this convo-fucking-sation.

You're very angry about something you know very little about.

The problem here is that a certain someone is trying to resolve a semantical dispute by pivoting to Wikipedia. I happen to know better what I'm talking about, so I don't really need to fall back onto a site that is itself an illustration of said semantical dispute.

Like professors? Sure, such a shorthanded bunch.

They can be. Being a professor doesn't mean you are right or rigorous in all ways, especially in terminology. It's one thing to challenge laws of nature, it's another thing to criticize how someone uses words.

Oh for god's sake, such a tightnit definition isn't pinned down you insufferable oath. Which makes your definition the most hypocritical thing. If academics can't agree on that definition, as you've admitted, is it because your definition is so obviously true and they've missed it, or is it because it is lacking in poignant knowledge elsewhere? Which. Again. Makes the definition broad by necessity of the epistemological problem of defining such a variety of policies over the last 100 years.

It doesn't need to be lacking "in poignant knowledge elsewhere" for people to misuse it. People misuse words constantly.

Social democracy was born in the socialist movement as a kind of reformism, but their insistence on transforming society away from capitalism largely died out before the middle of the 20th century. Instead it became about preserving capital and just raising the existential foundation of the workforce with social welfare spending and labor-market policies; by that point it was clear that pretty much any self-professed social democrat was not a socialist. Calling it a "variety of policies" ignores the rather simple issue that social democrats stopped wanted to change the system, instead seeking to reform capitalism and "humanize" it. Such a stance is irreconcilable with the socialist movement at large, which was always about the abolishment of capitalism.

No I fucking do not. Don't poison the well.

Then why are you saying those authors cited in the "Criticism"-section agree with the statement that "social democracy is a form of socialism"? There is no way you could possibly know that, given we are talking about a matter which is subject to a semantics dispute. You are in fact saying that, despite their criticism, they still count it as a form of socialism; nowhere does it say that, it's something you just made up because you either misread the page or because you somehow think nothing in the article could possibly contradict anything else, which is an absurd thing to believe.

Yes, I'm aware they don't define it as socialism - IT FUCKING SAYS IT, which makes your statement the evermore mundane,

I question how aware you are, since you yourself contradicted this angry spiel earlier:

Which part of the Wikipedia criticism page will they use to say: "Social Democracy isn't Socialism" Oh, it's here:

"Social democracy is criticized by other socialists because it serves to devise new means to strengthen the capitalist system which conflicts with the socialist goal of replacing capitalism with a socialist system. According to this view, social democracy fails to address the systemic issues inherent in capitalism."

Even when academics know your criticism they still count it as socialism. Why? because your criticism is just a socialist purity issue rather than the realism of socialist policy throughout the past 100 years.

if they don't define it as such, and others, and might I say, a lot more others, do define it as such, why then have you presented a clear cut case that the definition is as you have put it - so clear. Unless of course the reality of the past 100 years is more complicated than your gutteral waste of time that you've posted here.

It's somewhat amusing to me that you have nothing to respond to my point with other than "BUT THEY SAY SO". Yes, certain academics treat the matter lazily and end up in the hell-world of conceptual stretching, what is your response to my actual challenge to their usage of the term? I have yet to see it. What you've presented here is nothing but screeching about how broad the definition is and the problems of defining it... and I ask why should it be so complicated? I have a clear stance I'm willing to defend, so have at it, Hoss.

Haden't realised you'd written another post.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socialism/

"Socialism is a rich tradition of political thought and practice, the history of which contains a vast number of views and theories, often differing in many of their conceptual, empirical, and normative commitments. In his 1924 Dictionary of Socialism, Angelo Rappoport canvassed no fewer than forty definitions of socialism, telling his readers in the book’s preface that “there are many mansions in the House of Socialism” (Rappoport 1924: v, 34–41). To take even a relatively restricted subset of socialist thought, Leszek Kołakowski could fill over 1,300 pages in his magisterial survey of Main Currents of Marxism (Kołakowski 1978 [2008]). Our aim is of necessity more modest. In what follows, we are concerned to present the main features of socialism, both as a critique of capitalism, and as a proposal for its replacement."

I win.

[West Leas Oros 2]

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.

1. If I may object, I would argue that we should distance ourselves from certain tendencies of antifascist ideological position. Like seriously, just because i'm against fascism doesn't mean I support your "street militia" or whatever those rioting larpers call themselves. So while we shouldn't reject anti-fascism, we should take responsibility for misdeeds done by overzealous idiots who claim to be antifascist but are really in it to destroy shit.

2. While I can't speak for FAS (who I assuume defines it as "anyone I disagree with"), I use "SJW" (Well not the term specifically, but terms that are synonymous) to describe those who are in favor of "marginalized communities" going out and attacking and exacting revenge on their "oppressors". If we truly are against all forms of bigotry, hatred, prejudice, and intolerance, then we should make sure not to fall into the trap of hating on the "oppressor". Ultimately, the very idea of an "oppressor" identity is ridiculous, and it is disheartening to see leftists regurgitate far-right arguments with the roles reversed. Ultimately, we must be against liberal identity politics (more drone pilots of color type stuff), reactionary identity politics (Nazis and shit), and the newly emergent brand of identity politics I described earlier. This seems like a "no shit Sherlock", but from my experiences with a lot of self-proclaimed "leftists", they've fallen into one of the three.

3. Not a criticism, but the "free stuff" argument is such a strawman that you're better off not feeding into it by responding.

4. While I don't disagree, it would be difficult to look to Europe when the state of socialism in Europe is... not the greatest. Still, we can learn a lot from Europe. Also, America has had a variety of early movements that were at least somewhat socialist, and looking at them may be helpful to win over American workers. In the past, socialists actually had a hand in building America, and Socialist Party candidate Eugene Debs did very well (for the circumstances) in a few Presidential elections, despite not getting any electoral votes.

[Duvniask]

-Snip-

Haden't realised you'd written another post.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socialism/

"Socialism is a rich tradition of political thought and practice, the history of which contains a vast number of views and theories, often differing in many of their conceptual, empirical, and normative commitments. In his 1924 Dictionary of Socialism, Angelo Rappoport canvassed no fewer than forty definitions of socialism, telling his readers in the book’s preface that “there are many mansions in the House of Socialism” (Rappoport 1924: v, 34–41). To take even a relatively restricted subset of socialist thought, Leszek Kołakowski could fill over 1,300 pages in his magisterial survey of Main Currents of Marxism (Kołakowski 1978 [2008]). Our aim is of necessity more modest. In what follows, we are concerned to present the main features of socialism, both as a critique of capitalism, and as a proposal for its replacement."

I've read this page. What it says has nothing to do with social democracy, and it doesn't serve your argument in any way, whatsoever.

In fact, the boldened part (and I have no idea what you're trying to prove with that) is just a straight up contradiction with all the nonsense you've said in this thread so far. As it says, socialism exists as the potentiality of a replacement for capitalism; it exists in opposition to it, thus also implying that we must transcend capitalism to have socialism. This straight up leaves out any place for social democratic reformism of the capitalist system (by definition, reforming something means not replacing it). While the page makes a rather lackluster attempt at properly identifying the central characteristics of capitalism, as an economic system, it is clear their layout of socialism as a comprehensive system cannot be reconciled with social democracy. They later discuss piecemeal reforms as an alternative to systematic overhaul, but nowhere are they obtuse enough to present this as somehow a socialist economic system; it might be a system run by self-identified socialists, perhaps, but it is in staunch contrast to everything discussed earlier in the article.

I win.

This pettiness is beyond parody. You didn't prove shit and you didn't respond to any of the questions I asked and instead felt confident spewing the same spiel, using a page that doesn't even agree with you. It's the kind of shit that would make a cartoon character spit out their drink in astonishment.

[Rightonrighton]

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'.

To begin to fight for socialism what we need is a mass labor party. And building one of those starts with revitalizing the unions by transforming them into organs of militant class struggle.

[West Leas Oros 2]

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'.

To begin to fight for socialism what we need is a mass labor party. And building one of those starts with revitalizing the unions by transforming them into organs of militant class struggle.

Which is part of why one of my future goals is being a union leader.

[Rightonrighton]

I’m going to go on a rant… mainly targeted at the tankies in this thread

You never see people risking their lives and leaving everything behind to hop on a boat and escape the US, and go to Cuba. But you see plenty of the other way around. You never see South Koreans risking their lives to defect to the North, but you see plenty of North Koreans defecting to the South. The people who say "Freedom is overrated" really need to watch this, the North Korean defectors put into perspective how invaluable freedom and liberty is, and a privileged person in the West may have a hard time putting it into perspective without traveling to places like China or Cuba.

And if, after all of this is presented to you, you still defend communist countries and regimes, then frankly you are a disgusting human being who should be kept away from any position of power, and I can’t fathom how you sleep at night knowing you defend these human rights atrocities. I can have respectful debates with moderate socialists and social democrats, but at this point I’m feeling inclined to just ignore any tankies not just here, but on the internet as a whole.

Several dissidents have escaped to Cuba and N. Korea. Despite all their relative backwardness (due to the infancy of the world revolution) and deformations (as in N. Korea where a brutal dictatorship was grafted onto the workers’ state set up by a popular revolution in order to set limits on the scope of that revolution and thereby permit backroom deals with the capitalists).

[Rightonrighton]

Cuba is a mixed bag however, because of a variety of other factors, though many will still at least be very critical of the regime of Castro.

People literally risk their lives and leave everything behind to escape Cuba. I don’t see how anyone can defend that

Vietnam should actually be praised, because despite a number of faults, they are doing fairly well.

How well does Vietnam rank on the freedom of press index? Freedom of speech? Corruption? Democratic transparency?

If the U.S. offered automatic residency and job placement to every illegal immigrant from Ireland, Ireland would be depopulated within weeks due to the mass exodus of boat people. Thousands escape from Haiti and the Dominican Republic to Cuba every year, and about 1/4 of Cuban-American emigres return to Cuba after seeing the real U.S. firsthand.

[Rightonrighton]

First of all, it's not welfare. Because it doesn't provide money directly to the poor. It's about investing in places where the poor live, creating new jobs and training vocational skills.

Social welfare is not only synonymous with monetary benefits, it encompasses everything from food stamps, the provision of healthcare, childcare, job-training and education.

And welfare itself is a thing with socialist attributes.

No.

The welfare society in northern Europe is exactly the influence of socialist thoughts.

The welfare society in Northern Europe exists as a compromise that dampens working class fervor in return for social benefits. It's only "socialism" to the extent that the word has become a watered-down, meaningless term that obfuscates what the real revolutionary movement set out to accomplish.

The first premise of capitalism is private ownership. Individuals master the means of production and use employment or labor to create profits. Even in the Soviet Union and Cuba, the state also accumulated capital by promoting people's labor. Any economic activity will steal the surplus value of workers.

Precisely the reason why all these states are capitalist. They accumulate capital. It's not hard to understand.

Because if the "difference between the value created by labor and the labor remuneration" does not exist, the economic activities carried out by the workers are actually at a loss. Neither enterprises, trade unions nor the state can accumulate wealth and the means of production can not grow.

It certainly existed in all of the Eastern Bloc countries, with their respective national incomes derived from surplus activity on the part of their workforces (or that of other workforces being exploited around the world) - more reason for them to be capitalist, mind you.

A socialist society is not within the paradigm of value; it is a post-value society, in other words a moneyless society. It doesn't steal surplus "value", because value would be an anachronism. What it does do is direct the necessary surplus labor toward socially useful ends, as decided upon by the working class as a whole, not to satisfy a profit for some owner - indeed, there would be no such thing as profit. Societies like the Soviet Union exploited surplus value from their working population the same as any other capitalist system - surplus value which could then be consumed by a long line of nomenklatura parasites until being reinvested into whatever the state apparatus saw fit; just like a businessman investing into new machinery to generate more revenue.

Capitalism is a private economic system, and socialism is a social system of public ownership. In China, the proportion of the public economy is close to 40%. I would rather you call it a mixed economy because public ownership is still in the core position in China

More nonsense. Capitalism doesn't stop being capitalism just because you, theoretically, split the capital among a large group (or even the entire population). And that's just theoretically speaking, the working classes of China or Cuba only own the means of production in the abstract, to the extent that the state is somehow equivalent to the working class (spoiler, it isn't). And questions of ownership only pertain to the superstructure; it is a legalistic expression that obscures the base, the true relations of production, which are still geared towards the production of commodities in return for profit.

Disagreed about Cuba and the historical Eastern Bloc countries. Certainly they retain(ed) some elements of state, and even private, capitalism as a result of uneven development and the complexities of concrete real world phenomena that abstractions like “socialism” obscure, and certainly they were not the classless, moneyless societies socialists are fighting to establish. But I think they are legitimately termed socialist because (even when hampered by antagonistic governments) workers were their ruling classes and production was based primarily on state ownership and planning.

[Rightonrighton]

You can have a full market economy that is entirely socialist, and a command economy that is capitalist. The conflation of markets with capitalism is nonsense.

"Market socialism" is no more socialism than other forms of spread-out stock ownership are. Capital doesn't stop being capital because it's spread among employee-shareholders. Instead of exploitation being carried out by a distinct seperate class of owners, you have now relegated the task of exploitation to the working class themselves, who will necessarily have to self-exploit to compete in the market and meet their bottom line to accumulate more capital and further expand their production. The only thing that distinguishes this from the capitalist mode of production proper is that worker and capitalist have been made one and the same. You may have your self-management, but it is the self-management of capital.

Yup. And if you look at places that tried to combine socialism with market-driven production, like Yugoslavia, in practice they ended up reproducing not only capitalist economics and values, but also reactionary political tendencies as a matter of course.

[Rightonrighton]

They must purge the Social Liberal tendency; there's a reason, after all, 40% of Union workers in the United States will hold their nose and vote Republican regularly. If you solely focus on the economics, while at best being neutral on matters of religion and morality, then there is the pathway to victory.

In other words, replicate the mistakes of these guys.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economism

[Rightonrighton]

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.

1. If I may object, I would argue that we should distance ourselves from certain tendencies of antifascist ideological position. Like seriously, just because i'm against fascism doesn't mean I support your "street militia" or whatever those rioting larpers call themselves. So while we shouldn't reject anti-fascism, we should take responsibility for misdeeds done by overzealous idiots who claim to be antifascist but are really in it to destroy shit.

2. While I can't speak for FAS (who I assuume defines it as "anyone I disagree with"), I use "SJW" (Well not the term specifically, but terms that are synonymous) to describe those who are in favor of "marginalized communities" going out and attacking and exacting revenge on their "oppressors". If we truly are against all forms of bigotry, hatred, prejudice, and intolerance, then we should make sure not to fall into the trap of hating on the "oppressor". Ultimately, the very idea of an "oppressor" identity is ridiculous, and it is disheartening to see leftists regurgitate far-right arguments with the roles reversed. Ultimately, we must be against liberal identity politics (more drone pilots of color type stuff), reactionary identity politics (Nazis and shit), and the newly emergent brand of identity politics I described earlier. This seems like a "no shit Sherlock", but from my experiences with a lot of self-proclaimed "leftists", they've fallen into one of the three.

3. Not a criticism, but the "free stuff" argument is such a strawman that you're better off not feeding into it by responding.

4. While I don't disagree, it would be difficult to look to Europe when the state of socialism in Europe is... not the greatest. Still, we can learn a lot from Europe. Also, America has had a variety of early movements that were at least somewhat socialist, and looking at them may be helpful to win over American workers. In the past, socialists actually had a hand in building America, and Socialist Party candidate Eugene Debs did very well (for the circumstances) in a few Presidential elections, despite not getting any electoral votes.

Gotta say you are right here.

Also to whoever praised Berger’s vote-catching approach (to the detriment of Debs’s revolutionary one) ... you’re missing the point. Vote catching is not the goal. Socialism is.

[West Leas Oros 2]

1. If I may object, I would argue that we should distance ourselves from certain tendencies of antifascist ideological position. Like seriously, just because i'm against fascism doesn't mean I support your "street militia" or whatever those rioting larpers call themselves. So while we shouldn't reject anti-fascism, we should take responsibility for misdeeds done by overzealous idiots who claim to be antifascist but are really in it to destroy shit.

2. While I can't speak for FAS (who I assuume defines it as "anyone I disagree with"), I use "SJW" (Well not the term specifically, but terms that are synonymous) to describe those who are in favor of "marginalized communities" going out and attacking and exacting revenge on their "oppressors". If we truly are against all forms of bigotry, hatred, prejudice, and intolerance, then we should make sure not to fall into the trap of hating on the "oppressor". Ultimately, the very idea of an "oppressor" identity is ridiculous, and it is disheartening to see leftists regurgitate far-right arguments with the roles reversed. Ultimately, we must be against liberal identity politics (more drone pilots of color type stuff), reactionary identity politics (Nazis and shit), and the newly emergent brand of identity politics I described earlier. This seems like a "no shit Sherlock", but from my experiences with a lot of self-proclaimed "leftists", they've fallen into one of the three.

3. Not a criticism, but the "free stuff" argument is such a strawman that you're better off not feeding into it by responding.

4. While I don't disagree, it would be difficult to look to Europe when the state of socialism in Europe is... not the greatest. Still, we can learn a lot from Europe. Also, America has had a variety of early movements that were at least somewhat socialist, and looking at them may be helpful to win over American workers. In the past, socialists actually had a hand in building America, and Socialist Party candidate Eugene Debs did very well (for the circumstances) in a few Presidential elections, despite not getting any electoral votes.

Gotta say you are right here.

Also to whoever praised Berger’s vote-catching approach (to the detriment of Debs’s revolutionary one) ... you’re missing the point. Vote catching is not the goal. Socialism is.

On which point?

[Kubra]

Whoa whoa whoa what's this about social democracy not being basically communism
ya'll need Kautsky in your lives

[West Leas Oros 2]

Whoa whoa whoa what's this about social democracy not being basically communism
ya'll need Kautsky in your lives

Honestly, I wish half the things conservatives call "communist" actually were.