Comment on The Dangers of Socialism they warned us about...
jobbies@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I dont think those things are acceptable regardless of the doctrine your country follows.
The point is that people will pretend that socialism = authoritarianism, just because there were a bunch of countries claiming to be socialist in history, despite being incredibly undemocratic.
Socialism is the workers controlling society. So by definition (or at least my interpretation), none of those countries were/are socialist anyway.
people will pretend that socialism = authoritarianism
Americans do - they use the terms communism/socialism interchangeably and can’t seem to explain why they don’t like either. Those of us who’ve grown up with political variety know what socialism is.
I don’t think socialism and democracy have anything to do with each other (other than that if you give people democracy they will generally vote for socialism depending on how empathetic the group is).
You can have socialism with zero democracy and you can have socialism with tons of democracy.
socialism with zero democracy
I must ask, how? How can you meaningfully have socialism without democracy?
The USSR could theoretically have done so, if they stuck with their vanguard party idea and didn’t pervert it by using the power obtained to oppress people and otherwise commit human rights violations.
They ousted the Tsars and Mensheviks without elections. That’s not democracy.
Or an even more pure example in theory would be a hypothetical nation of 10 people, 3 of which are oligarchs. 3 people imprison the oligarchs and redistribute their wealth to the other 4, whether they want that or not.
Not if you read the closeted fascist warning signs on democracy.
Sorry, what? That made no sense.
Its closeted fascism portrayed as democracy
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
It’s also more of a dictatorship vs functioning democracy distinction than a capitalism vs socialism distinction
The soviet union had most of the things on the list, but that’s because it was a dictatorship, it was never run by the proletariat, it still had an elite and that elite was particularly nasty.
From what I gather, Cuba, while not perfect, is in a much better place in terms of human rights, and has to feed its people despite sanctions. And we have several nations still practicing capitalism that aren’t dictatorships.
Of course the US conservatives have done a lot to make people conflate socialism with authoritarianism and lukewarm liberals with socialists.
jobbies@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Most of them are ‘social democracies’ that are a mix of socialism and capitalism. It doesnt always have to be left vs right.
Deckname@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Most of them also slowly follow the US, e.g. Germany. In Germany we had like 3-4 decades after WWII, where i would say capitalism was bearable. Meaning realtively high median income, people could actually afford houses, some kind of wealth distribution (high taxes on high incomes, at least some kind of wealth tax, but on the other hand free, decent education and full subsidy students life, when you go to university and you or your parents can’t( afford to support you in this time).
Then neoliberalism hit in the 90s… And we really started to fuck every social thing in Germany to become “Exportweltmeister” in the early 2000s.
jobbies@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Same here in UK. Party stopped mid 00’s. Nordic countries seem pretty good at wealth distribution though. How Norway protected its oil wealth should be studied in schools.
Flower@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
What boils down to wealth distribution and letting wealth concentrate, but with fancier words. You need a balance of the two.
jobbies@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I’m beginning to think we need a balance of both ideologies in general. Or else this left vs right bullshit is just going to get worse.
rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Cuba is still pretty crap I’m afraid. Like with the USSR, you’re not exactly fairly electing your foreman or your governor. Emma Goldman would call it state-capitalist.
The reason the old Marxist parties called themselves social-democrats, before they sold themselves out so bad that the name changed meaning, was because it was conceived that socialism would involve democracy in every facet of social life rather than just electing a parliament.
The Leninists and reformists have failed to bring about this dream, but it is a fair dream to strive towards. Class society and the state (including alleged democracies) restrain people’s control over their own lives and turn us into mere order-takers content with scraps. The struggle for more than mere scraps and the struggle for self-management and autonomy are in truth the same struggle, which is the struggle for that dream.