Comment on The Dangers of Socialism they warned us about...
jobbies@lemmy.zip 23 hours 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.
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 23 hours 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 22 hours ago
Most of them are ‘social democracies’ that are a mix of socialism and capitalism. It doesnt always have to be left vs right.
Flower@sh.itjust.works 17 hours 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 5 hours 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.
Deckname@piefed.social 17 hours 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 5 hours 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.