1507
But "socialism" is a scary word (slrpnk.net)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/memes@lemmy.ml
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[–] 18 points 2 years ago* (33 children)

You can be fine with the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit of capitalism and still favor a wealth cap and abolishing laws like Citizens United that give money undue influence on politics. Extreme wealth concentration actually hurts capitalism by starving the spending economy of money. It's a defect in the system that eventually spoils the system.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    Innovation and entrepreneurship is not exclusive to capitalism. People innovated and undertook ambitious projects before capitalism, and they will be doing so after it.

    There is nothing inherent to the private ownership of the means of production and the wage exploitation/human rental system we have now that mandates innovation and entrepreneurship. In fact the opposite is visible today, with big companies stifling innovation.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (31 children)

    Lots of people on Lemmy forget that the choice between Capitalism and Socialism isn't binary. Country picks individual policies that are capitalist or socialist in nature. All of the modern countries are a combination of both. Even USA has certain socialist policies. Most of Europe is roughly equally capitalist and socialist.
    It's just making a character build and picking perks. Capitalist policies aren't bad (for the general public) by default. Depending on how and which ones are implemented, they can be beneficial to everybody.

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  • [–] 54 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    Europe has many more Social policies than the US, but it is nowhere close to equally parts Socialist and Capitalist.

    Socialism means that the Workers own the means of production, and there is no country in Europe where that is the case.

    Social policies != Socialism.

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  • [+] -11 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's not about strictly "owning", it's about controlling. Control can be achieved in many different ways, including, but not limited to regulations. Socialism is an economic system, of which you can implements certain parts.
    I didn't say "social policies". Socialist policies are a more specific subset of social policies, so all socialist policies are social policies, but not all social policies are socialist.
    Regarding the European countries' degree of being socialist, it of course depends on the country. But on average, you might be right, and perhaps using "equally" was an exaggeration.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism:

    Socialism is an economic and political philosophy […] characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.

    I’m not gonna lie, I don’t think a common-good healthcare regulation or whatever housing plans fall under the definition.

    Edit: there’s some merit to this you could’ve brought up, e.g. Germany’s mandating by law of some (limited) worker control in firms ≥500 employees in size (wikipedia link). But even that’s breaking with the definition, since it’s not about ownership, but rather a say in leading the company.

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  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Socialism is when the government does stuff, and when it does a whole bunch of stuff, its communism.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Hopefully that's tongue in cheek, but it's pretty much how a large (voting) segment of the population sees it. Freedom Good, Government Bad.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    You're thinking of Capitalism and Socialism as Private Property and Public Property, and as oil and water. That's not how systems work in the real world, however. An economic system is determined by what is primary in an Economy, and at scale property relations are entirely mixed and inter-related. Having safety nets doesn't make the Capitalist EU somehow "a mix," and having markets doesn't make the Socialist PRC Capitalist either.

    You are partially correct, in that markets are a useful tool at lower stages of development and public ownership and central planning at higher stages, but that doesn't seem to be where you were going with that.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    The problem with this is the capitalists have a way of revoking rights when the working class has its back turned, and the privilege of making unlimited propaganda to make sure those backs stay turned and either complacent or focused on other things. The only way to prevent this is for the wealthy to answer to the people rather than the other way around, which means the working class must control the means of production. This is the capitalists' lever of control as a class.

    By making sure that society cannot produce anything without them, they get to control our material conditions, who lives or dies, what gets produced and how it gets produced, with no real regard for the people's needs besides what coincidentally creates more capital for them. And they can direct this all in the particular way which convinces us that this is the natural order of things and we should actually be thanking them for the breadcrumbs they leave us when all is said and done.

    Realistically, you cannot have one without the other. Anything else is leaving the door open to the capitalists to pull things back in their direction using their vast accumulation of wealth, which under capitalism directly translates to influence and power.

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  • [+] -9 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    Thank you, that is such an important point! Many if not most issues in our world are non-binary, but facing this requires thinking beyond memes, which many people don't want to do. Gotta swipe left or right, those are your two choices, or you're a shill for the wrong side. It's really discouraging, almost a New Conservatism - not in a political sense but in an insular thinking and circling the wagons sense.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

    Funny enough, reducing Communists to rigid thinking devoid of nuance is actually anti-Marxist. Nuance and looking at issues dialectically is core to Communist thought, it's non-Marxists that paint Marxism as dogmatic and inflexible.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    it’s non-Marxists that paint Marxism as dogmatic and inflexible.

    Yeah, it's such a tired trope that it's almost become a meme.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    "Read theory" is already such an all-encompassing meme though, and covers that pretty well. Truly, if every liberal read like 3 or 4 pamphlets on Marxism we'd probably be at Socialism by now, well on our way to Communism.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    For real, it doesn't take much reading to dispell many of the myths and I frankly think most people wouldn't be content to stop there. Once you begin reading, you hunger for more.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Absolutely, I started taking theory fairly seriously about a year ago and I haven't been nearly as voracious in my studies or reading since childhood. The process of learning how the world genuinely works and seeing everything click into place is immensely satisfying.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    "The truth must lie somewhere in the middle" is one of the most overused and underexamined memes in public discourse this comment is about to collapse upon itself into an irony black hole

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Good illustration - binary thinking turns "the truth CAN lie somewhere in the middle" into "the truth MUST lie somewhere in the middle" because there has to be one right answer and one COMPLETELY OPPOSITE AND WRONG answer to everything. Except no, you're just doing it wrong.

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  • [+] -14 points 2 years ago (12 children)

    The US has a bunch of socialist policies, it's just that the people who complain about socialism don't know what it means.

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  • [–] 21 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    The US doesn't have any socialist policies.

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  • [+] -8 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Arguably, The US does have several socialist policies, albeit implemented very badly. For instance, public education. Does capitalism stick its grubby fingers into it from every possible angle? Yes. But at its core it has collective funding through taxes (therefore owned/controlled by the state), universal access, and the prioritization of public welfare over profit (at least on paper). Those principles are strictly socialist and not capitalist.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Socialism does not mean controlled by the state, that is just a state service, which can be capitalist.

    Socialism, and I cannot stress this enough, is not when the government does stuff

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  • [+] -8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Where did I say "government does stuff"? If a service is provided not for profit, funded by the community and is otherwise not privately owned, it's socialist. It needs to be for-profit and/or privately owned to be capitalist.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago

    No, this type of thinking is anti-dialectical. Capitalism is a system where private property and commodity production is primary, and socialism is a system where collective ownership and planning is primary. This does not mean systems are partially Socialist and partially Capitalist, but that property relations are not uniform in most systems. I think reading Marx would be helpful for you.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Those have been withering away. They're trying to get rid of the postal service, we've never had national health...I was reading about Slovenia who now has a mixed economy, with the government heavily involved in planning. The only way I see capitalism working at all is social democracy, but I'd much rather see socialism. Luxury goods for profit, necessities as service, progressive taxes with the top incomes, corporate and private, being taxed in the 90th percentile, to fund services, and heavy sanctioning of nations that hide wealth from non-citizens and lifting of sanctions on nations that do the same, as well as not trying to overthrow their governments as long as they are no threat to us. And arms de-escalation.

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