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Politico: Sorry Democrats, but Your Stars Are Socialists. The most compelling stars of the Democratic party are self-described socialist.
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Also democratic socialist is distinctly different from socialist. People need to stop conflating the two.
It's going to be interesting, since it seems in America everything that isn't hard-right capitalism is socialism.
Bingo.
Almost none of the so-called 'socialist countries' are actually even socialist lmao
This. Social democracy is not socialism. It's not that hard, just look at almost all of the European countries.
There is pretty much nothing about this article that is particularly right-wing or egregious, and yet people are losing their minds
The fuck are you all smoking tonight
The fuck are you all smoking tonight
Socialistic programs is not full on socialism. If things like M4A and tuition free college makes us socialist, then the country has had socialism for over a century now with other things.
Social Democracy is capitalism with a strong social safety net. They seek to uphold the triumvirate of private-public-state and make it as humanitarian as possible.
Democratic Socialism is socialism driven by voting/democracy. It is a subset or a particular implementation of socialism. In democratic socialism, there's no private sector. Only the public, public-co-ops and the state (which is itself beholden to the public, ideally). The key point is, no bosses but yourself and people of comparable power and authority as you with whom you voluntarily cooperate.
Most American self-styled DemSocs are SocDems in terms of policy. Elizabeth Warren is also a SocDem. AOC calls herself a DemSoc but I'm skeptical of it. She might be hiding her socialism power levels, however. There's evidence of that.
European nations Fox News describes as "socialist" are usually Social Democratic.
"But wait, what is socialism?"
Socialism is a "mode of production", which asks "how and why a society makes the things it does". It means when you're your own boss and companies are owned by the workers and they decide to make things they need or feel other people need. Imagine Amazon where there's no Bezos or board of directors and company policy is driven by workers. Like unions being the highest authority that exists in a company. Other modes of production: capitalism (boss and worker), feudalism (where you're born into the jurisdiction of a lord and you're beholden to them for life or until they're overthrown), slavery (people as commodity and ownership of people), primitive communism (prehistorical tribal society where everyone works for the sake of the tribe and everything is shared)
Autocratic socialism (Mao China, Stalin Russia, etc): Kind of an oxymoron but it's the way most of the western world views "socialism" and "communism". Autocratic socialism is when state power is concentrated in the hands of a few people and they decide everything for everyone else. As you can imagine, you can't really co-own a company if it's the state telling you that you own it. For people who call themselves socialists, autocratic socialism is when socialist revolutionaries degenerate into oligarchy. Except for tankies (Stalin apologists) but no one takes tankies seriously. For capitalists and socialism critics, autocratic socialism is the only historically extant form of socialism (arguably true, except for primitive communism) and why socialism can never work IRL. If you have a negative opinion of socialism, it's probably because you internalized this idea.
Other branches of socialism, not meant to be exhaustive:
Vanguardism: These are the people in the business of overthrowing stuff, usually violently.
Libertarian Socialism (Communism): These are socialists who oppose state power in all its forms and envision a world without nation states. Before "libertarian" shifted to describe right wing ultra-capitalists, it was referring to these guys.
Anarcho-Syndicalism: These are revolutionaries who seek to overthrow wage slavery with organized labor and unionism. Protests, strikes, all that good pro-labor stuff. Chomsky is one IIRC.
Municipalism: Socialists for whom the highest level of a state that should exist is the municipal government, aka locally democratic government, with inter-geographic coordination handled by municipal leaders.
Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism: This is the society of Star Trek and what some (technological optimists usually) consider to be the natural end result of automation of labor.
Notable offshoots that are related but not socialism in the strictest sense:
Accelerationism: These are dudes who want to make everything that's bad about society even worse so that modern capitalism can meet its inevitable collapse that much sooner, so we can move onto the next phase of society, sometimes socialist, sometimes not. Imagine a creaky house. Accelerationists want to burn it down so they can build a new one.
Christian Socialism: This is socialism as interpreted through the lens of Jesus and the Bible. It is a theocratic approach to socialism
(Disclaimer: None of this is meant to be definitive. I'm simply providing my understanding of "socialism", which is a broad idea, for those who are curious but don't know what questions to ask, or those who naturally seek knowledge and understanding. The problem with "socialism" as a movement is that there's a hundred branches, each with their own specific ideology. This is also its greatest strength.)
Democratic Socialism is socialism driven by voting/democracy. It is a subset or a particular implementation of socialism. In democratic socialism, there's no private sector. Only the public, public-co-ops and the state (which is itself beholden to the public, ideally). The key point is, no bosses but yourself and people of comparable power and authority as you with whom you voluntarily cooperate.
Most American self-styled DemSocs are SocDems in terms of policy. Elizabeth Warren is also a SocDem. AOC calls herself a DemSoc but I'm skeptical of it. She might be hiding her socialism power levels, however. There's evidence of that.
European nations Fox News describes as "socialist" are usually Social Democratic.
"But wait, what is socialism?"
Socialism is a "mode of production", which asks "how and why a society makes the things it does". It means when you're your own boss and companies are owned by the workers and they decide to make things they need or feel other people need. Imagine Amazon where there's no Bezos or board of directors and company policy is driven by workers. Like unions being the highest authority that exists in a company. Other modes of production: capitalism (boss and worker), feudalism (where you're born into the jurisdiction of a lord and you're beholden to them for life or until they're overthrown), slavery (people as commodity and ownership of people), primitive communism (prehistorical tribal society where everyone works for the sake of the tribe and everything is shared)
Autocratic socialism (Mao China, Stalin Russia, etc): Kind of an oxymoron but it's the way most of the western world views "socialism" and "communism". Autocratic socialism is when state power is concentrated in the hands of a few people and they decide everything for everyone else. As you can imagine, you can't really co-own a company if it's the state telling you that you own it. For people who call themselves socialists, autocratic socialism is when socialist revolutionaries degenerate into oligarchy. Except for tankies (Stalin apologists) but no one takes tankies seriously. For capitalists and socialism critics, autocratic socialism is the only historically extant form of socialism (arguably true, except for primitive communism) and why socialism can never work IRL. If you have a negative opinion of socialism, it's probably because you internalized this idea.
Other branches of socialism, not meant to be exhaustive:
Vanguardism: These are the people in the business of overthrowing stuff, usually violently.
Libertarian Socialism (Communism): These are socialists who oppose state power in all its forms and envision a world without nation states. Before "libertarian" shifted to describe right wing ultra-capitalists, it was referring to these guys.
Anarcho-Syndicalism: These are revolutionaries who seek to overthrow wage slavery with organized labor and unionism. Protests, strikes, all that good pro-labor stuff. Chomsky is one IIRC.
Municipalism: Socialists for whom the highest level of a state that should exist is the municipal government, aka locally democratic government, with inter-geographic coordination handled by municipal leaders.
Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism: This is the society of Star Trek and what some (technological optimists usually) consider to be the natural end result of automation of labor.
Notable offshoots that are related but not socialism in the strictest sense:
Accelerationism: These are dudes who want to make everything that's bad about society even worse so that modern capitalism can meet its inevitable collapse that much sooner, so we can move onto the next phase of society, sometimes socialist, sometimes not. Imagine a creaky house. Accelerationists want to burn it down so they can build a new one.
Christian Socialism: This is socialism as interpreted through the lens of Jesus and the Bible. It is a theocratic approach to socialism
I don't consider it socialism in the Marxist sense because Marxist analysis tends to be materialist (he believed only in the physical world and its laws). That said, there's no reason some forms of Christianity (as well as Buddhism, or Shintoism or other types of egalitarian spiritualism) should be incompatible with socialism.
(Disclaimer: None of this is meant to be definitive. I'm simply providing my understanding of "socialism", which is a broad idea, for those who are curious but don't know what questions to ask, or those who naturally seek knowledge and understanding. The problem with "socialism" as a movement is that there's a hundred branches, each with their own specific ideology. This is also its greatest strength.)
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Trumps gonna win if he has to face one of those 3 in 2020, that's why. Even if not, those three being in the media all the time is still a burden for more centric candidates like Warren oder Biden.
It is evidence of cosmic irony whenever a rich, conservative person is named Rich,
They really are scared of Bernie and the policies he supports, aren't they?
And by them I mean the corporate establishment that controls this country, through means of ownership of media and government.
You know the ones actually responsible for much of the misery caused here and abroad.
This article is a hit piece. I expect a ton of these and more as we get closer to the primaries.
And by them I mean the corporate establishment that controls this country, through means of ownership of media and government.
You know the ones actually responsible for much of the misery caused here and abroad.
This article is a hit piece. I expect a ton of these and more as we get closer to the primaries.
This. I don't really understand what is happening in this thread. Is the word 'socialism' so tainted in the US?
He's being sarcastic.
Yes it is.
You've got 4 kinds of people in the US political landscape. There's the conservatives who have fully bought in to the decades of GOP crying wolf over anything not ultra-right wing being labeled as "socialist", then there's other more academically inclined conservatives who still refer to the traditional meaning (they're basically cryptids, but they do exist), and then on the other side you have the typical neoliberal democrats constantly fending off the label, and finally you're now also increasingly seeing democrats who have bought into the GOP rhetoric with a mindset of "if universal healthcare and minimum wage means socialism, then sign me the fuck up". And each of these sub-factions all believe the rest are talking about the same thing, which breaks down any semblance of functional communication.
This ties into an overarching issue with US politics with how the right wing have for a long time been disproportionately successful with shaping the language and controling the conversation, which they've got down to a science via well funded think tanks dedicated to this sort of stuff while the opposition remains purely reactive to those tactics.
Warren is not a centrist candidate lmao
She's either the furthest left or 2nd furthest left.
Almost 30 years since the Iron Curtain fell and the red scare is as alive in America now as it was then. It's quite pathetic how much it's eaten up to be honest.
Social democrats who call themselves democratic socialists as opposed to the rest of the party who are neoliberals posing as the 'center' of America.
Whatever you want to call them, they are doing good work. Nobody is going to define these people but themselves.
The problem is that the neoliberal element of the party is so reliant on donors and the established order that their kneejerk reaction is to run away from the right wing's attacking their left flank. that's how the GOP and far right always win. Dont want to lose? Dont run away
Whatever you want to call them, they are doing good work. Nobody is going to define these people but themselves.
The problem is that the neoliberal element of the party is so reliant on donors and the established order that their kneejerk reaction is to run away from the right wing's attacking their left flank. that's how the GOP and far right always win. Dont want to lose? Dont run away
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Politico's news articles are good but their Op-eds are hot trash.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/10/william-barr-trump-campaign-226648
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/01/mitch-mcconnell-obstruction-democrats-226341
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/10/william-barr-trump-campaign-226648
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/01/mitch-mcconnell-obstruction-democrats-226341
In theory, nothing much depending on which branches and school of thoughts you look at. However, it has historically been used by tyrants to establish a form of government where the means of production is solely owned by the state and held by oligarchs, forcing the working class to essentially be slaves.
Because these governments like the USSR and China call themselves socialist, the capitalist powers that be use them to fear monger people into submission and make them think that is what socialism solely is, and thus anything that's vaguely socialist or even just good for the poor and downtrodden is seen in a bad light (in the US, at least).
well come to sweden, best country in the world. We are socialists mainly.. seems to go quite good for us. US you suck.