At least quarantine that shit to the dunk tank.
I'm not on hexbear to spend all my time thinking about libs lol, I'm on hexbear because I like hexbear. I like the riffs, and the topics, and the cool knowledgeable users who post stuff I would never see otherwise. I've learned a ton here over the years, and it really feels like a wholly unique space on the internet.
important to remember that socialist states are sanctioned and embargoed by the west. Cuba, for example.
And yet Cuba — a small, besieged, island nation — still managed to develop their own COVID vaccines. Their infant mortality and literacy rates are better than America's. They house their homeless. Imagine where they would be now without western sabotage. Imagine if they could trade freely with the rest of the world and actually seriously develop their economy. With their priorities, where would they be today? "Utopia" is a high bar but "better than America" is not.
If good people were in charge of America, for that matter — if businesses did not own the government, police, and military — imagine what could be done immediately with the stroke of a pen. Infrastructure, healthcare, education, costs of living and housing, theenergy grid, Flint's drinking water. These problems are straightforward to fix, we have the resources and know-how already. It's just politically impossible, because a class of people with interests opposed to everyone else's holds all the power.
Absolutely, I'm with you on all of that! Sorry I don't have a better response to a detailed reply, but I appreciate it!
Also, returning to your earlier point, about socialist economies not producing a lot of luxuries
The USSR did produce some luxury goods later on, but in lesser quantities than the west, because the USSR lacked the west's vast trade networks and third world colonies. In 1985, exports and imports each accounted for only 4% of the USSR's gross domestic product. They produced a lot of their own goods using their own population's labor, which probably made it harder to develop specialized industries to the same extent you'd see in wealthy capitalist nations that perform a lot of trade.
Also, socialist states have done a lot of central planning — again, because they were rapidly industrializing — but socialism does not forbid markets. "Socialism" just means "workers control production, rather than owners." Communist Yugoslavia has been described as a market socialist state. Even in capitalist economies, there are worker co-ops that participate in the market. Markets might be better at producing luxury goods and niche shit than centrally planned economies.
...why doesn't lemmy put a space under my last bullet?