In a thread under this meme, a chud commented "socialism is cringe." When I responded with, "Taxes going towards social welfare programs isn't socialism, lol," a girl replied:
actually it is definitely a socialist thing. Public schools, public infrastructure (such as roads and parks), stuff such as the fire brigade, public transport, medicare/Medicaid, and even the military. Essentially, if the government funds it, it is widely beneficial to people, and its free for said people to access... Then it's probably socialist. A lot of American stuff is based on socialism. Some elements of socialism is literally required to function. Imagine if there was no public school. Or every fire department was privately owned. Your kids get no education, your house burns down... Well unless you are rich enough to pay, of course.
I said, "Socialism is when the means of production are publicly-owned. Taxes being used to fund programs has existed long before socialism was an established ideology. I get what you mean, but sometimes I cringe when people say that socialism is when the government does stuff. This is coming from a socialist."
Then she came back with this:
"In a purely socialist system, all production and distribution decisions are made by the collective, directed by a central planner or government body. " By that definition, a government funded state school is controlled by the government, whom the public vote in. Hence...
I mean, the "all production and distribution decisions are made by the collective" part is pretty key to establishing whether something is socialist or not. Sure, publicly-funded fire departments, healthcare, education, and transportation would exist in a socialist system, but those institutions aren't inherently socialist by themselves just because we pay taxes to fund them. But I'm struggling to put into words that socialism refers to the economy and society as a whole, and not just things that we pay for through taxes.
if we had socialism why isn't there a socialist party in congress? if we had socialism, why was there a cold war against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? so on and so forth, bringing up things at home and abroad the US has destroyed called socialist
this line shouldn't work on chuds because their eyes turn black when the word socialism comes up, but 'rehabilitate(appropriate) socialism' libs might be encouraged to have a think
50s narrator guy voice: "Food stamps? Socialism? Ha ha ha, not quite little Jimmy. But it's a decent start. You see, everything around us and everything we use was made by workers..."
"the collective" is doing a whole lot of work in her argument.
Which collective? Capital collectively has more votes where it matters than the entire country of proles. If the capitalists want a road and use their power to direct the government to do so, does that mean the capitalists stopped Capitalism? No. It just means they used the tools at their disposal to reach an end goal that they find beneficial.
Seriously though, Leigh Phillips made a great argument in one of his books that if something being state funded and coordinated by the government is enough to make it socialist then the fucking Pentagon would be one of the biggest socialist institutions in America.
The American media's intentionally disingenuous re-framing of what is and isn't socialism has got to be one of the most successful achievements of propaganda of all time.
I swear, that was one of the most infuriating thing that happened during the whole Sanders campaigns, left libs gleefully proclaiming that the US military was an example of Socialism. The US State and its military apparatus has the blood of millions of dead Leftists (majority in the global south) on it's hands, and libs will just rub it in face with a smile and say it's socialism baby! FUCK
Over and over again, Bernie included. He said that america has socialism but only for the military cause they get insurance sometimes and the gov spends money on it. Bernie willingly obfuscated what socialism is in an unhelpful way for millions of people who had an interest in it.....all for a campaign he called off to support Biden with. Now you have people who think voting blue no matter who and the US military are socialism.
Socialism is when the government does stuff. The more stuff it does the more socialister it is.
actually it is definitely a socialist thing. Public schools, public infrastructure (such as roads and parks), stuff such as the fire brigade, public transport, medicare/Medicaid, and even the military. Essentially, if the government funds it, it is widely beneficial to people, and its free for said people to access… Then it’s probably socialist.
Feudal societies had public infrastructure, but I don't think even she would call that socialism. The Great Wall and the Grand Canal are two public infrastructure build through penal and corvee labor, but they weren't an example of socialism. The issue is that even if those programs are widely beneficial to people, they didn't come to existence through the conscious decision of the people. Otherwise, you can point to any enlightened despot who was smart enough to invest in public infrastructure as an example of a "socialist."
She doesn't consider the people having control over their collective destinies as a criteria. This can only be true when the people have complete control of their political, social, and cultural lives. And since the political, social, and cultural life of a society is ultimately informed by its economic life, it means the people must have firm control over their economic lives as well, which translates to control over the means of production. Through conscious control of the means of production, the people can consciously determine what economic course to take, which also translates to what political, social, and cultural course to take. This is what it means for a people have control over their own destinies.
When Cuba passed its Family Code, it was Cuban society consciously making history by passing the most progressive family code in world history. Just by how Cuban society is organized as a socialist society, it was a widely discussed proposal discussed throughout the entirety of Cuban society, the pros and cons of the proposal were hashed out among Cubans, and it was finally put to a democratic vote where the majority of Cuban society, even accounting for people who didn't vote as voting against the proposal, won the vote. The entirety of Cuban society was part of the political process.
Meanwhile, gay marriage being federally legal was not a conscious decision by American society. It was the conscious decision of a bunch of reactionary judges who just so happened to be on the right side of history for once. Outside of queer activists and homophobic evangelicals, American society at large was not politically engaged with the question at all. But the most serious difference is that unlike the Family Code, the Supreme Court decision can be easily Roe v Wade'd by a different set of reactionary judges. It did not come from the masses and it can be taken away from the masses.
The collective of labour. As in, the people that do the work. A collectively run school would be run by a teacher's committee.
(of course this is actually an incomplete Lassellian description but baby steps here)
That's a good point. I hate debating because it's pointless and doesn't change anybody's opinions. I just wanted to dispel a common misconception about socialism that libs and socdems fall into. But I realized that if I'm not capable of putting it into my own words, then I might not be the right person to try to educate on this topic right now.
Socialism is a separate thing to policies that socialists like.
Welfare and social safety nets are policies that socialists like. They are things that improve the lives of workers under the hellscape that is capitalism. They make capitalism more bearable for workers. Having socialism would be better though.
Socialism is when workers own the means of production, either through a centralised means or through owning it themselves.
The crucial point here is that socialist want to make the lives of workers better and recognise that all of these things do that. If someone agrees, they can become a socialist if they can be brought to recognise that owning the means of production would also improve the lives of workers like all the other policies that socialists support.
Liberals often use the word socialism to mean what we'd call social democracy or public welfare. They use the word communism to mean something kinda like what we call socialism. And they tend to have no words to describe the particulars of leftist ideology as a base framework. You can actually see this divide with European parties. There will often be a socialist party and also a communist party in the same country, with the first being social democrats and the latter typically being Marxist-Leninists.
An issue is that liberals believe in an inherent public/private division that simply exists as a feature of reality, not to be questioned or overthrown. There is simply always a state that is publicly funded that exists to regulate a private sphere. That simply can't change according to liberalism, because it's intrinsic to how humans interact with one another. So all politics is a game of negotiating how far apart the two spheres are, which is why your person said pure socialism is when a central planner regulates the entirety of all production. The sliding scale of public has overwhelmed the private. It's why liberals fall into a trap of believing fascism is socialist.
Stalin's interview with HG Wells is a really good read on this stuff. HG Wells calls US president Roosevelt more of a socialist than Stalin, right to his face. Stalin is actually really polite about it and gives answers like this:
Stalin : But what will this "socialism" be? At best, bridling to some extent, the most unbridled of individual representatives of capitalist profit, some increase in the application of the principle of regulation in national economy. That is all very well. But as soon as Roosevelt, or any other captain in the contemporary bourgeois world, proceeds to undertake something serious against the foundation of capitalism, he will inevitably suffer utter defeat.
In the 19th century they were socialist policy, but they have become wholly subsumed to basic governance of society.
Just keep yelling that she's violating the non-aggression principle
