If you want to see why libs and Chuds on Reddit are having “tankie” derangement syndrome, look at the glorious comments dunking on OP.
I am so tired of loud ass dumb fucks saying it won't work when it's working great :back-to-me-shining:
in Europe right NOW...RIGHT STINKING NOW. :lenin-rage:
Americans please stop conflating the mildest of social democratic welfare states with socialism. 0 political education, only vibes.
A Danish social democrat would be offended if you called him a socialist.
I hate those comments so much partly because I feel bad for wanting to roast them. That was me 5-6 years ago. :stalin-bummed:
Scandinavia is not democratic socialism, as much as Bernie Sanders sold many young, naive millennials with that talking point. This was something that was rebuked by Denmark's PM himself. In the Scandinavian countries the means of production are primarily owned by private individuals, not the community or the government, and resources are allocated to their respective uses by the market, not government or community planning. Scandinavian countries are highly capitalist, and incredibly high on the Economic Freedom Index. Entrepreneurship and free markets are fervently embraced, Sweden adopted a universal school choice system in the 1990s that is nearly identical to the system proposed by libertarian economist Milton Friedman, and there are no minimum wage laws in Sweden or Norway or Denmark. What Nordic countries practice is the Nordic Model, something that is possible there because of their tiny homogenous populations and high natural resources to support the taxation need for the welfare programs.
What Nordic countries practice is the Nordic Model, something that is possible there because of their tiny homogenous populations and high natural resources to support the taxation need for the welfare programs.
I'm going to expand on this point slightly. Denmark, Norway and Sweden do not have the functional welfare system becausse we have tiny and homogenous populations. We have an expansive welfare system because our unions used to have fucking teeth and we were located geographically close enough to the Soviet Union that it scared the shit out of our ruling class. Sweden in particular has a long and storied history of anti-imperialism to the point where they were the only european country to offer supplies to the Viet Cong. Denmark began a massive cooperative wave with its aggricultural sector in the mid 1800s, where most of the workforce was engaged.
Norway is honestly the odd one out historically, and that is mostly because Norway used to be one of the poorest countries in Europe, with a miniscule population until they received a massive injection of cash through their oil fields. Norway then did the smart thing and used those funds to speed up the development of the country.
Yes all three countries are solidly capitalist, albeit with a funcational welfare state despite our SocDems best attempts at neutering it, but most of Scandinavia also has an extremely radical labour history and I think it does a massive disservice to us all if the gains of the working class are simply described as "high natural ressources, tiny populations and homogenity".
I'm not saying it doesn't have advantages to have a homogenous population, i'm saying that the union efforts and millitancy had a way bigger impact than our demographics. Also I just hate that argument because it's used way too much by racist Americans who think that a welfare state can't coexist along with black/brown people.
If we were to be charitable to the guy, and not just dunk on him, you could argue that the urban/rural divide has been made much more pronounced since the Neoliberal brainrot of the 1990s and 2000s set in. From what I gather, Denmark used to have significantly more manufacturing jobs as well as aggricultural jobs prior to 1980, which would have provided a way for people to make a living without needing to go to university. . So while the urban/rural divide certainly exist, it's been made much more pronounced since the introduction of the welfare state as a single concept in the popular conscience.
"Ethnostates are good because there can be no racism without minorities!" :very-intelligent:
-you
The boys of Capital, they also chortle in their martinis about the death of socialism. The word has been banned from polite conversation. And they hope that no one will notice that every socialist experiment of any significance in the twentieth century—without exception—has either been crushed, overthrown, or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized, or otherwise had life made impossible for it, by the United States. Not one socialist government or movement—from the Russian Revolution to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, from Communist China to the FMLN in Salvador—not one was permitted to rise or fall solely on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.
It's as if the Wright brothers' first experiments with flying machines all failed because the automobile interests sabotaged each test flight. And then the good and god- fearing folk of the world looked upon this, took notice of the consequences, nodded their collective heads wisely, and intoned solemnly: Man shall never fly.
- William Blum, Killing Hope
i have literally just stopped caring what r*dditors have to say. your typical r*dditor is this guy and thinks he's persecuted for being a white amerikkkan
Don't get me wrong, we should be disregarding :reddit-logo: normally. It's just a pleasant surprise how, even there, the winds are blowing somewhere positive. I could not even imagine something like this five years ago.
Granted, they're mostly still idealistic and utopian as fuck but we all start somewhere.
fair, that was better than i expected. i usually see a shit ton of racism and western-centric views
"China is state capitalist actually"
Capitalism is when capitalists are very much not in control of the state and regularly get executed for corruption
