Neither. I support capitalism. Just needs rules to prevent things from going off the rails. I lean liberal on some issues. A bit more conservative on others.
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Socialist or liberal?
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It's based off of something inherently dirty and prone to failure.
You keep assuming that a social democracy will remain a social democracy forever. That is simply not a realistic position to have.
Remember when the UK had nationalised energy, trains, healthcare, telecoms, mines? Now it's facing the biggest economic collapse since the rise of Thatcher.
Voluntarily participate in society. Don't want to participate through labour? You don't get society. Not seeing the "funny' side of this at all.
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I take it this is supposed to make fun of all the uninformed people calling European social democracies "socialist"?
What system isn't prone to failure?
Honestly, if people realized a lot of European nations have been practicing democratic socialist ideals and thriving for a long time, instead of believing that the Venezuela route is what true socialism looks like, more people would be less opposed to the idea.
This is another US centric argument. Farmers are anything but impoverished in my country. We need maximum yields because we have very little space compared to our population. And yet quality is at the very least fine. It forces them to use the very best technology, which is provided by a partially publicly funded university here, with a focus on actual increasing of yields.
But it's not a secret that the "engine" is capitalism. In fact, I feel like US democrats should embrace that part of it to be able to sell it more easily.
What if I disagree with your government's decisions and practises and that's why I don't want to participate? What happens to me?
Yes, it's a buzzword right wingers use to hide and obfuscate the fact they are extremely right wing.
Yup. Implicit here is that there are degrees of coersion and that there is an acceptability threshold, which begs the question - what level of coersion is both sufficient and acceptable in order to keep society going?
I don't accept the distinction on the basis of borders. As I've said earlier, even if you abolish hunger entirely within a welfare state framework, the economy that generates that wealth relies on the exploitation of labor in "extremist capitalist countries." I view borders as an artificial creation. The people who live within the confines of your welfare system may not have the threat of starvation imposed on them (although even in quite advanced welfare states, people sometimes do starve), but the workers who mine the conflict minerals that power your economy do.
But those are just sociological movements and I could say the same for any socialist regime. What would stop someone from starting a bank and printing there own money?
How does a socialist country stop (or address to the best of their abilities) global warming?
No government. Just various councils which all may participate in directly.
So nothing at all to do with Thatcher's peer friends that wanted to buy-up these utilities? Really? Could you be a little more revisionist, please? It also didn't answer my question, how do you prevent a social democracy from becoming a US situation?
Ok, call them councils if you want to. Same question.
You're making it sound like I'm obfuscating definitions here. Let me be 100% straight with you:
There is no government under libertarian socialism. There is no representation apart from yourself. If you disagree with the decision made by your fellow peers and want to obstruct its realisation, you are clearly not working for the betterment of society and are only interested in clearly selfish means (seeing as all survival needs are met easily) and should be excluded.
Not a burn, just showing that it's still dependent on cpaitalism.
Not making fun. In all honesty, I like that the point of contention is whether or not we should have social democracy or libertarian socialism. It'd be great if liberalism is on the right, socialism is center, and communism is on the left.
Social democracy. Capitalism isn't going away any time in our lifetimes, so we may as well make the most of it and make it as equitable as possible. It's not worth wasting our time speculating about things that won't happen when we can focus on things that we can actually achieve.
What if I convince the majority of society to not participate in this system?
So as long as you're surviving, there's no way you could disagree with a group decision unless it was for selfish reasons.
I think there's a reason these daydream philosophies never take off.
The society is the system. There is not one without the other. You'd be pushing for everyone to starve which seems like a pretty ridiculous hypothetical scenario to me, I dunno.
Good job not reading, bud. Try reading it again.
I'd probably consider myself a social democrat or an ordoliberal. I'm fairly pro-market though so perhaps on the right edge of that designation.
Yeah, this is exactly what made these states crumble. It's a dictatorship. No, the "councils" or "soviets" or "Räte" don't always know what's better or what will be better. Technology and society isn't predictable like that. Sometimes things need to be replaced. But they do sit on an insane centralised power to force their will.
That's why you had catastrophic agriculture reforms in the Soviet Union and why all the Eastern European states fell further and further behind in technology. It crushes outliers and misfits, it's a nightmare.
As should be blindingly obvious to anyone paying attention this inevitably results in corporate/bourgeois capture of the state and the slow (or not so slow) hoarding of all power and wealth at the top, fermenting class/racial resentment and populism. See: post depression and post GFC politics. If you're going to have a sustainable social democracy the top tax rate needs to be like 90%, the inheretence tax has to be close to 100%, and there has be something preventing the rich from capturing politics and/or the media. All of this was in place in the post war era, and all of it has been slowly watered down, resulting in our current state of affairs.
But there is a distinction? Borders are artificial, but hey they are here.
You keep referring to conflict minerals, which of course are a problem. But thats not the hinge on which capitalism turns. They could be payed fairly, and that wouldn't destroy our system. Those mines all have their specific sets of circumstances, and quite a few came about because of internal political struggles, racism, ridiculous borders because of a colonial past, etc. They are not a result of any specific system.
If Africa is your cental objection to capitalism, then I'm really curious how a hypothetical socialist wave across that continent would change the continent for the better.
I really mean that.
You are purposefully misrepresenting me now. Can you stop it? I'll say it again: there is no political class nor state apparatus under libertarian socialism. Everyone can directly participate in its functioning.
The comparison to "Soviets" is ridiculous because they were a separate class with significantly more benefits and had the capabilities to oppress dissent through the violent arms of the state. There is no centralized power in libertarian socialism. There are no unjustified hierarchies whether by capital or by state. If you wanna talk about Marxist-Leninist-Maoism, talk to someone else, I'm not going to defend it.
This is what I hate about these threads, people refuse to actively engage with what socialism is and the consequences for it and focus on pop fallacies like "humans are naturally greedy", or "what about the Soviet Union?", or "it'll never happen" with zero elaboration. Yet when socialists point out the glaring contradictions of working in a "free" market, they're met with deafening silence". An appeal to humans being greedy is a fallacy and does nothing to move the argument forward.
I have no idea about UK specifics, so I'm not going to argue with you on that. And you can't prevent it, just like you can't prevent a socialist state from becoming capitalist.
What about externalities. What if your fellow peers want something that clearly is not for the betterment of society. And what decisions should be made this way? All of them? Who should be on a council? Is that an elected position?
The poll is using the world/classical definition of liberalism rather than the American definition, so by your answer you'd fall squarely within the liberal camp.
Dude this is exactly the problem. In a vacuum, sure your anarcho-communist society sounds pretty good, but it doesnt not fit into a world that is comprised of distinct states. Your society requires the global end of states in order to even begin being viable. Many societies in the past operated under your proposed structure and more often than not they were crushed by state societies. The state is a social and technological development that grants huge comparative advantages and unless we are all united under a global state I don't see this working
Can you elaborate more than literal "what about" questions? What externalities? Why is something clearly not for the betterment of society? Seeing as the lives of their community that they've chosen to participate in is on the line, you can imagine that people are extremely measured and considerate of workplace decisions.
Yes. All decisions should be made that way. Everything should be mutually agreed and compromised on.
I'm saying this way of existing is inevitable. It'll come eventually. Conversely, I do not see the current state of global capitalism existing beyond the next 50 years and the worsening relations between classes is perfect fuel for that realisation. Right now I'd be happy if there were no more moderates in politics and 'left' political parties started bringing crushing economic inequality to the forefront in all of their policies and empowering all demographics in these societies in a real way, not wearing them like a performative jumper. But I am done with "settling" with people that refuse to see two feet outside their own door.
Trump is a symptom of the disease, it'll only get worse if we stick to centrism and ignore the glaring contradictions in our capitalist societies.
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Because everyone has a different view on what is an ideal society.
No, I just went with what you said, that's why I asked about dissidents.
If you have councils with power, you have centralised power to a certain degree and you have political class, because that's how a council would work. And if you can exclude me from something, then you have some kind of state apparatus. That's what that is. You can start calling it different names if you want to, but that's exactly why I asked.
If I think a different form of farming is better for everyone but you cut me off from fertilizer and tools or take away my land, then I'm not free. These systems cannot deal with dissidents.
Exactly.
If there is a distinction to be made, I'm curious what it is. I could move everyone producing the products and being exploited into one part of the country, and all those benefiting from that exploitation into another part, construct a border between the two areas, and say I had created a country with no exploitation. OK, but that doesn't change the fact that it is still based on exploitation. The borders are an irrelevance to me in a globalized economic system.
No, they are one example of exploitation, which is the hinge on which capitalism turns. Capitalism is a system which alienates people from their labor in order to extract a surplus, and then remunerates them with something that is worth a portion of the value extracted from their labor. That is called exploitation.
I don't understand how the second sentence follows the first.
When the socialist leader Thomas Sankara took power in Burkina Faso, he vaccinated 2.5 million children, planted over 10 million trees to reverse desertification, more than doubled the production of wheat, built massive infrastructure and affordable housing, abolished forced marriage and female genital mutiliation, placed women into government and the workplace, all the while resisting significant pressure from international capitalism. He was assassinated four years into his term, under circumstances I will only describe as highly questionable. I would not be so flippant in your attitude toward the legacy of the socialist movements of Africa if I were you. What has capitalism achieved for the people of that continent?
Okay. And could you name a controversial issue in a workplace that someone would risk their own livelihood and everyone else's, completely impossible to compromise on, that they would force on everyone else? Because "people have different opinions" is not enough.
Thank goodness you're not part of the majority or even minority. Just the minority of the minority of the minority. Insanity. I'm sure your dystopian idealistic world would be enjoyable for some but you're going to have an incredibly tough time convincing the masses to sign up.
Sure, I wasnt trying to provoke you btw, it's just that I struggled with those questions and I'd love it if someone had an actual working model.
I was trying to think of a good example, but I would need more info on how this works; is there knowledge of the needs of neighbouring communities? Are there experts in diverse fields in every community, to look after things like environmental effects, etc?
I can think of decisions that would positively affect the community, but not its neighbours, these are negative externalities. Or decisions that seem positive but that an expert in a field would deem negative. Then you would need a sort of roaming group of experts, and who would decide then where they would lend their services..etc etc.
I also question the decision making capacity in such a system.
It's lunch time and someone orders pineapple pizza for everyone.
I would think the majority of liberals, or even self-avowed "socialists" actually think of this when they think of their ideal government. True socialism is just as much a slippery slope as authoritarianism. You're handing over control of your life and your career to the government.
So you.... exile people to the wastelands?
I mean what if people can't work, or are mentally unfit? Dumpsters?
I'm not going to prescribe values to this hypothetical, but seeing as the majority of people aren't massive shitheels and the society is based on fulfilment and freedom, I would imagine they would be given sufficient care to ensure they can participate in the society and benefit from it.
It's a meme bud. But continue being snide, please. Really contributes to this conversation.
This is so wrong. Socialism is the workers seizing the means of production. You're thinking of social democracy which is still Liberal.
You're a capital L Liberal