Worried About Socialism Coming to America? Calm Down

[mastermind]

Sure. Norway. Oh wow how convenient, all the way evidence is in op

Norway takes some socialism, but they are not a socialist country.

 

[ELESDEE616]

Well said.

Bullshyt deserves bullshyt

 

[Shogun]

Bullshyt deserves bullshyt

What is your understanding of Socialism, and how exactly does single payer insurance and free college tuition align with it? shyt, even universal basic income isn't Socialist.

Please, enlighten us all.

 

[88m3]

Conservatives Can’t Decide If Nordic Socialism Is a Totalitarian Nightmare or Actually Capitalist


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[Shogun]

Conservatives Can’t Decide If Nordic Socialism Is a Totalitarian Nightmare or Actually Capitalist


User Data and Cookie Consent

The Nordic Model isn't Socialist.

 

[storyteller]

The Nordic Model isn't Socialist.

This kills me. The Democratic Socialists running for office are providing the Nordic nations as what they are modelling. "That's not Socialism" doesn't change the model they're pointing to or provide anything substantive to a discussion about the policies they're proposing, which one more time we have a clear model that we can pull from and examine for positives and negatives. Anyone that still doesn't know what the American politicians running as Democratic Socialists are using as the model is being purposely obtuse and arguing about what to call it is just making it easier for conservatives to feign confusion. The opening article is literally pulling out policy proposals and critiquing them as policies and yet every damned post after is about what is and is not allowed to be called Socialism rather than anything substantive about the policies or any cause/effect.

When these cats say Democratic Socialist, everyone on this board has been around long enough to know what they're talking about. Now can we get to the part about whether or not their proposals will help this country moving forward? What flaws have appeared in similar policies that we may want to address if we move forward with this model? What alternatives exist and if they're better or worse? Because every time people fight over titles it stops us from getting to the part that actually does impact us.

 

[Shogun]

This kills me. The Democratic Socialists running for office are providing the Nordic nations as what they are modelling. "That's not Socialism" doesn't change the model they're pointing to or provide anything substantive to a discussion about the policies they're proposing, which one more time we have a clear model that we can pull from and examine for positives and negatives. Anyone that still doesn't know what the American politicians running as Democratic Socialists are using as the model is being purposely obtuse and arguing about what to call it is just making it easier for conservatives to feign confusion. The opening article is literally pulling out policy proposals and critiquing them as policies and yet every damned post after is about what is and is not allowed to be called Socialism rather than anything substantive about the policies or any cause/effect.

When these cats say Democratic Socialist, everyone on this board has been around long enough to know what they're talking about. Now can we get to the part about whether or not their proposals will help this country moving forward? What flaws have appeared in similar policies that we may want to address if we move forward with this model? What alternatives exist and if they're better or worse? Because every time people fight over titles it stops us from getting to the part that actually does impact us.

Here's the thing - I agree with you. Completely. I assume on this board we generally agree w/ the welfare state and what the Nordic Model has achieved. Your point is not lost on me, but it's not people on this board that need to be convinced. The people in America who do need to be convinced are instantly turned off when they hear the word Socialism. And, not for nothing, you can't fully blame them. If you're 50+ (the most active voters in America) you grew up in a world where you were convinced the Socialists were trying to annihilate you. Where you did nuclear fallout drills in elementary school. Those instincts don't die easily.

I think that if, in America, we want these policies to to become popular amongst the anti-Socialist-at-all-costs, we need to stop mistakenly referring to the Nordic Model as Socialist. European welfare states use Progressive Liberal philosophy to attack the problems of the post-industrial world. You could easily argue that universal health care, basic income, college tuition and such are necessary for all citizens in guaranteeing their constitutional rights in the 21st century.

There was a time, when a factory job could provide the means for a comfortable life, that those things weren't required. What Europe learned following WW2 was that times have changed - and what Progressive Liberalism is specifically meant to do is change with the times.

When the left tries to out-woke eachother by calling themselves Socialists in America they're hurting their own cause.

You can embrace social welfare policies and private ownership of capital at the same time. Thats what the Nordic Model is. To the very people that need the most convincing, Socialism means the abandoning of private property for state ownership...and they're not wrong. That's what Socialism is. If you have to change the foundational belief of Socialism to fit your ideology then its no longer Socialism.

 

[EndDomination]

American socialists aren't actually Socialists.

Today's socialists are closer to new dealers than anything else

They're just Progressive Liberals that don't understand political philosophy and think "self identifying" as Socialist makes them woke.

This is what I meant in my prior post.

I don't think Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are actually socialists. They don't define their philosophy as such.

None of them are asking for the government taking over production.

Democratic Socialists are explicitly socialist, not "identifying" as such, but very literally socialists.
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are literally socialists, they're not just not morons, and are trying to push into electoral politics to force a push to the Left at best, and increase the focus on issues of capitalist at the very least.

 

[EndDomination]

Here's the thing - I agree with you. Completely. I assume on this board we generally agree w/ the welfare state and what the Nordic Model has achieved. Your point is not lost on me, but it's not people on this board that need to be convinced. The people in America who do need to be convinced are instantly turned off when they hear the word Socialism. And, not for nothing, you can't fully blame them. If you're 50+ (the most active voters in America) you grew up in a world where you were convinced the Socialists were trying to annihilate you. Where you did nuclear fallout drills in elementary school. Those instincts don't die easily.

I think that if, in America, we want these policies to to become popular amongst the anti-Socialist-at-all-costs, we need to stop mistakenly referring to the Nordic Model as Socialist. European welfare states use Progressive Liberal philosophy to attack the problems of the post-industrial world. You could easily argue that universal health care, basic income, college tuition and such are necessary for all citizens in guaranteeing their constitutional rights in the 21st century.

There was a time, when a factory job could provide the means for a comfortable life, that those things weren't required. What Europe learned following WW2 was that times have changed - and what Progressive Liberalism is specifically meant to do is change with the times.

When the left tries to out-woke eachother by calling themselves Socialists in America they're hurting their own cause.

You can embrace social welfare policies and private ownership of capital at the same time. Thats what the Nordic Model is. To the very people that need the most convincing, Socialism means the abandoning of private property for state ownership...and they're not wrong. That's what Socialism is. If you have to change the foundational belief of Socialism to fit your ideology then its no longer Socialism.

I actually just heard a remark about how DSA is trying to move past "welfare capitalism," because that's not the end-goal.
Using the Nordic model as an example to bring some comfort to the idea of ~soft Socialism~ before we get a little bit deeper into what "Socialism" is.
You can't go 0-communes and expect a willing American public to embrace that.

 

[storyteller]

Here's the thing - I agree with you. Completely. I assume on this board we generally agree w/ the welfare state and what the Nordic Model has achieved. Your point is not lost on me, but it's not people on this board that need to be convinced. The people in America who do need to be convinced are instantly turned off when they hear the word Socialism. And, not for nothing, you can't fully blame them. If you're 50+ (the most active voters in America) you grew up in a world where you were convinced the Socialists were trying to annihilate you. Those instincts don't die easily.

I think that if, in America, we want these policies to to become popular amongst the anti-Socialist-at-all-costs, we need to stop mistakenly referring to the Nordic Model as Socialist. European welfare states use Progressive Liberal philosophy to attack the problems of the post-industrial world. You could easily argue that universal health care, basic income and such are necessary for all citizens in guaranteeing their constitutional rights in the 21st century.

I feel like we're on a similar page but differ on strategy. I agree that this is where we're at in mindset as a nation but I also think the direction we're heading is away from the fear of Socialism as always being evil. Millennials were polling as more favorable to Socialism over Capitalism recently and if I'm not mistaken they'll have the largest potential voting bloc for the next few election cycles. Key word potential because the turnout has been lightwork, but they may reflect a need to further embrace this voting bloc's tastes. The Dems have a stronger Millennial presence, so I don't know how much it skews this but there are also polls showing the Democrats as a whole have a majority positive opinion of Socialism.

That doesn't address the over 50 crowd though, I admit. But I'd argue that it'll be more effective moving forward to change how they view the word "Socialism" than to avoid the word like a boogeyman. For one; part of the reason people are completely confused about what Socialism even is, is because Republicans portray EVERYTHING relating to regulation or public good as Socialist. Obama was made the posterboy for Socialism by these cats, Warren's Accountable Capitalism Act was immediately called Socialist and they're going to keep doing this for however long Socialism is treated like a bad word and catch-all phrase instead of treated with some deeper examination. That starts with propping up examples of "Socialist" programs that work and exploring how we can integrate those successful policies into our system. We can debate whether or not those programs are even really Socialist but that leaves a frame available where anything that's "too close" to Socialism is treated as the first step to Venezuelan Crisis events in spite of the fact that there are clear examples of these things working. So I feel the conversation should be "not everything associated with Socialism is dystopian" and it's especially important because of how fast and loose the conservatives play with the term.

There was a time, when people were more self sufficient, that those things weren't required. What Europe learned following WW2 was that times have changed - and what Progressive Liberalism is specifically meant to do is change with the times.

When the left tries to out-woke eachother by calling themselves Socialists in America they're hurting their own cause.

I tend to agree with this but I also think a big issue with it is 1) the people who actually rep for the DSA tend to lack the platforms to express the more detailed views they have and 2) even when they do, their views are marginalized due to the prism we're programmed to view the word "Socialism" through. So part of it is that fake woke ish and the ignorance oozing from it but another part is that people who do have deeper views and ideas tend to just have their opinions dismissed as fake woke before any examination is allowed (as I said before those, it's shifting).

You can embrace social welfare policies and private ownership of capital at the same time. Thats what the Nordic Model is. To the very people that need the most convincing, Socialism means the abandoning of private property for state ownership...and they're not wrong. That's what Socialism is. If you have to change the foundational belief of Socialism to fit your ideology then its no longer Socialism.

There's a lot of heads who fall under the the Libertarian Socialist (Chomsky) and Democratic Socialist (back at the DSA) section of "Socialists" who I assume would argue that public ownership is the defining characteristic of Socialism rather than State Ownership. Now how they go about accomplishing Socialist goals without giving too much power to the state is a big discussion (and why I stick to being affiliating myself as a social democrat) but I'd just put it as:
there are some real thinkers who would argue with you that the foundational characteristic of Socialism is not state ownership; rather the sharing of the means of production which they feel can be achieved by other means (worker coops for example and probably the native american casino revenue sharing UBI-ish model).

 

[afterlife2009]

 

[Shogun]

I feel like we're on a similar page but differ on strategy. I agree that this is where we're at in mindset as a nation but I also think the direction we're heading is away from the fear of Socialism as always being evil. Millennials were polling as more favorable to Socialism over Capitalism recently and if I'm not mistaken they'll have the largest potential voting bloc for the next few election cycles. Key word potential because the turnout has been lightwork, but they may reflect a need to further embrace this voting bloc's tastes. The Dems have a stronger Millennial presence, so I don't know how much it skews this but there are also polls showing the Democrats as a whole have a majority positive opinion of Socialism.

That doesn't address the over 50 crowd though, I admit. But I'd argue that it'll be more effective moving forward to change how they view the word "Socialism" than to avoid the word like a boogeyman. For one; part of the reason people are completely confused about what Socialism even is, is because Republicans portray EVERYTHING relating to regulation or public good as Socialist. Obama was made the posterboy for Socialism by these cats, Warren's Accountable Capitalism Act was immediately called Socialist and they're going to keep doing this for however long Socialism is treated like a bad word and catch-all phrase instead of treated with some deeper examination. That starts with propping up examples of "Socialist" programs that work and exploring how we can integrate those successful policies into our system. We can debate whether or not those programs are even really Socialist but that leaves a frame available where anything that's "too close" to Socialism is treated as the first step to Venezuelan Crisis events in spite of the fact that there are clear examples of these things working. So I feel the conversation should be "not everything associated with Socialism is dystopian" and it's especially important because of how fast and loose the conservatives play with the term.



I tend to agree with this but I also think a big issue with it is 1) the people who actually rep for the DSA tend to lack the platforms to express the more detailed views they have and 2) even when they do, their views are marginalized due to the prism we're programmed to view the word "Socialism" through. So part of it is that fake woke ish and the ignorance oozing from it but another part is that people who do have deeper views and ideas tend to just have their opinions dismissed as fake woke before any examination is allowed (as I said before those, it's shifting).



There's a lot of heads who fall under the the Libertarian Socialist (Chomsky) and Democratic Socialist (back at the DSA) section of "Socialists" who I assume would argue that public ownership is the defining characteristic of Socialism rather than State Ownership. Now how they go about accomplishing Socialist goals without giving too much power to the state is a big discussion (and why I stick to being affiliating myself as a social democrat) but I'd just put it as:
there are some real thinkers who would argue with you that the foundational characteristic of Socialism is not state ownership; rather the sharing of the means of production which they feel can be achieved by other means (worker coops for example and probably the native american casino revenue sharing UBI-ish model).

Well said.
The only thing I'd add is that we're dealing with a stacked deck here. For a variety of reasons (both legal and not), the over 50 crowd (re: old white people) have a more powerful political voice than the younger vote...and that's assuming the social media hype translates into sustained political action (like you said). I'm skeptical about that.

 

[Shogun]

Democratic Socialists are explicitly socialist, not "identifying" as such, but very literally socialists.
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are literally socialists, they're not just not morons, and are trying to push into electoral politics to force a push to the Left at best, and increase the focus on issues of capitalist at the very least.

I here you, I guess my stance on Democratic Socialism comes down to my generally skeptical (or pragmatic, depending on your perspective) view of human nature. Democratic Socialism, at least how I understand it, relies on people voting for the good of the whole, sometimes (maybe often) at their own personal expense. It's nice to think about it and strive for, but I think people have a much stronger instinct towards self-preservation for that to work. History kind of bears that out too.

Also, the Nordic Model works in part because of very exclusionary immigration policies, small populations, small defense budgets and geopolitical responsibility, and large oil incomes. All of those seem problematic for America.

 

[afterlife2009]

The concept of a library would be insane to some people if it never existed

 

[Shogun]

The concept of a library would be insane to some people if it never existed

They seem insane to most people today