First, please define what you mean by socialism. That word encompasses a lot of very different forms of government, even when it's used "correctly", and it's typically not.
The Nazis called themselves socialists, and I'm not moving there.
When many people say socialism, what they mean is capitalist democracy with a strong social safety net, strong government regulation, and highly progressive taxation.
Edit: for the love of god, please do a little bit of reading about socialism before reinforcing my point that this word is used terribly. We won't take the wiki as ultimate truth, but please read. Be better. Read and think first. Comment later.
When many people say socialism, what they mean is capitalist democracy with a strong social safety net, strong government regulation, and highly progressive taxation.
Let's go with that definition since that's what most people think of as socialist.
The question doesn't need to be hypothetical. I am moving to a country exactly like that. From the US.
Lack of modern health care coverage alone is enough to justify it. A bonus is that the quality of life across the board is significantly higher.
Where at and how’d you pull that off? Inquiring minds want to know
I read that Denmark releases a list every six months of the skills and degrees that are allowed to immigrate, or get priority or something like that. From looking at the last one I assume they value education, the liberal arts and humanities a lot more than the US.
It ends up being a catch 22. When you want to leave the US because of a lack of upward mobility, social services, jobs in your field, and you can't save because of healthcare, rent, and debt, then how can you have enough money to move to another state, much less another country?
Can't answer the where at, but most likely by having an in demand skill and/or a job already lined up. Either that or they had family there. Immigration away from here is basically impossible otherwise.
Yep. Sucks being trapped here forever unless I get a PhD or get rich.
They have qualifications. Or relatives. Or something of value to offer.
If you have a PhD or MD (additionally, you know, just straight money), you can emigrate to a lot of places. Probably most places.
Portugal and a lot of effort (Plus cash to invest).
Basically going through the Golden Visa process (Which has changed substantially the last year, happy to explain more if curious)
That is objectively not socialism (any definition of socialism that begins by defining it as a form of capitalism is fundamentally confused)
That said, I’d agree that it is a widespread misunderstanding today. And what people mean when they say socialism is usually actually social democracy (which despite sounding like the word socialism is a mixed system based on capitalism)
Using that misunderstanding as the definition I would definitely live in many of those countries. Many have some of the highest qualities of life in the world, low rates of poverty, universal access to good healthcare and education, and good social mobility.
E.g Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Germany
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Exactly. This is what the person you are responding to is saying as well.
They state that the above definition of socialism is wrong as it defines it as a from of capitalism with social features. But under the condition that this is meant he would move into these countries.
It's actually not even that. The Wikipedia page talks about free and mixed market in socialism.
That's capitalism.
It uses the word literally.
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Yes… Please reread my last comment more slowly… particularly the first two paragraphs.
I swear. This place is way more toxic than Reddit.
I can't imagine someone being so condescending there on a topic like this.
Please read the Wikipedia article. We don't have to agree that Wikipedia is an ultimate source of truth, but it is a pretty good article.
I don't think I'll be able to communicate anything more to someone who tells me to "read more slowly".
You're the one who responded to their comment without actually reading it, why are you complaining about them?
Provided there is an appropriate amount of technocracy (decisions made by experts rather than politicians), it'd be hard for me to think of a better form of government.
Anyway, this was largely the US until Regan. Social safety net could've been stronger, but that had to evolve. Same as in Europe.
Except , racism. Addressing that is not a part of any definition of socialism that I'm aware of. Equality is certainly going along with the spirit of this definition of "socialism"
"Socialists of Lemmy, would you move to a country that someone who has absolutely no idea what socialism is thinks is socialist?"
Lmao.
@nodsocket @PetDinosaurs > OP: what socialist policies would you implement?
> commenter: what do you mean by socialism?
> OP: let's go with an incorrect definition of socialism. what social democrat policies would you implement?No, "most people" do not consider that to be what socialism is. Particularly those of us who live in countries with the aforementioned policies. Here we've had real socialists who wanted to take away our fundamental individual rights, amongst them the right to ownership, which frankly is a scary idea.
A lot of our regulations and limits on the free market don't have a socialist bent at all, but are intended to defend our individual liberties against large corporations, which if left unchecked can become corporate institutions, something the US has fallen victim to.
I'd consider these policies as important, if not moreso than our social welfare systems. The social mobility and safety provided by these are meaningless if an arbitrary decision by google, amazon or some bank can singlehandedly ruin your life.
I would love to.
When many people say socialism, what they mean is capitalist democracy
Lol. Lmao, even
Why couldn't that what you just described be called something different other than "socialism" then? Sounds like a bad move to make it fall under that same umbrella especially since that term is very frowned upon if not straight out forbidden in a few European countries for example.
It is, the term for this type of system is called Social Democracy which is not a synonym for socialism, but people (Americans at least) confused and conflate the two terms to the point that they’ve become one and the same in the minds of many people who don’t really understand the terms or their origins.
Because we're too busy categorizing this stupid shit into bins of "good" and "bad" when reality is a greyscale between these two. These are fairly reasonable points and should be viewed as a more centrist POV, but since we (read: primarily North America) have a tribal "us vs. them" animosity about it we lump many reasonable ideas together on each end of the spectrum. Things like not having to go bankrupt when you or a loved one needs an emergency hospital visit somehow automatically gets lumped in with the other extreme "socialist" ideas just to solely argue against it and not budge from their end of the extreme.
Fucking Preach! I do not understand this mentality of one team or the other.
Wow, yes this is so true for many discussions online and increasingly offline as well. Nuance seems to be not welcomed. Sometimes even suggesting there might be nuance or the topic might be more complicated than black and white already puts you firmly in the enemy camp.
Words, used in non technical contexts, mean what people mean when they use them.
Descriptive. Not proscriptive.
Incidentally, most people suck at communication
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So in your view these people are inherently more 'great' than others? What would you call these people who are so above average? The over people? The overmen? The ubermensch… oh whoops
Are you seriously trying to compare that statement to Nazi ideology?
Yes. I think that great artists and scientists and chefs and authors and teachers and those that work hard contribute more to society than others.
The Nobel prizes are being announced this week.
The work of Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman saved millions. Most people are not capable of that.
Yes I think subdividing humanity into the great people who perform all the work, and the lowly masses that exist to serve them is at the heart of Nazi ideology so I am making that comparison.
The notion that free* healthcare, free* education, subsidised transport, government provided unemployment supports etc is even labelled “socialist” strikes me as particularly American.
Having lived for quite a long time in canada, I think most Americans would love the it.
Semi related - The USA is already socialist if you consider they have more spent per capita on healthcare, and pay for things like roads, police, fire departments, schools and the like. On the last point, they pay all the way through High School and then significantly subsidize universities as well. It's all a matter of degree. In the usa, we socialize on many fronts, and then pay companies more than we would pay to socialize the same service and consider that better. Imo, it's very much not.
I'm not sure if spending more per capita means "socialize" healthcare. Isn't the problem with US healthcare is that "accessing healthcare at any time without the worry of financial burden" is not currently true for everyone?
I think your definition is a fine one. I think the Nuance I was trying to make and perhaps did poorly was that the US already pays a huge amount for healthcare but we pay it to companies to do research that they then use to make profit worldwide. Not to provide services for everyone. It's a matter of priority
Socialism isn't a welfare state, socialism is when the workers own the means of production.
No no no
Socialism is when the government does things, and when the government does a lot of things, that's communism.
#boomerlogic
#jokeslibsthatwanthealthcaredontget
Don’t forget the farmers who are subsidized.
supports
That's a strut. Did you just mean 'support'?
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That meaning of support is a non-countable noun, like water or happiness (or Lego, but lots of people get that one wrong). There is no plural of non-countable nouns.
You might use (for example) "bodies of water", "levels of happiness", "pieces of Lego", or "sources of support" etc.
Silence, bot, the only thing worse than a pedant is one that isn't even correct.
One thing I'm not loving about going from reddit to lemmy is the amount of pedantry by people stuck somewhere between A and B on this graph.
Never heard of linguistics or prestige dialects, just go around parroting nitpicks they learned in 7th grade grammar classes.
Social Security is a socialist policy.
As is Medicaid and Medicare.
As is SNAP and EBT.
I live in a country with socialist policies already called The United States of America.
But we could use lots more. So I'll stay here, and I'll try to make it that way.
I also have a vested interest in furthering the socialist policies in the US. I would very much like to stay here since my life, my family, my friends, etc are all here. I just want this country to improve in ways I only see possible through socialism and moving from an individualist culture to a collectivist one.
Something that is a social policy does not imply that it is a socialist policy
In the way the words are being used here, it absolutely does.
There's been a lot of propaganda for a long time that "socialist" countries are authoritarian, abusive, and usually dictatorships, so by that measure, of course you would have to make the argument you do, but the fact of the matter is that socialist policies are just policies where we pool resources as a group to provide a public good. It's opposite would actually be free market capitalism, where you have to subscribe to a fire service to protect your house (it worked that way on the US once, feel free to Google it).
The methods of governing are a completely separate axis, ranging between power vested solely in an individual or small group, and true democracy.
It is absolutely possible to have countries that are democratically socialist, or free market dictatorships. Just because America is still mainly a democracy doesn't mean we can't look at it's policies and see a clearly socialist component of public services. In my mind the truly perplexing thing is how people can label things like a tax to provide everyone access to free books and other media, taxes that support universal fire and police protection, and taxes that support free education for everyone (through high school only!) and say they are just normal non-socialist things, and then look at taxes that would pay for higher level education, for health protection, or for childcare so you are always able to go earn a living, and suddenly they are foaming at the mouth and screaming "socialism!"
But trying to derail an entire conversation by arguing about one word is a lot easier than trying to actually address the points of an argument, so we see that a lot.
Are you implying that US has socialist policy overall? In your country the term socialist is used as something negative lol. "Look at this loser he is a god damn socialist"
"If you hate the Death Star so much, why don't you go live on Alderaan?"
Death Star blows up Alderaan.
"Why would socialism do this?!
Goddamn
There are no countries with socialist policies.
Can you name a country that has workplace democracy? No? Then there isn't a socialist country out there.
Would I move to the social democracies of the world? I love norway and whatnot politically (as much as a communist can love the state of any country)… but I love having warm air and nature I can enjoy without a coat much more.
Doesn't any country with cooperatives have workplace democracy?
Norway is cheating because they have many natural resources to sell.
Yes, they have a tiny, insignificant amount.
An entire country has to have workplace democracy for the country to be socialist.
This is kinda like saying "doesn't any country with a slice of bread have food"
What would change if every company would be democratic?
Y'know how totalitarian regimes are incentivized to be shitholes because of the keys to power problem?
https://invidious.asir.dev/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
at the very least, that goes away. But there's many more other things.
To begin with, there wouldn't be an unspoken agreement between companies to keep wages as low as they can be because more than half of the companies in that market agree that the best they can do is starvation wages.
autistic people could actually get hired
What is workplace democracy? Would love to finally hear some socialist philosophy from someone that isn't a goddamn Hexbear user.
Yeah, they're really indoctrinated by chinese propaganda, I can't stand them, and I'm a damn communist.
Workplace democracy can work a vast number of ways, and I can't claim to have figured out what the best way of doing it is, and this is one of the most contentious areas in socialist theory, but I'll give a relatively easy to understand example:
A business running democratically, instead of having a CEO who decides everything, could have weekly meetings where everyone gets together and decides what is needed, pay structure, schedules, etc, building decisions through consensus, and then falling back to a vote if people disagree, they could also work like a modern democratic republic and have the workers elect people to various positions, and then maintain heirarchy, if the business is far too large for consensus building to work.
The way a business works currently, under capitalism, is often with a CEO at the top, who controls a group of people directly below him, and so forth, this results in bad divergent incentives, due to the keys to power problem (if you're not familiar, watch this: https://invidious.asir.dev/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs ). One such example is if i'm a walmart employee, do I give a fuck if walmart does well? No. As long as they don't go out of business, i'll be paid the same, who gives a fuck how well the business does if I'm not a partial owner and have no say?
cuba is quite close to real socialism
In what way? I have yet to hear of a single socialist policy from cuba.
Do note: socialism is worker ownership over the means of production.
afaik, in cuba the means of production isn't directly controlled by the workers but is controlled by the government which acts as a middle man between the workers and the means of production
That's state capitalism, and has nothing to do with socialism.
The workers control the means of production under socialism, not the government, this makes it in no way socialist by any commonly used definition of socialism by philosophers.
You seem to know what you are talking about. Can you ELI5 the difference between communism and sosialism, in the shortest possible words?
Okay, first, to lay some groundwork, there have been many modes of production throughout history
first, there was hunter/gatherer societies, then feudalism, then capitalism
Then we have theories as to what could come next, according to the marxist viewpoint, the next thing will be socialism, and then after that, communism.
So, communism is a post-socialist ideology, the only requirement for it to be socialism is that instead of a bourgeois class and a worker class, they will become unified (doesn't matter how for the purposes of explaining this, but usually through violent revolution)
So, a socialist place would have the workers self-manage, people who work in a place would also have democratic control over that place in some way.
After that happens, for various reasons outside of the scope of an eli5, communism comes, communism is a post-socialist society in which the workers own the means of production (hence the socialist prerequisite), currency has been abolished, the state has been abolished (but not government, these are two distinct entities in socialist thought), and there are no class divisions whatsoever.
Part of the problems with discussions about these topics is that communist philosophers of old used terms in very different ways than the colloquial ways we use them today. I can expand upon this if you have any followup questions!
In the spirit of knowledge, I've tried to understand them by reading some sources but I never could get around it. It's like me, a non-physicist, trying to understand quantum theory and theory of relativity. Anyway, your explanation is good enough for me to be able to different between the two terms. Thanks.
if the government functions as a worker's union is that state capitalism or socialism?
State capitalism.
What does a "workplace democracy" mean?
I'm envisioning that's the janitor having a vote in where the brain surgeon makes the next cut.
That's a possible interpretation of "the people control the means of production", but that's just ridiculous.
Well, that is a pretty ridiculous interpretation.
Workplace democracy would most likely and most broadly refer to all employees of a company having a say in how the company is run. Either by voting on policies and changes, or by electing people to various executive/representative roles, much the same way that current Western democracies work.
An example of the janitor voting on where the surgeon makes a cut makes about as much sense as us voting on where the president flies in his helicopter. At best, it doesn't pass the make sense test, and at worst is a bad faith interpretation of what people mean when they say "workplace democracy"
I'd settle for just having a labor representative in the C-suite at this point.
They will give you less than you ask, everytime. So better ask for much more.
It's quite simple, right now businesses are structured in a totalitarian manner, socialism seeks to overthrow that totalitarian regime within your workplace, there's a number of ways to do this, nobody is suggesting the janitor should decide how a surgeon does his job, we just want to eliminate the useless position of CEO, and replace it with democratic systems managed by the people who work the jobs.
An easy to understand version of this would be if every company was transformed into a worker co-op, but that of course is only one of many models for socialism.
It is important to note that the government is not the worker, and therefore government control over the means of production DOES NOT COUNT.
It means the janitor has a vote on how their duties are done
So…what if they decide their duties are brain surgery?
Like the nonsense a peer post to yours is spewing. From a person who's handle is "communist".
They could have reasonable points, but if your philosophy suggests that brain surgeons can get told what to do by janitors, that's a problem. I wouldn't call that "totalitarian". I would call that sane.
Now, what do we do about brain surgeons and the cost of healthcare (which is and will always be phenomenal, no matter who is paying and how it is being paid for)?
Are you being outrageous and arguing in bad faith on purpose?
I genuinely can't tell, in the event that you're not, nobody has ever suggested that janitors should be allowed to do the duties of brain surgeons. Furthermore, even if a single absolutely insane janitor decided he should be allowed to do the duties of a brain surgeon… nobody else would agree with them, because we live in a society with vaguely reasonable humans… and that janitor would likely be democratically FIRED for suggesting something so outrageous, or put in a mental institution.
Or are you worried about the janitor uprising in which janitors decide they can do all jobs known to man? Perhaps nothing can stop the janitor uprising, and we are all doomed.
At the very least, they'd keep the streets clean! I, for one, welcome our janitorial overlords.
Do you know any janitor that are willing to take the risk of killing someone and face the consequences of that? If so, I would recommend to keep your distance of that person.
What kind of idiot workplace would allow that? Perhaps if you don't assume the people you talk to are literally brain-dead, you might understand what they're saying.
what if they decide their duties are brain surgery?
In your world the only thing keeping janitors from doing brain surgery is the current corporate structure?
Like the nonsense a peer post to yours is spewing
Which parts are nonsense
but if your philosophy suggests that brain surgeons can get told what to do by janitors,
It can't.
Now, what do we do about brain surgeons and the cost of healthcare
The government pays for it like in most wealthy nations
The first part reminds me of religious people who can't fathom ethics existing outside of religion.
"If there's no hell what's to stop people from doing bad things?"
You make my brain hurt.
hat's a bad faith interpretation of "the people control the means of production".
I want you to consider the difference between the work needed to complete a task, and the work needed to manage a workplace: for one of those tasks, only the experts in that task can meaningfully contribute to the outcome, whereas for the other, everybody who is part of the workplace has meaningful input.
I don't know about your experience, but everywhere I've worked there have been people "on the ground" who get to see the inefficiencies in the logistics of their day to day jobs; in a good job a manager will listen and implement changes, but why should the workers be beholden to this middleman who doesn't know how the job works?
I've also had plenty of roles where management have been "telling me where to cut".
If you mean the modern idea of socialism, like the nordic nations, then absolutely get me the fuck out of rugged-individuals-at-eachother's-throats-land please, these people are fucking nuts in the not fun way.
If you're talking about one of the formerly socialist nations that the United States intentionally took covert action against and destabilized to keep the regional markets open for our capitalists to sociopathically exploit like Venezuela, then no thanks, I've already seen enough of that trademark American for private profit cruelty played out domestically in our innumerable tent cities in every American population center.
https://time.com/5512005/venezuela-us-intervention-history-latin-america/
Your response got me curious and I've read the entire worldhappiness article you linked. Are you saying you dislike the Nordic countries? If yes, why? The article explains quite thoroughly why living there people feel happy.
No, I want to fix my own country.
An admirable objective but… likely or even possible? Maybe it just needs to go back in the oven for a few generations.
Are you suggesting that improvement is impossible? If it can only get worse, then it is imperative to push back in defense.
How can we do nothing and still look our children in the eyes?
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100% if that country is in northern Europe. Hard nope if it's in South America.
I'd buy a ticket tomorrow if there was a job for me in a Scandinavian country and I didn't need to speak the language immediately.
Soft same. Norway would be awesome. I love the cold.
Ireland is calling you. Cost of living is high but check it out.
Not wanting to learn a language of the country you live in, is kinda asocial tbh
Social(ist) policies are extremely removed from socialism. The countries people list here, aka Canada, Danmark and Ireland among others are extremely capitalist still. This thread is therefore useless.
Yeah, I feel like "a country with strong social safety nets" would be a better way of putting it
Socialism has a TON of historical baggage
As a German, I think I would. Given that it is good and just.
Pretty sure we Germans already live in such a country, don't we?
I would argue that Germany is not a socialist country. Politics are targeted at the already wealthy and cooperations.
I'm not versed enough in politics and history to give detailed examples. I'm just a normal guy. However, I'm currently listening to the Jung & Naiv podcast on Spotify.
In episode 661 they discuss the development of the housing sector since the 1950s and very little in the 18th century. The important information is that the housing sector grew from being socialist to being a housing market.
I think they mention that in the 50s there existed a "Kostenmiete" (Cost-rent). That would only be allowed by law to be as high as it needed to be to cover the costs for building the house/flat. The owners were not allowed to make profit exceeding 3.5%. Any profit had to be put into housing again to keep the housing sector growing. Around that time the state was heavily supporting housing unions and other groups (not cooperations) to build housing. The state itself built 500.000 !!! appartments a year. Last year the interview says they built 6 appartments. Six, in case you thought you read a typo.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ At least in the housing market we are not socialist anymore and it becomes worse every year. Education becomes worse every year. The medical sector becomes worse every year. Public transport becomes worse every year. Loans do not keep up with inflation. Everything becomes more expensive.
Yes, we are better off than many. But are we not just richer slaves with more benefits than others? The interview says that there exist studies that estimate 11 million households to qualify for social housing. In some cities that is 60% of their population. 60% quality for social housing. Are we alright?
My impression is that Germany is considered a social democracy. Maybe it is towards the milder end of the spectrum but still fits the definition.
As an outsider I think Germany has got a lot of things right, and found a good balance. Not perfect, but good.
This is basically the million dollar question and also the source of confusion, when one person thinks of socialism they could be thinking of either social democracy, like modern Germany, or a communist state like the DDR… so depending on your point of view, you’ll have a different answer
Im from the US, and Ive always looked at Germany with envy, though I'm definitely not a fan of their decisions regarding Nuclear energy, or lack thereof
Why would I move somewhere that America is planning a military coup?
Fuck, if someone could pay the costs to relocate me to Norway and set me up with roughly the same job and equivalent house there, I would move in a heartbeat.
That really depends. Are we talking immigrate to somewhere with functional socialist policies, or to a psuedo dictatorship with what looks a whole lot like strong man fascism except they promote a few (most often failed or failing) socialist programs? Because I have no interest in moving to a failed state like Venezuela. I'm not going to slaughter and eat a bunny.
Rabbit isn't all that bad though…
Rabbit is my favorite after lamb.
You want to be gifted a live one for food by the government?
I mean yes? Fresh meat!
Functional socialist policies, like Switzerland.
I did! Hello from Scotland . . .
Scotland is only a borderline social democratic welfare state.
Sounds horrible. Quality of life must be terrible there!
We visited in May and decided we are going to end up there. Already considering what we might be to do to make it happen.
Yes. Looking hard at the Nordic countries.
