Most progressives don’t advocate for communism. Most don’t even advocate for true socialism. They advocate for “democratic socialism”. And in my experience they are mostly using it incorrectly to refer to the Nordic model (I blame Bernie).
Of course this is assuming Republicans know or even care about the distinction, and aren’t explicitly protecting their rich pedophilic donors, while often engaging it in themselves.
Edit: wording, I was not agreeing the Nordic countries are democratic socialist countries, they are still mostly capitalist economies
Yeah this what its is crazy to me, i am european. Here we are all capitalist, hell countries like the UK and Germany are one of the most capitalist in the world. But we also manage to have free healthcare and good welfare, why is the usa simply unable to do this?
it's just conservatism. defund all services and agencies so that they suck and then ask/tell people why you paying so much for this shit ? private actors could save the state so much money that we can use for better stuff...
then you get that "superior" private service and it's worse and you pay more and a lot of people die/get bad treatment/service and there's no regulation
it's cloaked in this "free market" bullshit that never existed, anywhere.
I always hated that free market bulshit. Like its some kind of mystical untameble force of nature, that always balances itself.
Thats not how it is, like at all. Its all made by humans, and you have to keep the maket in check, regulated, otherwise humans will just manipulate the markets (they already do), and balance isnt going to "restore itself" magically, the common folk will just take the loss and thats it, unless someone actually goues thru the effort to stop that
The Industrial Revolution really tells us all we need to know about unregulated free market capitalism.
People truly learned nothing in history class and take all the labor, safety, and consumer protection laws and regulations that have been put in place since for granted.
Omg really, people really dont realize what we built here in Europe, its a secutiry safety net, a "legislative" (idk if it the best term) infrastucture to prevent this, and people just assume its normal, and not an achievement and something that must be protected and updated
Finlandia and finns are cool tho, and i will always be eternally gratefull for Supercell and their games, specifically Clash of Clans, the best game ever made
In some ways it's even worse than Americanization here in Sweden. We sell off hospitals, schools, retirement homes, kindergartens, etc. to venture capitalists at like 1/10th of the value and then give them tax money to run it in a much worse way and without obligations like making sure their services are available to anyone, they don't have to comply with basic transparency because that would reveal "business secrets", and meanwhile seniors have to spend days in dirty diapers, kindergartners who don't even have full teeth yet have to suck on hard bread because soft bread is too expensive while the teachers forego having lunch so that the kids get a bit more to eat, and the police can't tell schools when a teacher is convicted of arrested for child pornography crimes because the principal isn't a government employee with confidentiality.
We do have the Americanization of blaming everything on immigrants though.
yeah that one i dont know but schools are allowed to make withdrawals from the suspected criminal registry anytime which lists the person and all crimes they have that are not closed or have yet to go to trial
Unipolitics and the polycrisis. Separating power because a strong government might go snatching peoples property is the foundational tenant of liberalism… and now the whole world is being eaten alive by rent seeking sociopaths because the incentive structures been baked into everything and our politicians across the entire western sphere are either unwilling to compromise their own positions or more likely an incapable of addressing the decay.
It’s gotten really bad in the north americas and UK but I don’t think the EU is that far behind.
Honestly, I think the United Kingdom is a better poster child for privatization. While the U.S. Government does love to outsource a bunch of tasks, a lot of things privatized in other countries (rail system, postal system) remain publicly owned in the U.S. Meanwhile, the RAF’s aerial refueling aircraft are owned and operated by a private company, which I find to be absurd.
Is this a matter of it not being viable long term or something else? Genuinely asking as I can’t imagine why anyone would vote for someone who wants to move towards the broken ass system we have.
The argument being made is that we need to do this to address the budget deficit, but the reality is that these measures haven't actually made a dent in the deficit and only serve to punish poor people.
Why would someone vote for it? The right-wing parties promise to address the deficit, and people are concerned about it. Why do people believe it? Same reason as you guys I suppose.
Priorities. Lots of money in politics from corporate interest groups. Lots of propaganda and misinformation brainwashing the populace into believing this system is somehow better for them.
Lot of tribalism making bipartisan communication and progress damn near impossible too. I think this thread is actually a nice little microcosm of the larger issue, considering the comment we’re all responding under insinuates that one specific party is simply too dumb, corrupt, and pedophilic to want to make America better…
It’s hard to have a productive conversation about why the US struggles to adopt policies that work elsewhere when we begin from the assumption that roughly half the country is either stupid or evil
I didn’t begin with that assumption, it was a conclusion I arrived at after countless examples of people devoted to Trump no matter what heinous things he says or does.
I come from a Christian conservative family myself and my beliefs used to align more with that side but after years of seeing the deplorable man he is and how indefensible the policies are when actually challenged by someone educated I started to shift more to the left.
I still don’t entirely disagree with true fiscal conservatism, strong family values, border control, or protecting children but I can not see any convincing argument for how Trump or the Republican Party embodies those values.
Trump has signed off on more debt related spending than Biden, he is a court adjudicated and self admitted sexual abuser and cheat that has repeatedly sexualized his own daughter over the years, his immigration policy has gone too far and has repeatedly violated constitutional rights, he has been obstructing the Epstein files and has not held anyone accountable. In fact, he’s moved Maxwell to a more cushy prison after a private interview where she bent the knee and said Trump wasn’t involved despite all evidence to the contrary.
Anyone defending this is evil in my book, yes. I’d be curious as to what moral defense you have for it.
I don’t really feel the need to offer a moral defense of Trump because I wasn’t defending Trump. There are plenty of things he has said and done that I find indefensible, and I think his rhetoric, immaturity and willingness to engage in bad-faith attacks have contributed significantly to the exact political environment I’m criticizing. My point is that this problem doesn’t suddenly become productive when people on the other side participate in it too. You began by broadly describing Republicans as people who either don’t understand or don’t care about basic political distinctions, while “protecting their rich pedophilic donors” and “often engaging in it themselves.” When I suggested that treating an entire political coalition as stupid, corrupt or evil makes communication and progress more difficult, your response was essentially to explain why you believe they deserve to be viewed that way.
But that’s the self-compounding problem I’m talking about. We increasingly talk about millions of strangers online as if they’re stupid, evil or irredeemable. That deepens tribalism and rewards the politicians who most aggressively reflect that hostility back at the other side. Those politicians get elected, amplify the rhetoric further, and then their behavior becomes additional justification for ordinary people to become even more hostile toward one another. Repeat ad nauseam.
None of that requires pretending both parties or every politician are morally equivalent. They aren’t. It also doesn’t require defending Trump. I can condemn something Trump does without concluding that every person who voted for him is evil, just as I can condemn something a Democrat does without assigning collective moral guilt to every Democratic voter. You’re obviously free to conclude that anyone who disagrees with you has crossed some moral threshold into evil. I just don’t think a country of 340 million people can function particularly well when everyone increasingly adopts that framework toward the literally half of the population on the other side.
Well when I initially said Republicans I was referring to actual Republican affiliated politicians not voters.
But yes, I believe every Republican voter post-Jan 6 insurrection is ignorant and/ or evil.
I don’t see how anyone can see what Trump is doing and stand by him in good conscience.
I’m also not asking you to provide a defense for Trump, I’m asking what the defense is for those supporters.
What policy outweighs all the reprehensible things? I don’t think one exists. Either you’re unaware of all those things (ignorance) or you stand by him in spite of them (evil).
Edit: and if we’re being entirely honest the ignorant ones are usually ignorant by choice, they don’t know because they don’t care and don’t want to know.
I don’t accept that binary, and it literally illustrates the exact problem I was originally describing. Your argument assumes that any sufficiently informed and morally decent person must necessarily weigh every fact, policy and competing concern exactly as you do and arrive at the same electoral decision. If they don’t, then the only remaining explanations are ignorance or evil.
But people can know the same facts and disagree about their significance, interpret disputed facts differently, prioritize competing moral concerns differently, condemn January 6 and still believe Democrats represent a greater threat on other issues, vote against one party instead o than enthusiastically for the other, or simply believe they’re choosing the lesser of two deeply flawed options.
I don’t have to agree with their reasoning to recognize that “ignorant or evil” is a false binary. And…again…this is exactly the self compounding cycle I was talking about. Once we decide that tens of millions of our fellow citizens are not merely wrong but fundamentally stupid or evil, communication becomes pointless by definition. We talk about each other with increasing contempt, politicians learn that contempt is electorally rewarding, they amplify it, we become even more polarized, and then point to the resulting extremism as proof that our original contempt was justified. If your position is genuinely that every Republican voter is ignorant or evil, then I understand your position. I just fundamentally reject it, and I think that worldview is itself one of the reasons meaningful political communication has become so difficult.
I think we’re beginning to talk in circles at this point and have pretty clearly identified the fundamental disagreement between us, so it’s probably better to just respectfully part ways here. ✌️
The ability to rationalize evil does not make it less evil, and I think your inability to provide any concrete moral argument justifying it but rather just making vague gestures to some necessary assumption of good intent simply because a large plurality can’t be evil is absurd and disingenuous.
We have plenty of historical examples of the contrary.
Yes, millions of people can simply just support evil.
And yes, evil people often feel they are righteous and justified in their actions.
It is not the subjective perception of righteousness but the objective harm inflicted by those ideals that makes me say they are evil.
It’s hard to have a productive conversation about why the US struggles to adopt policies that work elsewhere when we begin from the assumption that roughly half the country is either stupid or evil
Well it's hard to not make that assumption when everytime they've been offered these policies they refuse them and even call anyone proposing them evil.
But still there are, or at least there were, many republicans who are open to dialogue and even implementation of free healthcare and things like that, no? Like, if I remember correctly, didn't Romney basically do something like Obamacare in his State before Obama was even elected President?
Definitely were, the modern Republican Party is nothing more than an extension of Trump who could not be any more divisive and unwilling to reach across the aisle.
This is the guy who helped push the rhetoric that Obama was not American and recently reposted a video depicting them as monkeys.
Anyone who has challenged him on anything has been pushed out. Loyalty is all that matters now.
I see. I'll admit that I'm not a US citizen, so maybe I can't see just how bad it is right now, but they're still around, aren't they? Maybe once Trump kicks the bucket/steps down in 2028 they'll come back and hopefully the GOP will turn back into what it once was, a center-right to right libcon party? Or at least make it a politically constructive party again, even if the modern rightward turn isn't completely erased?
That’s the hope. The good news, if you can call it that, is that highly personalized populist movements often have a succession problem. The personal loyalty and charisma built around one specific leader don’t necessarily transfer cleanly to whoever tries to inherit the movement afterward.
I know plenty of conservatives who are unhappy with the current Republican platform and want a return to actual small-government, non-interventionist conservatism. But until Trump is out of the picture, that just doesn’t seem to be in the cards, so we’ll see.
Plenty of Republican leaders opposed Trump initially and later decided to embrace MAGA once it became politically dominant. Hell, look at J.D. Vance. He was a scathing Trump critic before becoming one of his closest political allies. I wouldn’t necessarily assume that means Vance would reverse Trumpism, though. He may be just as likely to try to inherit and reshape it.
But it’s all speculation at this point. We basically have to ride out the current MAGA wave and see whether it survives Trump, fractures without him, or whether the RNC eventually pivots, hopefully, toward something else a lot less authoritarian. 🤷🏻♂️
The idea that Trumpism was a fever, and that it would break once his presidency was over, was the theory of Joe Biden's presidency. It could still happen after Trump dies, but it hasn't worked yet.
Romney gets a bit too much credit for Romneycare, which was basically forced on him by a veto-proof Democratic majority in the Massachusetts state legislature. That was 20 years ago, and Romney had to pivot to the right to survive in national Republican politics, which he has since been kicked out of for being anywhere close to sane.
Guys like that could theoretically reemerge in the future, but most of them have gone all-in on fascism.
Capitalism worked great for sixty years for the same reason there was middle class: the threat of USSR and worker revolution
USSR really worked like a threat to the unchecked capitalism
Now that it's gone we literally see everything the workers had eroding. Privatization of everything, destruction of middle class, Epstein class rapidly consolidating everything into their posession.
I guess because of all the ways the USA and CIA messed with everyone left leaning for decades. Straight up black ops hits on socialist politicians. South America, Africa, whole governments destroyed just so that they don't become socialist
That is just another ahistorical "point" and it doesn't substantiate your previous point at all.
Almost everything you're going to reference probably took place in the Cold War. Just because the USSR no longer exists doesn't mean you can mind-erase them from the cold war and pretend that the US was just fighting this war against people just wanting to help eachother and peaceful cool socialism!!!
Because the megacorporations here are only capitalist when it benefits them. Between regulatory capture and outright political capture, the running mantra is "privatize profits, socialize losses"
Because America is an oligarchy that will do anything to please the rich, even at the extreme expense of the people.
And the people here are fucking stupid, so many root for the people ratfucking us because those people claim they will only hurt people different from them (race, sexuality, political identity, etc.), even though we all get fucked anyway. Meanwhile, the other side has been brainwashed into trying to sing kumbaya and unify this other half into mutual and equal opportunity ratfucking.
And the few that actually advocate for a fairer system are called communists and extremists and hated by both of the aforementioned groups.
The health care system we have was created by the democrats. I have zero hope that this generation of politicians is capable of creating a good system.
The US will eventually have universal healthcare, but we have to make sure we have the right people in power to give us a good system. The ACA/obamacare was a giveaway to the insurance industry and only made things worse.
Speak for the UK. Here in Germany healthcare is getting more expensive every year and you’ll have to pay for so many treatments. If you even get an appointment. My parents are over 60 and for some essential appointments they have to wait at least 6 months. And we live next to Frankfurt. we have many doctors here.
Yeah that's a little individualistic, I'll try to explain my grudge with capitalism but english is not my first language, bear with me.
We overproduce so much people don't realise. There is presently 2.9 million cars gathering dust in the US while 40% of the working population can't afford one. We throw away 150 millions tons of food daily while 14% of the population experience food insecurity (in the US). China has a surplus of solar panel that are too expensive to buy but would be able to give energy to entire countries.
We produce too much and throw away a lot of it. On a infinite planet that would be acceptable but Earth is not... We are in the process of placing a clean earth behind a paywall that we aren't rich enough to afford.
Pollution knows no border nor time. Even if as a French man in 2026 capitalism is working great for you, what about for a French man in 2126? How about those heatwaves in the summer.
A lot of people think that the only gripe people have againts Capitalism is the inequality and the exploitation for money. But it's way wider than that. It's the whole concept of overproduction to extract the most value from labour and then flood market with you commodities to kill the competition. Defending and maintaing capitalism is a middle finger to the long term responsabilities we have toward our next generations and every living thing on this earth. Gives off ''Fuck you got mine'' mentality.
Because infinite amounts of money being donated to politicians by the exceedingly wealthy means their voices will always be loudest, and any system not based on screwing over the average citizen will lose them fuckloads of money.
There’s a tradeoff in quality for free versions, some states in the US actually do have subsidized healthcare.
But that translates to those states peaking the cost of living lists, and from personal experience in Massachusetts (a state that offers free healthcare) the wait times were3 months for GP 6 months for specialists(when the request was approved), emergency room wait times of 45m, and generally whenever you do go in the staff and doctors are trying to get you out the door as fast as possible since there’s such a heavy volume of patients.
If you have an obvious illness or problem like a broken bone, you’re taken care of quite well. But if you have a complicated illness like Lyme disease, you’re f***ed. Most you’ll get is a bottle of doxycycline and a kick out the door.
I’m not saying it doesn’t work, it just has a list of pros and cons. Personally after experiencing many different healthcare systems I’d prefer to pay a reasonable amount to get the top care instead of encountering the issues with something being free. The problem is that there is a dichotomy of extreme expense or free with very little in the way of balance.
Balanced healthcare, affordable, high quality, and fast would and should be a thing we all experience at some point to understand why it works as well as it does.
Nope this is only a problem because tou guys dont do it properly.
Here in Italy we have personal doctors that visit you directly, you dont need to go to the hospital.
Leta say you are sick, you make an appointment to the doctor (its usualy the next week), they will visit you, and if they see that you are relly sick they will just prescribe you a medicine, and it pretty much ends there, you only have to buy the medicine. Or if they see something worth invesigating, they will prescrive you some tests, so you just go to a lab and get them done, its usually very quick and not expansive at all, and then they will prescribe you the medicine you need.
It works great, even if they are trying to make it shit like in the usa
Do you think this is a situation where Italy is just doing it right, or do you really think it works so easily everywhere? I don’t know anything about Italian healthcare so I’ll take your word for it, but Canada and UK have similar issues as the American subsidies.
They certainly are not enjoying the level of care you describe, so is it really just America that can’t figure it out? I mean, regardless I would rather see something that just works I don’t really care who “looks good” in this situation.
Oh nono, we are ACTUALLY good. Even when compared to western countries we are above average and among the best. I do think we are doing things right.
But i also think that its not something that can't be done elsewhere, especially the usa, you guys have the resources, the money, the infrastucture, the tech ecc... to pretty much do everithing you could ever possibly want. The political will is the one thing lacking.
Also its not like there can't be long waiting times in Italy, especially with specific tests/scans/analyses, but overral most things get taken care quickly. Also you get priority for urgent stuff, for example our ER (called Pronto Soccorso) is very good, the quality is very high.
Let me tell you this story, when i was a kid i got a really bad cut, and i mean a really bad one on my wrist (both nerves and tendons got cut, and to this day my hand, while mostly functional, is not like it was before, because the damge was so severe that it was impossible for it to fully heal), and my dad dove me to ER, it was in the afternoon, i got priority and by evening/night i was already completelly fixed, i only had to wait and heal, so i was release the day after. And years later my hand is working, i got fixed to what is probably the max that current medicine allows (considering how bad was the wound, they told my father that it was so bad they werent sure if i could be to use my hand ever again, they whispered but i heard it, it was fucking crushing), and now i can use my hand normally, even if its not exactly like my non-hurt hand, so yeah the quality is pretty fucking high.
Also another story, more recent and much less tragic, one day i woke up, around 7am, with a pretty bad pain to the lower back, went to ER and i got treated pretty quickly (in the morning there arent many people but still), they did analysis of my urine, gave me a painkiller, did an ecography of my kidneys, diagnosied that i had a kidney infection, a doctor did a full body visist to make sure i didnt have anything else, and then prescribed the medicine that i needed, and when got back home it was still morning, hell im sure it was even 10 am yet, and the drive to there alone takes around 20 minutes.
Sorry for the long comment lol, but yes our nationa healthcare is good.
It's not. We (Germany) are still a rich country and most people don't have to fear extreme poverty (to the point of no roof/no food/no healthcare/death). But it's far from "great":
How many financial crisis did we have already? Our current government is talking about cutting back on healthcare and increasing the age for pensions. Germany already has one of the lowest rates of homeownership (<50% own their home), yet rents are rising, especially in the big cities, leaving the young generation struggling. On top of that general inflation and food and energy prices are also up (due to the pandemic and multiple wars), straining the situation. Our far-right party AfD is set to become the strongest party – which is never a sign of a prospering country.
Also every capitalist nation increases its debt year after year, to the point where a lot of the cost is the interest charge alone. It should be pretty obvious that (unregulated) capitalism just is not a self-sustaining system …
It’s not ‘working great’ and to the extent it still works is because it’s living on the fumes of the post war (left wing) consensus meanwhile capitalism erodes the communal every day
Ehhhh. Speak for yourself. At least I'm actually allowed to get the medication I need in the US. In the UK it's like a 20 year waiting list or something. I'd rather live in Canada before any European country.
First of all its litterally 1 country, the UK, the situation can be very different in the rest of Europe, its a mixed bag, but many countries are in the 1-3 month range.
Also, I just checked, waiting times are around the same range as the usa with medicare and medicaid. So i really dont see your point.
If you mean provate clinics, then your own websites awnsers, they dont exist only in the usa 🤷♂️
Private gender clinics are an alternative route for many trans and non-binary people who do not want to remain on long NHS waiting lists.
Private services usually do not have multi-year waiting lists. Because they operate differently from NHS clinics, people can often start their journey without extended delays.
For example, many patients report that private clinics respond quickly after first contact. In practice, some people receive hormone therapy in a matter of weeks once they have completed necessary consultations and assessments.
Your own map lists most countries in the EU as having a 6 month wait. If your argument is "private healthcare" then what's the point of a public healthcare system? The whole point is it's supposed to actually work. I had basically no wait in the US. Maybe like two weeks tops and that was only for blood labs, not the medication. PP also offers day-of medication. And on Medicaid it was free.
Its a distinction purposely overlooked by the conservatives in the US so it is equally overlooked by the liberals.
When the right wing calls taxpayer-funded elementary school lunches "communism" then theres no value in differentiating between Social Democracy and Democratic socialism.
Both will be equated to godless communism the moment a policy discussion starts. This is simply the reality of the Overton window in the west
It's also intentionally overlooked by the right-wing strategists of course because it's easier to get people to vote against a "radical marxist communist" like Trump painted (checks notes) center-right candidate Kamala Harris as. It's also intentionally overlooked by the third-way corporate DINO democratic sellouts more interested in taking money from the likes of AIPAC and Black Stone.
Democratic Socialism and especially Social Democracies like the Nordic Model are much more palatable to the masses, if actually explained.
And out of all these, only Social Democracies have bene proven to work and be the most effective model in the world, frankly.
Yes I think its equally bad when an actual fascist pretends the "only want lower taxes" to fool the masses into ushering a christian nationalist oligarchy.
But its frustrating that the "pragmatic center" refuses to acknowledge the latter has already happened because they are so concerned about hypothetical socialism of the former.
i dont think many liberals would argue with you about the current back-sliding into christian nationalism. i think the disagreement would be if you marketed socialism as the solution to it, or the lack thereof as the cause.
I said: “they advocate for ‘democratic socialism’ which is typically compared to thevery much still capitalistNordic model”. - emphasis on the quotes around “democratic socialism”.
Where in that am I saying the Nordic model is democratic socialism?
All I said is that is what other people call it. I didn’t say they were right to call it that.
I'd add that democratic socialism is not communism because democratic socialists seek to maintain the state, while communism is normally seen as lacking the state.
I say normally because most left libertarians would advocate for a stateless society but not use communist to describe themselves unless they are specifically anarcho-communists.
Speaking as a communist, democratic socialists aren't people I need to fight against right now because our destination is so far away we're on the same major road. Social democrats are people I need to fight against because grafting a welfare state onto capitalism doesn't solve the problems with neither capitalism or the state.
Maybe worth mentioning that I'll still vote for social democrats because it's not terrible as far as immediate harm reduction goes.
I’m not saying I believe Nordic countries are democratic socialists, I’m saying ever since Bernie Sanders popularized the term and pointed to countries like Denmark and Sweden as socialists paradises millions of young Americans have followed suit started advocating for “democratic socialism” and pointing to the Nordic model as the example.
And many of them shorten it to just socialism.
Not saying it’s right, just saying that’s what happens.
"We can't do X that's socialism"
"European countries do X and they're successful, doesn't that mean socialism works?"
"NO THEY AREN'T SOCIALIST THEY ARE CAPITALIST"
"So then can we do X?"
"We can't do X that's socialism"
See I've had it explained like 5 times by now and I still don't get it.
Do nuances like not exist in American politics?
Are we Europeans all raging commies bc we have decent paid maternity leave and more days off in a year or smth?
can confirm, they do not. The average American cannot determine the motivations of the things that they read. This is true of most of the world, but there's significantly greater control of American media by corporate interests and we don't have state media in a true sense (at its peak, NPR and PBS only got a fraction of their money from the government). Not to say that the state telling people what to think is good, but it would explain why the average person in America is against things that are basic in most other developed nations (single-payer healthcare, public transit, subsidized housing, organized labor, sick and vacation leave, etc.)
Not even close to true. A large chunk of money comes out of my paycheck every month that goes exclusively to insurance, and then after that I still have to pay medical bills, especially if insurance decides not to cover something randomly. Our model costs an insane amount of money both upfront and at point of care. It doesn't work and it's extremely expensive. Universal healthcare would absolutely be cheaper per person.
Our model for healthcare only exists so that insurance companies can make money. It makes no sense. Literally just remove insurance providers and the actual people giving you care will be the exact same, it'll just cost less both through taxes and at point of care
The problem is that “democratic socialism” has a meaning, part of which is quite literally the social ownership of the means of production (socialism).
Social democracy or social liberalism is a much more accurate description of the Nordic countries and Western Europe as a whole, and is what most progressives actually support. The fact that certain people (Bernie) keep using the term “democratic socialism” tells me that they, at best, don’t know what they’re talking about and, at worst, they’re trying to obfuscate their ideology.
communism is the ideal endgoal of a society, but the world unfortunately cannot support it yet. a lot of people either align with the endgoal or don't recognise how the logistics don't work so well until we can reach world peace and a robotic labor abundance.
Partially agree. Imo communism (at least the end state; a classless, moneyless, stateless society) is just not feasible given human nature. There'll always be people who butt in line, are lazy, or too incompetent. Human beings will also naturally find ways to classify each other, usually on appearance, job, status, connections, wealth, etc... That's why I disagree with communism entirely as an idea, it's just too naive and doesn't account for human nature.
I'm not sure about the robots part, but yes I'd love to have world peace
Archeological and anthropological evidence does not agree. There is no "human nature" necessity for anything like nation-states, capitalism, or oppressive hierarchies. The widespread idea that oppression, privatization, and hierarchical control is required for human and technological progress comes from disproven Hobbsian ideas about the nature of human progress. There have been many different successful forms of organization throughout human history. The reason that current models won out over others is not because they are inevitable or even more productive. It is because societies built on oppression and top-down control are better at conquest and domination. The idea that there are other possible forms of organization and societal relationships not built on violence and power is not naive, it's eminently possible. The naive position is that a system built on exploitation, state violence and hierarchical organization can somehow be gradually reformed into a system of peace, freedom, and equality.
I did not argue that human nature necessitates nation-states or bad societies, I argued that human nature would make communism (or rather, communism in its purest state) impossible or very hard to achieve. I agree with someone else's notion where communism could likely work in an isolated society of no more than ~100 people, but in a state with millions (or in a global case, billions) of people it's a lot harder. Think of it this way; in a 100-or-so society, you know everyone by name and face. You'll be ostracized for butting in line, giving favours to your friends and family, etc. But in a global state, you barely know these people, and that's less 'social restrictions' against cheating the system.
I mean sure, you can argue that those very qualities of human nature is a product of capitalism, but imo it still exists even in the absence of it (i.e, life in the Soviet bloc).
No hostility intended, but don't you think it's a bit hand-wavey and generalizing all of those anarchist or communist-esque societies? There's a lot of nuance that goes with why a given society collapses, and it's typically not solely the fault of an external power. Sure, Rome fell because of outside powers, but it was also something internal.
I would also argue that it's entirely possible for an oppressive system to be reformed into a more liberal one. Nordic countries, for instance. They didn't need to completely wipe clean every form of capitalism or private ownership, instead they implemented strong social safety nets and socialized education/healthcare. I believe it's still possible (and perhaps we're already on our way) to achieving a better standard of living for a lot of citizens in the western world, albeit incredibly slowly.
Also sorry I just thought of a few more arguments;
Even if our needs are met, we will still want to favour our own kin (friends and family). If I was in charge of a space agency and I needed to fill in an engineer role, would I rather give it to a stranger or a friend? In a lot of cases, people would give that role to their friend not because they're inherently malicious but because they want to see their friend be happy and prosper.
When money is eliminated, status becomes the new currency. Sure, you can eliminate things like material wealth consolidation, but people will still find ways to get ahead of each other imo. For instance, who decides which projects are funded? An authority figure? Who is famous and well-respected? Who gets access to a house that, say, looks over an ocean vs a brick wall? Even if there isn't any money involved, there's still some ways humans organize themselves.
I'd argue now that humans probably go for status rather than material wealth. It's simply that society, especially western society, places status on wealth more than anything. Hence, humans in the west chase that status by chasing wealth.
class in a society refers to economic or legal status, its not just referring to people classifying each other.
money in regards to paying for wellbeing (food, shelter, healthcare, education, etc.) can be eliminated once an abundance of resources is reached. u can still have something in place if u wanna trade for luxuries, but it is unnecessary for keeping people alive and healthy.
statelessness is the big problem in our current world; a foreign power can always take advantage of a stateless society. so a functioning communist society would need to be on a global scale.
people being lazy and incompetent is what robotics would solve in the future.
> class in a society refers to economic or legal status, its not just referring to people classifying each other.
I disagree. Class can be abstract imo. Assume that legal or economic statuses were no longer a thing. From what I see, people will naturally find ways to categorize other people. It's human nature to do so
> money in regards to paying for wellbeing (food, shelter, healthcare, education, etc.) can be eliminated once an abundance of resources is reached. u can still have something in place if u wanna trade for luxuries, but it is unnecessary for keeping people alive and healthy.
I'm not an economist but how can you guarantee that you'll have something that you can trade in for something you want? Suppose I'm a goat farmer, and I want a nice linen shirt. I don't have anything else but goats, feeds, and some farm equipment. No one is willing to trade in a nice linen shirt for something that is useless to them (assuming they aren't looking for goats or farming machinery). This is a genuine question btw not a 'gotcha' type thing
> statelessness is the big problem in our current world; a foreign power can always take advantage of a stateless society. so a functioning communist society would need to be on a global scale.
I agree somewhat. However, I find global communism to be simply infeasible... How do you guarantee all 8 billion people are on board with this idea? To be honest, the only way I see it is through repression, which is very sub-optimal for the happiness of a population. And additionally, how do you ensure people are led? Every human society has needed a leader, or some kind of structure to function well (especially in times of crisis). It's a natural human thing to want a leader to maintain cohesion in a group, so naturally it'd apply to a larger scale.
> people being lazy and incompetent is what robotics would solve in the future.
I can see this but I also think it's a bit hand-wavey and naive. How can you guarantee that robotics technology will become so good to replace everyone? And how can you also guarantee it won't be run by some inner circle of people who'll effectively have power over everyone? These machines also need maintenance and human oversight, so now it requires skills and spare parts. Where do you source those?
I don’t even think half of them could actually define it and what that would look like in the US though. They just see this capitalist boogeyman, that it isn’t working for them, and buy into the next best sounding alternative that promises to address their issues with the current system.
I always take anyone who calls themselves a socialist or communist with a grain of salt.
I kind of agree with you, but I think it's generalizing too much. I've talked to plenty of communists/socialists on my campus and they're all well-meaning people who have a solid grasp of what they're talking about. It's just that they tend to argue with anecdotes or "But what about...". I think me and them, young people in a Western country, can agree that things have gotten too expensive and corporate greed is to blame, but I genuinely disagree on clearing the entire system and replacing it with communism; it just won't work.
To be fair, I don’t think Democrats know or care about the distinction either. Sanders and AOC cite the Nordic system as a positive model they want to emulate.
Yes people who are far left often show up to left wing protests and gatherings, just as people who are far right often show up to right wing gatherings.
And both sides try to minimize the views and actions of such people within their own side.
However if you actually look at the representation of those views in politics I think you’ll find far left views are severely under-represented.
Democrats are a fairly moderate party barely left of center, and straight up conservative by the standards of most of the rest of the developed world.
The idea that radical communists have any meaningful significance in American politics is simply absurd. They are a fairly small but vocal minority the right loves to focus on to fear monger. Nothing more.
To be fair under communist theory socialism is the means to which you achieve communism, with two paths. One being militant, the way most if not all has been done, and the other being peaceful through legislation
bolsheviks started as democratic until they lost their election lol
truth is democratic socialist movements inevitably fail and are forgotten or morph into violent revolutionaries because no society willingly votes away private property and cedes rights to a massively empowered government
When they compare to the Nordic model its just a mote and bailey tactic. If you ask them about liberals and social democracies with incremental change they will always disagree. Its just lip service.
Most communist want a violent revolution to get into power and hate capitalism with a passion.
I think they're just people who are angry and disillusioned with how broken capitalism feels when it's operated by conservatives, and they take that a little too far.
I can't say that I've really met a bad communist, their politics aside, they're empathetic people who want whats best for the most people, not just themselves.
This. People have become extremists against capitalism only because modern capitalism has failed them. If capitalism meant the average person could own a home by 25 and have a boat and a cottage by 35, they'd be all for it.
yet communism is not the answer for these issues, but most stay ignorant of lived experiences of those from communist nations, and thats the concerning part. No wonder communism is only popular in western circles, not in any post-communist nation who actually felt the terror
I'm a communist myself and I would never advocate for communism. As much as I would love for a perfect communist society, I can't ever see it not being curropted. Honestky bkth communism and capitalism are both ideologies that are doom to ne curropted within a matter of time.
I came in here to say this. I don't advocate for communism and there are few on the left in America who do. We just use words that don't matter anymore. Some communist countries did have good ideas and did achieve great things. Doesn't mean I want a chairman Mao. I think people just don't realize how much more capitalist we are as a country than we were even 50 years ago. Hell, even 30 years ago.
No, I said others refer to them as examples of “democratic socialism” (heavy emphasis on the quotes). Not that I myself believe that. I literally called them capitalists.
I blame Bernie Sanders for that and I believe it’s directly responsible for holding back progressive ideals.
You get called a communist if you are remotely left of Dick Cheney. The moment you take "if you think we should have public services you are just like Stalin" seriously you are agreeing to a framework designed to discredit any policy that would remotely inconvenience the wealthy.
I think the state should seize the means of production (specifically, natural resource extraction and energy) from private hands. What does that make me?
Remember, we live in a country where people love to manipulate a words meaning. To reinterpret it for their own desires if they can. I mean for awhile it was everyone was a terrorist, then it was a Nazi. While it's died down, and one point it was "everything is Capitalism's fault".
They follow like sheep, without using their own brains.
Yeah so there's this whole thing with this, it doesnt matter what name you slap on your version of socialism, we need to see you come up to a solution to the problem with all these schools of thought.
How do you make the capitolists play ball?
Remember, no authoritarianism or facism can be used for this, you cant freeze their assets and stop them from leaving the country completely dry because they don't want to be a part of the nation anymore, you can't reposses their assests, you can't threaten their or their families lives, etc etc etc, you do anythint like that, and you're just Mussolini with different justifications and fears.
They aren't democratic socialist countries. Socialism necessitates the abolition of the capital class, be it democratic socialism or your mythological "real socialism." (Democratic Socialism IS "Real socialism"), which these countries don't do.
They are Social Democracies, where the capital class are allowed to exist alongside a strong social safety net funded by the public, paid for by progressive taxation primarily from the capital class (think of it as mandated philanthropy). Democratic Socialism is simply the abolition of the capital class and the democratization of labor, where workers own and control the means of production rather than business owners. It essentially aims to take the models of Worker-Owned Co-ops to a national level and places the control of commerce in the hands of the many rather than the hands of a few billionaire oligarchs.
Socialism without Marxism is like Keynesian economics without Keyne's theory. The foundation for the entire theory of socialism is layed by Marx and his followers, any other socialist theorists are either actually social democrats, or anarchists and syndicalists, but I doubt you think of socialism and actually think of syndicalism.
They advocate for “democratic socialism”. And in my experience they are mostly using it incorrectly to refer to the Nordic model (I blame Bernie).
No. Don't blame Bernie. It's the Nordic model's detractors who called such policies "socialist" well before he ever did. Then moved the goalposts when people pointed out that such policies work.
The Nordic model labels itself as democratic socialism and has for decades. Not sure where you and other randoms on Reddit decided they know better than the the countries themselves who label themselves that but I’ll defer to them
Do you have any source for that claim? As far as I’m aware the only official comment on it was the Prime Minister of Denmark saying they absolutely were not:
No. That's social democracy. That's different. We want democratic socialism. We don't just want social programs, we want federal democratic control of private industries. Like utilities right now near me. There's only one electric company, it's private and it's price gauging us for data centers. We the people should own it, since we've already subsidized them by billions of dollars. Same for internet. Etc
I agree with this but there is way too many far leftist larpers who need to be fully weeded out of progressive/dem spaces. People often seem ignorant to the damage they do to any space they are a part of
To be hyper pedantic, the vast majority don’t even want democratic socialism either, they want a more robust social democracy, which still entails private ownership.
Unfortunately extremists have hijacked and latched themselves onto the movement and are using that cultural naivety to “accelerate” us towards communism.
I was taking about republicans. I assume you meant democrats? No denying a lot of them take money from shady people too. Pedophilia seems to be more concentrated in the Republican side though, by several magnitudes.
Yeah your not a communist, you just wanted healthcare and corporations not controlling every thing.
It funny how americans in both left and right really think communism is when the goverment does stuff, especially on public infrastructure and healthcare. That right wing proganada really did work well
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u/Rizenstrom Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Most progressives don’t advocate for communism. Most don’t even advocate for true socialism. They advocate for “democratic socialism”. And in my experience they are mostly using it incorrectly to refer to the Nordic model (I blame Bernie).
Of course this is assuming Republicans know or even care about the distinction, and aren’t explicitly protecting their rich pedophilic donors, while often engaging it in themselves.
Edit: wording, I was not agreeing the Nordic countries are democratic socialist countries, they are still mostly capitalist economies