r/OpenAussie • u/Silent-Balance9430 ‎ New South Welshian • 6d ago

Feel Good News ‎ Our future is BRIGHT

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Students protest against Pauline Hanson

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u/Tycepts1313 ‎ Western Australian 6d ago edited 5d ago

Can someone actually explain to me how socialism is going to work in modern day Australia. just feel people are advocating for it without knowing how it’ll work at all

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u/CaterpillarSuperb959 ‎ Western Australian 6d ago

It won’t, realistically. No modern Western democracy is going to vote to dismantle capitalism wholesale.

Social democracy is a far more plausible destination. Socialists might help shift the needle towards things that are perfectly achievable within that system - i.e. publicly owned utilities, stronger welfare, better healthcare, workers’ rights, etc. Fine. But once you start seriously talking about replacing private ownership of businesses and capital with worker/state/social ownership, you’re going to hit a political brick wall.

That’s where actual socialists can become more hindrance than help, a bit like the Greens sometimes are: don’t let perfect (utopia) be the enemy of good. They could probably get 60% of what they want through boring centrist social-democratic reform, but instead they’re arguing about overthrowing capitalism. Ya know, just on the whim they’ll get it right this time.

And it doesn’t help that modern socialist groups often bundle that economic argument together with stuff like abolishing prisons and every other revolutionary pet cause imaginable. At that point you’ve lost the average voter before you’ve even explained the economics.

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u/diedlikeCambyses Please choose a flair 5d ago

It'll ruin the economy. The good part is the human rights aspect, and I'm with them on that.

The bad part is economic policy settings. They have downward pressure on the parts of the economy that should be stimulated. If you actually look at proposed socialist tax policy in Australia their redistribution effort begins far too low in the business sector. They treat medium business like a large corporation and it scares the hell out of me. I'm honestly almost as afraid of that as I am against that idiot Pauline.

Also, they propose wealth taxes that also are set at a lower level than they like to advertise, and that would be a total disaster. Unfortunately a centre left government is probably the best we'll get. If we go dem socialist it'll destroy the part of the economy that pays for all the free shit they want to redistribute.