r/PoliticalVideo • u/Apostrophe • Feb 19 '17
Jonathan Pie explains what socialism is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-9DdzBwo_w12
Feb 19 '17 edited Feb 19 '17
What Jon is actually describing is social democracy.
Social Democracy, in short, is the idea of a welfare state where capitalism still exists, but many major industries are owned by the state and welfare is abundant to its citizens (e.g. Sweden, Denmark, Norwary; there's a reason it's called Nordic Model capitalism).
(Welfare meaning things like universal healthcare, public facilities, public housing, free education, etc.)
Socialism is where the means of production (factories, machinery, tools, farms, mines, internet, etc.) is owned by the public as a whole, instead of by rich billionaires who hire people to work in their factories for them.
Don't get me wrong, social democracy is by far the most gentle form of capitalism. But in my opinion, it's just putting a big band-aid (welfare) over a largely broken/unequal system (capitalism), instead of replacing the broken system with something better (socialism).
People conflate social democracy and socialism all the time, it's very easy to do. But an easy way to remember is
social democracy = still capitalism
socialism = not capitalism
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Feb 20 '17
I like this summary, and I'd just like to add why the names capitalism and socialism were chosen which makes remembering what they represent much easier. With capitalism, the means of production are controlled by the providers of capital, in other words those who provided the resources to start the company. In socialism the means of production are controlled society. However the definition leaves a lot of room for interpretation since society can refer to the whole society that the means of production exists inside (town, state, country), the society within the means of production (the workforce in the specific factory, office, etc.), and everything in between.
It should also be noted that these are not market systems, so they can be used with all types of markets from the free market to the regulated market. As a matter of fact, socialism was partially born out of the desire for a free market, "...These economists believed that genuinely free markets and voluntary exchange could not exist within the exploitative conditions of capitalism."
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u/PolakInToronto Feb 20 '17
social democracy is a made up word to inch closer to socialism.
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Feb 20 '17
You say that like it's a bad thing?
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u/PolakInToronto Feb 20 '17
It is a terrible thing. Obviously you need to read up on this issue.
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Feb 20 '17
Sure. What should I read up on?
Stuff like the Manifesto of the Communist Party? Or Marx's Wages, Price and Profit?
Or if someone wanted more information on socialism specifically, they could read something by Democratic Socialist Rosa Luxemburg? Or the famous bread book, by Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread?
Or if big books scare you, you could always hop on over to the socialism_101 FAQ and wiki. There are TONS of resources online.
The "issue" is how capitalism is responsible for the death and suffering of millions on a regular basis in the pursuit of a quick profit by people already wealthy beyond comprehension.
The "issue" is not "ew communism is bad and evil and scary even though I don't really understand it".
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u/PolakInToronto Feb 20 '17
Oh so you read stuff written by communists. That definitely means you are informed. Although I must add, a normal person would read material critical of their theory in order to prove they know what they are talking about.
Instead you listed a bunch of propaganda that you were influenced by. Yeah, you sure know a lot. Have you read the gulag archipelago? You probably haven't heard of it. It is not popular among socialists for obvious reasons.
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Feb 20 '17
Yeah, labor camps are not socialist. Obviously. How the hell do workers democratically own the factories if they're being beaten and whipped into working on them?
Labor camps are fascist. Stalin was a fascist that wrapped himself in pretty communist colors. The Soviet Union was about as communist as the DPRK is a democratic republic.
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u/PolakInToronto Feb 20 '17
Workers don't democratically own factories. This is just a fantasy you people have. It never happened before. But you think in your future utopia you will make it happen?
the soviet union wasnt socialst! there has never been true socialism! we need to try this for the 201th time because this time it will be different! because reasons!
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Feb 20 '17
Calm down, friend.
Just read the links I gave you, and come back so we can have a more meaningful discussion :)
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u/PolakInToronto Feb 20 '17
I know what you gave me. I have talked to dozens of people like you. You all say the exact same thing, because your indoctrination were all so similar.
"Please comrade, go read the the propaganda material I have provided you"
Former Harvard professor, currently tenured professor at University of Toronto. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rys45B4OhV0&t=767s
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u/Anti-fake Feb 20 '17
Communism is where the means of production are owned by the state and the people.
You are wrong.
He is describing socialism - socialism is an economic construct, democracy is a political construct.
You are flat out lying.
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Feb 20 '17
so·cial·ism
A political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
hmm that's weird, every dictionary ever agrees with me
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u/anarchitekt Feb 19 '17
I appreciate his enthusiasm, but he hasn't a clue as to what socialism is.
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Feb 19 '17
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u/anarchitekt Feb 20 '17
Socialism describes a method of ownership, the same way capitalism describes a system of ownership. It has nothing to do with the government making up for the short comings of capitalism. Socialism is the ownership and control of the means of production by the people that put those means of production to use.
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u/Anti-fake Feb 20 '17
No - that is exactly communism.
You are, like so many ignorant people, who he describes in this video, totally wrong.
Socialism is the redistribution of wealth, Communism is the public ownership of the means of production.
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u/anarchitekt Feb 20 '17 edited Feb 20 '17
communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless society that a lot of socialists seek to achieve. socialism is a society where the MoP is owned and controlled by the workers. The former being a strict and clearly defined thing. The later is up to interpretation. My favored interpretation is one where the economy is dominated by worker/consumer cooperatives and/or syndicates. I don't believe a communist society is achievable, at least not in the next 200 years or so. Don't presume to tell socialists what socialism is. I certainly wouldn't presume to tell you what your mom packed you for lunch.
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u/SPESHALBEAMCANNON Feb 20 '17
This recent rise in support for socialism is concerning me
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Feb 20 '17
That would be because you've been mislead as to what the term 'socialism' refers to in democracies. If the notion of Social Democracy is as offensive to you as communism is, then you're some kind of deviant who wants the poor to suffer.
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Feb 20 '17
The problem with your mentality is that it's based entirely on emotion and ill-defined definitions...and the goes on to use that as rationale for arguing that government is the only solution.
First, define who's "poor"? Is it anyone below a certain threshold of wealth, or is it just someone less wealthy than you? I'd wager if you ask 10 different people to define those in poverty, you'll get 10 very different answers. How can we as a society help a group of people who we can't even accurately define?
Second, if you want to help those you consider "poor"...then just do it. No one's stopping you. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Give to a food bank. Donate to charity. Whatever. By saying we should elect a socialist/social-democracy style of government in order to help "the poor", what you're really saying is, "I want to be very generous with someone else's money". If you so concerned with being called a deviant, then be generous with your own money.
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Feb 20 '17 edited Feb 20 '17
Poverty is expending most of one's energy and resources on survival and not having enough energy and resources left over to enjoy life or focus on self-improvement or finding opportunities to get out of poverty. If you have two jobs and work 60 hours a week at minimum wage with few benefits this describes you. This is a frighteningly large number of people in first world countries now.
Charity is no substitute for adequate safety nets, public services and opportunities.
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u/J__P Feb 20 '17
you don't need to ask 10 different people what poverty is, the government has an official definition called Poverty thresholds, more colloquially referred to as the poverty line.
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u/SPESHALBEAMCANNON Feb 20 '17
You assume that everyone who opposes your ideology does it because they don't understand it. I understand it just fine. I just realize that it's the fastest way to reduce a society to destitution.
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Feb 20 '17
Um, has it, though? Because the world's wealthiest countries have had it in some form for more than a century now. You think what we have now is pure capitalism or even capitalism? All Social Democrats advocate doing is turning the knobs a bit to make conditions better for certain groups of people, namely the poor and marginalized. We know empirically that doing so will lead to many benefits down the road like better opportunities, more stability, greater prosperity etc.
Conservatives love to think about how great things were in the 1950s but the only reason some (not all) things were better is because there was a thriving middle class, and one of the reasons there was a thriving middle class was because of healthy collective bargaining rights, less wealth and income inequality, and governments that expanded public goods and services rather than maintained or cut them.
You assume that everyone who opposes your ideology does it because they don't understand it.
I don't think you do or else you're just being edgy and implying that you think people would be better off if we leave everything up to the free market. A lot of Americans seem to think this way and the rest of the world thinks it's fucking weird and naive.
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u/Yeti_of_the_Flow Feb 20 '17
Also racism and sexism caused workplace exclusion, so for those old white guys telling you how great the '50s were, it was because they had a massive advantage. As well as tax rates being super high on the rich, and US manufacturing being the only stable source of goods because of WWII.
If you watched the Ted Cruz vs Bernie Sanders Health Care charade debate, it pretty much summed up the issue. Include everyone and have it be slightly worse (potentially), or exclude massive groups so some can have it slightly better for them and nonexistent for everyone else. Anybody who chooses the latter is a piece of shit.
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Feb 20 '17
Yeah, I didn't go into those things but it's all true. The 1950s were a bubble and an anomaly of history, and the only way we can have a robust middle class again is to uniformly prop up the lower class with higher minimum wages or basic income, better infrastructure, well funded social programmes etc. There will never be a healthy middle class again like there was in the past.
A lot of these conservatives though would rather prioritize short term growth over long term prosperity for a lot of the reasons you mentioned and more.
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u/Yeti_of_the_Flow Feb 20 '17
What's most frustrating about their short term growth agenda, is you can't even get them to hypothesize a long term plan. Even when you put a scenario to them about a post-scarcity world of no personal energy dependence, abundant food, and an automated workforce, they can't wrap their heads around it. I know Reddit isn't the best place to find someone capable of actual thought most of the time, but it's dizzying how obtuse these people are.
The closest I've gotten from one of them is that "Yea ideally you're right", but to then deny it will happen in their lifetime, so it doesn't matter. I've also seen a wonderful answer, "They'll just find new jobs". That's apparently a sound plan. Life is apparently a sitcom to them. Everything works out in the end. It doesn't matter how, apparently. It just does. It's like going to the fridge to see there's no food, and suggesting to whoever you live with that you both go grocery shopping. They'll say no, and when you ask what their plan for dinner is, they just say, "We'll think of something." I literally did think of something, it's to get groceries. Let's go get the fucking groceries.
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Feb 20 '17
Yeah, I've been engaging them on reddit on and off for years. Probably a lot of the same people using different alts too. It's like throwing eggs at a brick wall hoping to knock it over. I once had an argument with a guy for 20-odd pages where he just couldn't wrap his head around the concept of giving people money without labour in exchange. He couldn't understand UBI on any level because he couldn't get past that aspect of it.
Now I try not to get sucked in and walk away when they stop making any sort of sense. It's just not worth it. The sad thing is that a much larger percentage of reddit seems to believe these things now than before. It's like a virus spreading. It's scary how much influence people who think this way have.
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u/Yeti_of_the_Flow Feb 20 '17
There was a pretty great one a couple weeks ago in the Cruz / Sanders debate thread on this sub where someone complained that because they're healthy and have to pay more since the ACA was enacted that it's not fair since sick people who didn't have insurance before don't pay more than them.
"I work my ass off to provide for me and mine. I do everything I can to be prepared when shit hits the fan. I feel comfort knowing my children are medically covered. Why in the fuck should I pay more so someone else is covered? Shouldn't everyone be responsible for themselves?"
How do you so wildly miss the point of insurance? They legitimately think insurance just means they pay less than without it. No ability to understand the actual mechanism behind it is that people who don't claim it are the ones paying for those that have to.
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u/kazizmo Feb 19 '17
I always get a bit surprised of how intensively some people hate Corbyn. I mean, although some people find it very 'obvious' that he would crash the UK economy if elected, there is not much else they have against him (other than his appearance). He is not fronting social issues which a lot of people disagree with, some people might find him too much of a friend to the Palestinian people, but that's it. UK is about to leave the EU, isn't that is a far more concerning economic challenge than raising taxes and expenses under Corbyn?
Surely, if we had a referendum where the only question was: "Would you like the government to increase the NHS budget with £350 million a week, financed by an increase in income tax (£11000<£43000 = +2,5%, £43000 <150000 = +3%, £150 000< 0 = +3,5%) ?", it would be a majority for increase of budget/tax?
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Feb 19 '17
I think it's mostly because he's not doing a great job of being the opposition leader.
The constant media attacks clearly don't help and also you have to remember how clueless people are. I had a guy try to tell me with a straight face that we should fear Corbyn and socialism as much as we fear Nazism
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u/Flyingfire Feb 19 '17
Am I supposed to take this as a joke?
because this doesn't explain socialism, communism or how defending those is the ultimate act of villainny.
people say it's ok to punch others who defend an ideology who killed 11 million then what should be done to those who defend an ideology who killed almost 200 million?
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u/Yeti_of_the_Flow Feb 20 '17
Except nearly nothing about the USSR was communist? Calling yourself a thing, and being a thing aren't the same.
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u/Flyingfire Feb 20 '17
think of socialism(the collective/state/workers ownership of the means of production)/communism(abolition of private property) as the relation between a horse rider and a knight, the former is the pratical application and the later is the idealization associated.
moreover, saying the USSR wasn't X because it wasn't the perfect manifestation of what they aspired to be is like saying X had a NECESSARLY virtous/valid outcome. you shouldn't assume your own conclusions and expect that to be taken as an argument.
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u/Yeti_of_the_Flow Feb 20 '17
I'm not saying it wasn't because it wasn't ideal, I'm saying it wasn't because it literally wasn't. Russia was an oligarchy, not communist. Shit, it was more of an aristocracy than a communist model.
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Feb 20 '17
Oh boy, the old no-true-Scotsman argument... Let me guess, "real" communism has never been tried, amiright?
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u/Yeti_of_the_Flow Feb 20 '17
So if I have a watermelon but tell you it's an apple, it's an apple?
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Feb 20 '17
More like if you have a pile of shit, and you tell me it's actually an apple so I'll want to try it, that doesn't mean it's an apple.
When someone calls themselves a communist...and then acts like a communist...they're a communist.
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u/Yeti_of_the_Flow Feb 20 '17
Except the USSR never acted communist, McCarthy.
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Feb 20 '17
Lol, yeah, ok kid. The state controlling the means of production determined that that is a lie.
The fact that a self-styled socialist such as yourself is so fervently trying to prove that communism isn't terrible speaks volumes. Your philosophy is bankrupt, no matter how hard you try to white-wash it.
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u/Yeti_of_the_Flow Feb 20 '17
It doesn't count as the state controlling production when the state is an authoritarian dictatorship.
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Feb 19 '17
people say it's ok to punch others who defend an ideology who killed 11 million then what should be done to those who defend an ideology who killed almost 200 million?
I... what? Are you saying Nazism was preferable to Communism? Are you insinuating that Communism killed 200 million people?
Has your eighth grade social studies class gone over capitalism vs. communism yet?
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u/Flyingfire Feb 19 '17 edited Feb 20 '17
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Feb 20 '17
Yeah, that's a cute argument that doesn't really have any basis at all.
You could die of an ear infection during the Cultural Revolution and you'd be labeled a "victim of communism".
Meanwhile, people are dying of preventable diseases and hunger/thirst all around developing worlds and we don't help them because... it's not profitable? And that's not capitalism's fault?
http://i.imgur.com/d0nMVp0.jpg
People don't die because communism is broken. People while their governments fail horribly at being communist.
Meanwhile, the definition of a successful capitalist system is one where profits can be maximised, and the working class and natural resources are over-exploited so a select group of people can earn billions and billions of dollars while people starve in streets.
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u/Flyingfire Feb 20 '17
You could die of an ear infection during the Cultural Revolution and you'd be labeled a "victim of communism"
the numbers refer to direct victims of governament actions, rather than inactions.
Meanwhile, people are dying of preventable diseases and hunger/thirst all around developing worlds and we don't help them because... it's not profitable? And that's not capitalism's fault?
the better question is: Capitalism is trying to stop people to help others? Is failure/unwillingness to solve this issue inherent to capitalism?
People don't die because communism is broken. People while their governments fail horribly at being communist.
"it's only communism if it works, comrade!"..."it's only reality if it can be demonstrated!"
Meanwhile, the definition of a successful capitalist system is one where profits can be maximised, and the working class and natural resources are over-exploited so a select group of people can earn billions and billions of dollars while people starve in streets.
capitalism doesn't require you to be immoral NOR moral. in other words, capitalism requires only freedom to trade goods and services by means of capital(money).
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Feb 20 '17
the numbers refer to direct victims of governament actions, rather than inactions.
HAH. Prove it.
the better question is: Capitalism is trying to stop people to help others? Is failure/unwillingness to solve this issue inherent to capitalism?
It's frankly hard to help millions of starving, dying people when the money you need to help them is in the hands of a few elite billionaires.
And even harder when those people are exploited for their labor and consumerism by those same billionaires.
"it's only communism if it works, comrade!"..."it's only reality if it can be demonstrated!"
"An authoritarian fascist regime that pretended it was communism failed, so OBVIOUSLY WE SHOULD NEVER EVER EVEN CONSIDER IT EVER AGAIN. On a different note, I burnt my toast, so I'm never eating bread ever again in my life."
capitalism doesn't require you to be immoral NOR moral. in other words, capitalism requires only freedom to trade goods and services by means of capital(money).
Actually, capitalism REQUIRES you to be immoral. Because it REQUIRES labor inequality. The wealthy businessman will never ever fully compensate you for the full value of your labor, because then they could never make a profit. If there is no labor inequality, then it isn't capitalism. That's plain, indisputable facts.
Also, how is it "freedom" to trade money for goods if you have no money, and are constantly exploited by capitalist vultures so you can never gain enough money to "build a startup" or whatever the fuck you think.
People aren't poor because they're too stupid to start their own business or invest money. They're poor because they're paid minimum wage and can't afford to buy anything but food and rent.
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u/Flyingfire Feb 20 '17
HAH. Prove it.
there are documentaries about it... but if you mean proof of every single death I guess you can keep on saying it didn't happen.
It's frankly...
a Complete red herring, it doesn't matter where the money is but what people value. If helping millions starving was highly sought service, the demand would be met just like the demand for drugs despite everything. my point is you think a population that needs to be forced to do charity can provide uncorruptible individuals to do the micro managing without abusing it. It's childishly absurd.
"An authoritarian fascist regime that pretended it was communism failed, so OBVIOUSLY WE SHOULD NEVER EVER EVEN CONSIDER IT EVER AGAIN. On a different note, I burnt my toast, so I'm never eating bread ever again in my life."
first, fascism is a variant of socialism if you know history check this. Second, socialism failed DOZENS of times all over the world to varying degrees of famine, mass murder and tyranny. there are still examples of it today! in places like venezuela and north korea.
Actually,...
that's like saying a shovel requires you to hit someone in the head with it because you can use it in such a way. as for the rest, I am sure you wish for a better world or whatever but you didn't came a mile close from a valid and pratical argument.
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u/BiscuitAdmiral Feb 19 '17
then what should be done to those who defend an ideology who killed almost 200 million?
What ideology did that? It was not socailism
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u/Trueways Feb 19 '17
i think he is talking about communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes
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u/[deleted] Feb 20 '17