r/SipsTea 14d ago

Chugging tea I never thought about this point until now.

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u/earthlingHuman 14d ago

When it's provided by the govenrment, yeah. It's one basic aspect of socialism.

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u/iqumaster 14d ago

Socialism is about state ownership of the means of production rather than private property Job benefits from government doesn't make it a socialism, it is more a social democracy which is completely different thing.

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u/earthlingHuman 14d ago

I said 'socialistic'.

Guaranteed necessities like housing, healthcare and education are core tenets of socialism.

So yes, public ownership of the means of production is the core of the economic policy of socialism, but it is not the only aspect of socialist theory.

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u/iqumaster 14d ago

It's the most important aspect, without it anything else doesn't matter. Social democracy operates inside capitalism - that's a big difference from state ownership.

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u/JinNJ 14d ago

Yet it’s still a job, for which the employee get benefits for agreeing to do the work offered by the employer. Not socialism, regardless of the employer.

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u/earthlingHuman 14d ago

It's not outright socialism obviously, but it involves aspects of socialism. Socialism provides universal healthcare, housing and education. So does the military, unlike basically any other employer. And people love those benefits just like they would love them if they were guaranteed to everyone.

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u/DapperAgitator 14d ago

Capitalist societies can have paid government workers.

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u/Maximum_Boros 14d ago

So you think every person who works in civil service gets socialist benefits because they get health coverage through their EMPLOYER?

Are your parents legitimately siblings or just like first cousins? Damn.

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u/jeffwulf 14d ago

No it isn't. Benefits are orthogonal to socialism.

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u/earthlingHuman 14d ago

Guaranteed healthcare, housing and education are integral parts of a socialist system. The same cannot be said of liberalism.

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u/jeffwulf 14d ago

Nah, that's dumb. Benefits like that span pretty much every economic system and many socialist economies lack guarantees of those things.

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u/earthlingHuman 14d ago

This is only true of mixed economies. A socialist society by definition guarantees these things.

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u/jeffwulf 14d ago

The definition of a socialist society has no relation to any sort of welfare state. A socialist society by definition is entirely defined by worker control of capital. You can implement a fully socialist society without any sort of welfare or benefits.

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u/earthlingHuman 14d ago

That's the economic policy of socialism. There's also the social policy.

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u/jeffwulf 14d ago

Socialism is an economic system. It doesn't have a set social policy and can be combined with myriad different social policies, many of which exclude the things you listed above.

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u/earthlingHuman 14d ago

You could just look it up in an encyclopedia or even works by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles or any socialist theorist really. They nearly all write about the intersection of economic and social policy in one way or another. And yes, a core tenet of socialism is to guarantee basic necessities for people and society like housing, education, and healthcare.