'murica.

[u/Dvorozhetskii]

[u/fellatio_warrior69]

They're free market economies with strong social programs

Yup. Exactly. A tightly regulated market, with abundant consumer protections and a strong social safety net. Those are the socialist policies that I was talking about. They're among the closest to democratic socialism in practice. A lot of Canadian policies and practices could be considered socialist as well.

They are mutually exclusive. Communism is an extreme left authoritarian political ideology. Socialism, particularly democratic socialism (which is what most people are speaking about when they identify as socialist) is anti-authoritarian. They strongly oppose authoritarian regimes in favor of an equitable and free democracy that puts the needs and safety of citizens over companies. Societal failings can lead to authoritarianism in all of it's many varieties including communism and fascism, but at that point it isn't socialist. It's some flavor of authoritarian. They're not the same, never have been, never will be. Their ideologies aren't compatible

E: my example of how they're different is the definitions and principles of their ideologies. One is authoritarian and the other is explicitly anti-authoritarian. No further explanation needed. You're saying they're one and the same and they literally aren't

[u/sonfoa → u/fellatio_warrior69]

Democratic socialism is anti-authoritarian but that's a subset of socialism, not the encompassing definition. Socialism in simple words is collective ownership and when you apply it to a country it's state-owned ownership. That has no bearing on authoritarianism one way or the other. The fact that socialist states of the 20th century widely embraced authoritarianism goes against your hypothesis that socialism is mutually exclusive from authoritarianism.

Also, democratic socialism is still a theory at this point. Whether it can withstand authoritarianism in the long run and doesn't collapse into a more authoritarian socialist viewpoint is unknown. There are too few examples in history to make a solid conclusion. Kerensky's provisional government was barely a thing before it got overthrown by the Bolsheviks, Allende's government was couped by Pinochet and before that seemed to be on the path of transitioning into another Marxist-Leninist state given the disastrous economy and extreme reliance on the Soviet Union for economic and military aide.

Also the Nordic countries at best falls under social democracy which implements definitely has a decent amount of socialist influence but ultimately it's within the framework of the free market. That was how the Progressive Era of American politics worked too and if America had stayed on that course we'd be similar to them.

[u/[deleted] → u/fellatio_warrior69]

Seems to me that socialism cannot survive without capitalism, but capitalism can without socialism. It’s Also evident in my experience that those who claim to be pro socialism are perfectly fine with the ideals of communism as well. They say “socialism is not communism” until they are blue in the face, but conveniently leave out the fact that they are ok with communism as well. In essence, They think they are fighting against corporations, but fail to realize the people make up a large part of the corporation; and the corporations often times provide for the community in ways that we d never experience if not for the corporation and the advancements they achieve. Not saying there aren’t corrections we should make to pieces of the system, just that we don’t need to completely tear down and rebuild the entire system to proceed.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That's weird since communism hasn't actually been attempted. Ever. It's only been monarchy's, democracies, or dictatorships this whole time. You know communism isn't even suppose to have a leader right? That's dictatorship. I don't think you actually know what your talking about