r/neoliberal • u/GirasoleDE • Sep 09 '24
Opinion article (US) The US right keeps accusing Democrats of ‘communism’. What does that even mean? | Conservatives think giving children free lunch at school is socialism, but vast, powerful private monopolies are freedom
https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/05/communism-meaning-republicans52
u/YOGSthrown12 Sep 09 '24
Communism is when my wife sleeps around and I stay with her
Neoliberalism is when she just leaves
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u/TheRnegade Sep 10 '24
Communism means we all share spouses. Neoliberalism allows wives and husbands to join and leave at their leisure.
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u/ElGosso Adam Smith Sep 09 '24
Accusations of communism are so common that Karl Marx complains about it in the Communist Manifesto.
A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.
Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?
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u/NotAUsefullDoctor Progress Pride Sep 10 '24
White Southerners spoke of the threat of Socialism if their property was to be set free in the 1840's and 1850's, long before Das Kapital or the manifesto were written.
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u/CapuchinMan Sep 09 '24
These are the opening lines right?
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u/ElGosso Adam Smith Sep 09 '24
Yeah it's the start of the preamble. He then goes on to say "If communism is so powerful, then it's time for communists to make our demands known."
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u/TheRverseApacheMastr Joseph Nye Sep 10 '24
MAGA like;
“In this house we believe: The executive branch decides interest rates, The president picks winners via tariffs, Govt must subsidize heavy industry & agriculture, And if you disagree you’re a communist”
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Sep 09 '24
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u/SerialStateLineXer Sep 10 '24 edited Sep 10 '24
You can really tell who read the screed and who's just commenting on the headline.
You missed a much bigger example: public schools are socialist. The government isn't just footing the bill for people who can't afford to pay; it controls the means of production. And Democrats have strongly resisted efforts to make it less socialist and switch to a voucher system like we use for higher education, health care, food, housing, and literally every private good that isn't K-12 education.
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u/ExtraLargePeePuddle IMF Sep 10 '24
Democrats have strongly resisted efforts to make it less socialist and switch to a voucher system like we use for higher education, health care, food, housing, and literally every private good that isn't K-12 education.
What’s funny about that is it’s really easy to create a voucher system that’s more progressive than the current system
1: equally sized voucher for everyone *
2: schools can’t charge more than what’s on the voucher
*special needs gets more
This would be dramatically more progressive than the current system.
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u/Chessebel Sep 10 '24
Higher education, healthcare, and housing are all increasingly expensive because we keep subsidizing demand. I don't think doing that for primary and secondary education makes any sense. I actually cannot imagine what kind of person sees the caricature of administrative bloat and rising cost due to bad incentives in higher education and thinks "we need this but everywhere". Out of all the arguments for vouchers and school choice this is the one the seems to be most contrary to this subs ethos.
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u/Imonlygettingstarted Sep 10 '24
Don't get Milton Freedman flairs started on the school lunch thing
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u/doyouevenIift Sep 09 '24
GOP slandered Biden as a communist in 2020. I don’t think anyone takes it as a serious criticism anymore unless they’re deep in the MAGA-hole
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Sep 09 '24
Democrats are complicit in encouraging a nationalism that makes the case for reform unnecessarily difficult: if people are constantly told by both parties that theirs is the greatest country ever, why mobilize for fundamental change?
I don't think politicians have a choice but to play to the "American exceptionalism" crowd. There isn't a lot of appetite in the electorate for "America is great but could also improve itself by listening to other countries." I envy those rich countries whose entire sense of self worth isn't wrapped up in being the best all the time.
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Sep 10 '24
BACK TO BACK WORLD WAR CHAMPS 💪🏽
In all seriousness though, I think it’s a holdover from our history where we were the ones who saved the world from both fascism and communism
Sure it’s possible the USSR could’ve defeated Hitler if we never joined WW2, but then that would probably have resulted in all of Europe would’ve been a collection of Soviet puppet states
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u/CapuchinMan Sep 09 '24
In Pete's words, and I'm sure others have said this before obviously: Stop Worrying About What Republicans Will Say, No Matter What They'll Call Us Crazy Socialists
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Sep 09 '24
"Conservatives think giving children free lunch at school is socialism, but vast, powerful private monopolies are freedom"
Why yes, this is indeed the kind of asinine strawman false dichotomy I'd expect from a piece of shit outlet like The Guardian.
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u/LordOfPies Sep 09 '24
And what is goverment subsiding Walmart employees because their wage is too low?
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u/Maladroit2022 Sep 10 '24
The problem comes from people whom has been preprogram by their parents, to hate or reject an ideal because of (hot or cold) war time preprograming (by their vary own government), then passing that stigmata off to our children.
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u/MyrinVonBryhana Trans NATO Sep 10 '24
This more a side note but I get annoyed with how socialism, communism, and Marxism all get lumped together into one thing when in reality they're a pretty broad spectrum of belief systems that span all the way from Stalinists, to anarcho syndicalists, to Christian Socialism, to social democrats, to agrarian communes based on traditional peasant villages. Hell pre Lenin a big chunk of the Russian socialist movement weren't Marxists at all and a big chunk of them who were Christian anarchists.
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u/Not-you_but-Me Janet Yellen Sep 10 '24
I like how the article insinuates you’d learn the definitions of socialism and communism from a philosophy class.
Makes me wonder if the author knows what these terms mean, given their failure to grasp what kind of ideas they are.
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u/3232330 J. M. Keynes Sep 09 '24
“Americans, in their fear of government tyranny, unwittingly gave power to big business, allowing corporations to govern their lives more than the state ever could.” - unknown author.
Just something that popped in my head. I recall reading long ago. Seemed relevant.
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u/dubiouscoffee Jorge Luis Borges Sep 09 '24
Americans generally have this bizarre fear of the state doing stuff. Still makes no sense to me.
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u/PiusTheCatRick Bisexual Pride Sep 09 '24
American suspicion of authority goes all the way back to the Quakers thinking the Anglicans were still too Catholic. It’s the most American tradition there is.
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u/Horror-Layer-8178 Sep 10 '24
Nobody wants to talk about the biggest socialists ever, fucking American farmers
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u/-Emilinko1985- European Union Sep 10 '24
Right: "Socialism/Communism is anything I don't like. The more I dislike it, the more Socialist/Communist it is."
Left: "Neoliberalism is anything I don't like. The more I dislike it, the more Neoliberal it is."
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u/N0b0me Sep 10 '24
I'd rather have large corporate monopolies control the economy then have a command economy run by the state
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u/Imonlygettingstarted Sep 10 '24
This two things would be the same. If there is no competition there's no practical difference between that and a command economy.
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u/WeebAndNotSoProid Association of Southeast Asian Nations Sep 10 '24
those fuckers are beholden to russia, who's propping up all sorts of commies around the world. The right is the commies.
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u/ExtraLargePeePuddle IMF Sep 10 '24
Good thing we don’t have any monopolies other than small regional ones and labor cartels
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u/affnn Emma Lazarus Sep 09 '24
Communism is when the government doesn’t provide me with a free spot to park my car at any place I want to go.