It also ignores that Socialism in AES states has generally resulted in mass reductions in poverty, increases in literacy, education, home ownership, and life expectancy.
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.
Who owns the means of production in Europe? The capitalist class, same as in every other capitalist state. Social welfare under capitalismis not socialism.
Even if you hate communism, calling the EU socialist is hilarious. Seems a lot of people in this thread have never even read a basic dictionary definition for socialism. I am surprised the people replying to you even know there is supposed to be a difference between socialism and communism.
Legitimately frustrating. As a Communist, I try my best to help people understand just what these terms actually mean, and explain why people such as myself support Communism, but there are people that cling to nonsense definitions and shroud themselves in mystery.
Europe is not socialist. Socialism requires ownership of the means of production by the proletariat, no western European nation has had that, and the eastern ones got overthrown and capitalism re-instated.
Communism is ownership of production, socialism is social safety nets managed by the government like free Healthcare. And sure most of Europe probably is just the lite version of that.
Remember that our CoC applies even on communities outside our instance. Try to avoid personal attacks and telling people to harm themselves per CoC 3.2 and 3.7. Continued failure to do so will lead to a temporary or permanent ban.
AES is an acronym for “actually existing socialism”
Places that use that acronym often cite that Korea is a socialist nation, using the line that there is only one Korea and not recognizing South Korea.
So take the acronym usage as the tell it is.
Hands up if you’d rather live in one of these socialist paradises the dude is talking about … a state like North Korea or Laos or China or Cuba over South Korea or the USA.
I already answered you, living in the US is currently better than some AES states, because development isn’t something magical. However, I would absolutely pick an AES state over the US in the comimg years. Hell, the PRC is in many ways ahead of the US for the average worker already.
Serious question because it is relevant to the discussion, do you currently have a job?
Do you live in one of these western countries?
What is your personal frame of reference that tells you you’d have a better life than where you are in Cuba or Laos or North Korea?
What would china give you right now that you would move there for?
Please, be specific so I can understand.
Pretend you had a chance to convince me instead of angrily and frustratedly arguing your point in a defensive manner.
I believe in socialism, it’s been incorporated into democracy quite well actually and provided significant quality of life for its citizens.
Communism on the other hand has largely always moved to an authoritarian beat, China and Laos and Cuba and North Korea are all prime examples of this in the present day. Much like the two party system in the USA has hindered its democracy I don’t see how a one party system with strong central rule is not a HUGE step back from that. At least we have a semblance of choice and the mechanisms to fix what is broken.
Why do you prefer a form of government that takes choice away from its citizens?
Serious question because it is relevant to the discussion, do you currently have a job?
Yes, full-time, though the plight of the unemployed and unhoused is equally important. Not telling you any more, not doxxing myself. Additionally, it absolutely is not relevant.
Do you live in one of these western countries?
Yes.
What is your personal frame of reference that tells you you’d have a better life than where you are in Cuba or Laos or North Korea?
The US is a dying Empire. It has no long-term future, conditions are worsening. Disparity is rising and will continue to do so, and Real Wages will continue to stagnate. The world is already throwing the US off their backs at increasing rates.
Meanwhile, Socialism has stable growth over time that doesn’t depend on self-destructive systems like Capitalism or Imperialism.
I believe in socialism, it’s been incorporated into democracy quite well actually and provided significant quality of life for its citizens.
Social Democracy is not Socialism. I am not talking about Capitalism where “the government does some extra stuff.” Social Democracy in the Global North depends on Imperialism to support itself, and worker protections are crumbling as disparity rises. Social Democracy is a temporary concession.
Communism on the other hand has largely always moved to an authoritarian beat, China and Laos and Cuba and North Korea are all prime examples of this in the present day. Much like the two party system in the USA has hindered its democracy I don’t see how a one party system with strong central rule is not a HUGE step back from that. At least we have a semblance of choice and the mechanisms to fix what is broken.
Do you actually know how these countries function, democratically and politically? This isn’t a gotcha, I want to know to what extent you’re familiar so we can even begin to talk about them. Even then, North Korea isn’t a One-Party State.
Why do you prefer a form of government that takes choice away from its citizens?
I don’t, that’s why I am a Communist and not a Liberal. Come on, this was a useless gotcha.
Why do you prefer a form of government that takes choice away from its citizens?
We don’t, we support proletarian democracy, not bourgeoisie electoralism.
Anna L. Strong, This Soviet World, Chapter III: The Dictatorship
The heads of government in America are not the real rulers. I have talked with many of them from the President down. Some of them would really like to use power for the people. They feel baffled by their inability to do so; they blame other branches of government, legislatures, courts. But they haven’t analyzed the real reason. The difficulty is that they haven’t power to use. Neither the President nor Congress nor the common people, under any form of organization whatever, can legally dispose of the oil of Rockefeller or the gold in the vaults of Morgan. If they try, they will be checked by other branches of government, which was designed as a system of checks and balances precisely to prevent such “usurpation of power.” Private capitalists own the means of production and thus rule the lives of millions. Government, however chosen, is limited to the function of making regulations which will help capitalism run more easily by adjusting relations between property and protecting it against the “lawless” demands of non-owners. This constitutes what Marxists call the dictatorship of property. “The talk about pure democracy is but a bourgeois screen,” says Stalin, “to conceal the fact that equality between exploiters and exploited is impossible. . . . It was invented to hide the sores of capitalism . . . and lend it moral strength.”
Let us take first the formal facts of voting, though this is far from exhausting in the Soviet citizen’s participation in government. The Soviet Union has today the largest body of voters any where in the world. Moreover a larger percentage of them come out to elections than in any other country; they give more time to their elections and decide a greater variety of questions.
All “toilers” over the age of eighteen may elect and be elected; the word is interpreted to include students, housewives, old people who have passed the age of work as well as those more formally known as workers. Voting thus extends to a younger age than is common elsewhere, and there are no disqualifications for transient residents, paupers, migratory workers, soldiers, sailors, such as exist in most countries; even non-citizens may vote if they work in a Soviet industry. There are no restrictions for sex, creed or color, nor even for illiteracy. The only significant restriction relates to “exploiting elements,” but the steady decrease of privately owned enterprises has cut the disfranchised to 2.5 per cent of the population in the 1934 elections; by 1937 it is expected that all will have the vote. In the 1934 elections 91,000,000 people were entitled to vote, and of these 77,000,000, or 85 per cent, actually participated, which is double the proportion found in most countries.
Several elections which I attended will show concretely how soviet democracy functions. Four election meetings were held simultaneously in different hamlets of Gulin village, which had no assembly hall big enough for all. One of these meetings threw out the Party candidate, Borisov, because they felt that he neglected their instructions; they elected a non-Party woman who had displayed energy in improving the village and were praised by the election commissioner—himself a Party member—for having discovered good government timber which the Party had neglected. The central meeting in Gulin expected 235 voters; 227 appeared and were duly checked off by name at the door. There ensued personal discussion of every one of nine candidates, of whom seven were chosen. Mihailov “did good work on the roads.” The most enthusiasm developed over Menshina, a woman who “does everything assigned her energetically; checks farm property, tests seeds, collects state loans.” Dr. Sharkova, head of the Mothers’ Consultation, was pushed by the women: “We need a sanitary expert to clean up our village.” The incoming soviet was instructed to “increase harvest yield within two years to thirty bushels per acre, to organize a stud farm, get electricity and radio for every home, organize adult education courses, football and skiing teams, and satisfy a score of other needs.
Anna L. Strong, This Soviet World, Chapter IV: The Growing Democracy
You’re a fucking idiot if you think the problem with those countries is communism and not unceasing imperial violence targeted at them from the global core of wealth and fascism.
It also ignores that Socialism in AES states has generally resulted in mass reductions in poverty, increases in literacy, education, home ownership, and life expectancy.
Europe is socialist, what communist Russia had was a totalitarian government. Go pound sand you ducking idiot.
The very first sentence from Wikipedia: Socialism
Who owns the means of production in Europe? The capitalist class, same as in every other capitalist state. Social welfare under capitalism is not socialism.
Europe is Capitalist and Imperalist. What the USSR had was Socialism.
Please explain exactly why you think Europe is “Socialist,” lmao.
Even if you hate communism, calling the EU socialist is hilarious. Seems a lot of people in this thread have never even read a basic dictionary definition for socialism. I am surprised the people replying to you even know there is supposed to be a difference between socialism and communism.
Legitimately frustrating. As a Communist, I try my best to help people understand just what these terms actually mean, and explain why people such as myself support Communism, but there are people that cling to nonsense definitions and shroud themselves in mystery.
Decades of calling everything you don’t like, and any government support, communism, I guess.
I spose when something gets elevated to the level of heresy, then everything even remotely negative gets associated with it.
yup, heresy is a exactly how it is treated.
Europe is not socialist. Socialism requires ownership of the means of production by the proletariat, no western European nation has had that, and the eastern ones got overthrown and capitalism re-instated.
Communism is ownership of production, socialism is social safety nets managed by the government like free Healthcare. And sure most of Europe probably is just the lite version of that.
No.
Socialism is Worker Ownership of the Means of Production, and a transitional state towards Communism.
Social Safety Nets are Social Safety Nets.
Go jump off a bridge, fascist lover, I can hear Stalin calling for you from the graves of all the people he killed in the name of your “Communism”
Remember that our CoC applies even on communities outside our instance. Try to avoid personal attacks and telling people to harm themselves per CoC 3.2 and 3.7. Continued failure to do so will lead to a temporary or permanent ban.
Lmao
AES is an acronym for “actually existing socialism”
Places that use that acronym often cite that Korea is a socialist nation, using the line that there is only one Korea and not recognizing South Korea.
So take the acronym usage as the tell it is.
Hands up if you’d rather live in one of these socialist paradises the dude is talking about … a state like North Korea or Laos or China or Cuba over South Korea or the USA.
Fucking clown
Do you think changing Mode of Production magically tranaforms levels of development? Typical liberal.
Perfect, no response except to throw a question and “insult”
This is why you won’t be taken seriously ever.
I already answered you, living in the US is currently better than some AES states, because development isn’t something magical. However, I would absolutely pick an AES state over the US in the comimg years. Hell, the PRC is in many ways ahead of the US for the average worker already.
Serious question because it is relevant to the discussion, do you currently have a job?
Do you live in one of these western countries?
What is your personal frame of reference that tells you you’d have a better life than where you are in Cuba or Laos or North Korea?
What would china give you right now that you would move there for?
Please, be specific so I can understand.
Pretend you had a chance to convince me instead of angrily and frustratedly arguing your point in a defensive manner.
I believe in socialism, it’s been incorporated into democracy quite well actually and provided significant quality of life for its citizens.
Communism on the other hand has largely always moved to an authoritarian beat, China and Laos and Cuba and North Korea are all prime examples of this in the present day. Much like the two party system in the USA has hindered its democracy I don’t see how a one party system with strong central rule is not a HUGE step back from that. At least we have a semblance of choice and the mechanisms to fix what is broken.
Why do you prefer a form of government that takes choice away from its citizens?
Yes, full-time, though the plight of the unemployed and unhoused is equally important. Not telling you any more, not doxxing myself. Additionally, it absolutely is not relevant.
Yes.
The US is a dying Empire. It has no long-term future, conditions are worsening. Disparity is rising and will continue to do so, and Real Wages will continue to stagnate. The world is already throwing the US off their backs at increasing rates.
Meanwhile, Socialism has stable growth over time that doesn’t depend on self-destructive systems like Capitalism or Imperialism.
Social Democracy is not Socialism. I am not talking about Capitalism where “the government does some extra stuff.” Social Democracy in the Global North depends on Imperialism to support itself, and worker protections are crumbling as disparity rises. Social Democracy is a temporary concession.
Do you actually know how these countries function, democratically and politically? This isn’t a gotcha, I want to know to what extent you’re familiar so we can even begin to talk about them. Even then, North Korea isn’t a One-Party State.
I don’t, that’s why I am a Communist and not a Liberal. Come on, this was a useless gotcha.
In what communist nation are there free elections?
All of them practice democracy. What do you mean by “free?” Is that a vibe, where if Socialist = false, Capitalist = true?
If only you spent even a fraction of time you’ve spent trolling here actually educating yourself on the subject.
We don’t, we support proletarian democracy, not bourgeoisie electoralism.
Anna L. Strong, This Soviet World, Chapter III: The Dictatorship
EPUB
This is a post advocating for communism.
Communism allows elections and choice for its people?
Where?
During the Stalin years in the Soviet Union
Anna L. Strong, This Soviet World, Chapter IV: The Growing Democracy
✋
You’re a fucking idiot if you think the problem with those countries is communism and not unceasing imperial violence targeted at them from the global core of wealth and fascism.