the nordic states seem to be doing pretty well at riding a good line, and whilst australia is far from socialist, what we have is working great too
accident? no of course not… but consistency… a big bang “revolution” is the easy way out… it’s so easy to say you’ll fight for what you believe in when you don’t have to see what it’ll entail or what will come out the other side of it but the reality is far more bloody and is absolutely not what you have in your head afterwards
As @[email protected] said, the Nordics can only provide the safety nets they do while paying generally high wages while still maintaining enormous profits for their bourgeoisie because they expropriate vast sums from the Global South via Imperialism, manifested in outsourcing manufacturing for pennies and through large loans. They are Landlords in country form.
They aren’t alone in this, of course, the whole of Western Europe generally does it, and the US Empire is the biggest at it.
i don’t disagree, but socialism won’t solve that just by virtue of it being different… global socialism, perhaps but on the country level it’s just not. socialism just aligns local incentives
and now you’re arguing for massive bloodshed and forcing people to live the way you want, in potentially awful living conditions for a lot of people (i certainly, as an LGBT person, would not want to live in any previous or current socialist state) for a long time for theoretical improvement
the important thing is not socialism: it’s a government that deals with negative externalities
socialism tends to do better at that simply because often it often does better at long-term planning (but that’s not a given either), but capitalism without corporate bullshit, stock markets, etc (ie actual ownership over a business rather than just ownership over a vague thing where you’re only concerned with line goes up not long term business health) has pretty much the same drivers: long term sustainability and this holding others to account for their negative externalities
What you describe as “corporate bullshit” and “stock markets” are just a symptom of later stages of Capitalism. You cannot maintain the small stages forever, eventually they will coalesce into large firms and syndicates. You can’t simply bust up monopoly either, manufacturing gets so complex that it needs to be done by large companies to handle the scale.
This process doesn’t stop, though, it becomes better and more efficient to publicly own and plan these large firms as they get larger and larger. This is why Socialism is a necessity regardless.
i don’t disagree of course, and i wasn’t saying capitalism is the only way; i think capitalism like this is absolute trash as well… i’m simply saying that those qualities are neither intrinsic to, nor exclusively found in socialist systems
You cannot maintain the small stages forever
perhaps, but honestly i don’t think we’ve actually even tried. we jumped straight from feudalism to some form of capitalism to some socialism. we’ve never had a system that tried to keep things small - and i’m not saying we should either necessarily
but these arguments are all reasonably theoretical
Socialism is a necessity
socialism is perhaps part of a solution but dealing in absolutes is rarely ever correct
the nordic states seem to be doing pretty well at riding a good line, and whilst australia is far from socialist, what we have is working great too
accident? no of course not… but consistency… a big bang “revolution” is the easy way out… it’s so easy to say you’ll fight for what you believe in when you don’t have to see what it’ll entail or what will come out the other side of it but the reality is far more bloody and is absolutely not what you have in your head afterwards
the nordic countries do well at the cost of the third world. they are rich because of imperialism.
and you believe a revolution in the US will help the third world?
socialist countries are plenty capable of being exploitative too. a revolution doesn’t change the people - it changes the power structures
a socialist state would not spend public money so corporations can profit from waging endless war instead of just having solid healthcare.
all of the above listed counties have very solid healthcare and are not entirely socialist. what’s your point?
socialism is not a requirement for being a place that treats people with respect and dignity; nor is it a silver bullet
As @[email protected] said, the Nordics can only provide the safety nets they do while paying generally high wages while still maintaining enormous profits for their bourgeoisie because they expropriate vast sums from the Global South via Imperialism, manifested in outsourcing manufacturing for pennies and through large loans. They are Landlords in country form.
They aren’t alone in this, of course, the whole of Western Europe generally does it, and the US Empire is the biggest at it.
i don’t disagree, but socialism won’t solve that just by virtue of it being different… global socialism, perhaps but on the country level it’s just not. socialism just aligns local incentives
Socialism allows it to be solved, Imperialism cannot be eliminated while Capitalism remains. Imperialism is the later stage of Capitalism.
theoretically
and now you’re arguing for massive bloodshed and forcing people to live the way you want, in potentially awful living conditions for a lot of people (i certainly, as an LGBT person, would not want to live in any previous or current socialist state) for a long time for theoretical improvement
it is a requirement if you want to do that without oppressing brown people elsewhere.
the important thing is not socialism: it’s a government that deals with negative externalities
socialism tends to do better at that simply because often it often does better at long-term planning (but that’s not a given either), but capitalism without corporate bullshit, stock markets, etc (ie actual ownership over a business rather than just ownership over a vague thing where you’re only concerned with line goes up not long term business health) has pretty much the same drivers: long term sustainability and this holding others to account for their negative externalities
What you describe as “corporate bullshit” and “stock markets” are just a symptom of later stages of Capitalism. You cannot maintain the small stages forever, eventually they will coalesce into large firms and syndicates. You can’t simply bust up monopoly either, manufacturing gets so complex that it needs to be done by large companies to handle the scale.
This process doesn’t stop, though, it becomes better and more efficient to publicly own and plan these large firms as they get larger and larger. This is why Socialism is a necessity regardless.
i don’t disagree of course, and i wasn’t saying capitalism is the only way; i think capitalism like this is absolute trash as well… i’m simply saying that those qualities are neither intrinsic to, nor exclusively found in socialist systems
perhaps, but honestly i don’t think we’ve actually even tried. we jumped straight from feudalism to some form of capitalism to some socialism. we’ve never had a system that tried to keep things small - and i’m not saying we should either necessarily
but these arguments are all reasonably theoretical
socialism is perhaps part of a solution but dealing in absolutes is rarely ever correct