Socialist or “socialist?” Because your definition above doesn’t inspire confidence.
I’ll give you one lazy free shot. It’s in this thread above.
Hell, add both Roosevelts and LBJ to that blend. They might not have called themselves socialists, but they did more to advance socialism in the USA than anyone so far.
The thing is, you can tell real socialist leaders by their lack of fame and power. If you’ve got a big name and an iron fist, you’re not doing it right.
Yeah yeah, I’ve heard enough of your patronizing, jingoistic lectures to me in the past about how “the sometimes-bumbling U.S. is basically a benign entity when you get right down to it,” and not the rapacious, elite-serving empire that it actually is.
“certain policies may not be helping”?! GTFOH
Is not my intention to be nitpicky but the topic of this thread is “Jorge Ramos & Univision crew freed after Maduro detained for 3 hours inside presidential palace” you seem to be a bit out of topic.
Or maybe you are just in another crusade of Venezuelasplaining been the despot apologist…
can’t really say… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Such a narrow understanding of freedom.
However if you insist on this jack-booted thug scenario as the only litmus test for a free society, there’s a very simple way to get them to show up at your door in a capitalist economy: don’t pay your bills. The authorities will revoke your right to your own home. If you refuse to recognize their authority, they will send blackshirts to seize your personal property. If you refuse to leave, the blackshirts are legally empowered to hurt or even kill you to gain submission.
Of course, none of this will happen to you, free citizen, as long as you pay your bills. Good thing you always have enough money. Hey…where does that money come from, anyway? Like, who decides if you get to be the comfortable complacent guy with a just-world bias, or the guy getting evicted and dying from preventable disease? It ain’t me deciding, that’s for sure.
I guess under capitalism everyone is free, but some are more free than others, if you know what I mean.
Au contraire:
You nicely demonstrate the point I was making at the start of this discussion: The definition of ‘socialist’ is different in the U.S. from in the E.U.
When you think of a socialist you think of a completely different thing then I do. When you ask about ‘socialists with a ruling track record’ I think of political parties, not persons. I.E. most scandinavian, most french, some german, some dutch governments of the last century. (The dutch en german ‘liberal’ governments would also be considered socialist in the U.S. I guess, so actually most german/dutch governments).
You think about dictators (and maybe presidents?).
Because ‘socialism’ (the word) has very different connotations in the U.S. Which is strange to me, but well… language is weird I guess ¯_(ツ)_/¯
edit to add a reply to this:
Which is more the definition of communism, where I live. Over here socialism is stuff like socialized medicine, wellfare (and, debatable, public transport). Stuff like that.
Adam Smith would be a socialist by mainstream American standards. He had a lot to say about the wellbeing of workers, admittedly from the point of view of the capitalist class. He would not be impressed by the burn out culture of today.
true, but
I don’t really care how someone phrases his rejection of the idea of democratization of the economy. One guy might lie to himself that under the current systems, he owns the fruits of his labor. The other may go philosophical and decry such a simple idea as lacking nuance and understanding.
In fact, while both of you might come to your conclusions from different ideas, the effect is the same, in that you end up acting as agitators against the interests of the working classes, and as shills defending the status quo and the interests of the ruling classes who own your ass as much as they do mine.
Every country listed there has a capitalist economy and not a socialist economy. Every single one of their socialist programs is 100% funded by capitalism.
Nothing is black and white, there are shades of grey.
I’m more interested in what the anti-chavismo left have to say
Happy to help Flapjack. I agree. It sure looks like you need some education.
There is no “real” socialism Flapjack. Socialism is a spectrum of social and political systems. I’ll re-iterate that absolutist views and special pleading that we all use the same single definition of a word when words can have many meanings isn’t a reasonable stance nor is it one that should be taken seriously. Reasonable people understand that complex terms have complex meaning and that they should be discussed in context rather than having some random Jack on the internet flap his mouth and dictate what meaning words must have.
This is more of the same. You have chosen to define socialism as the “democratization of the economy.” which is a false narrative. Only in some rare socialist systems is the economy democratized. In most systems there is a blended economy such has what we have in the U.S.A. and many other nations. The people make up the government and the people decide how public funds are spend aka democratic socialism. Along side that socialist governmental spending there is is capitalism and the free market, barter, trade, and every other form of exchange of goods and services you might imagine.
Having observed this discussion playing out, I think it’s necessary to add this reference for those used to thinking only in binary terms:
a) Yes, very bad. USA should not have done that.
b) Low oil prices were about lots of things, like pressuring Russia, pressuring Iran to agree to a nuclear deal. Venezuela may have been mentioned, but was not the driving force in that policy. Venezuela has more oil than Saudi Arabia and can be rich like Saudi Arabia if managed well.
c) I would welcome being corrected, but it is my understanding that up until VERY recently, “US sanctions against Venezuela” were almost entirely against specific government officials and crimiinal organizations to allow the freezing of assets looted from the Venezuelan people or to combat international drug trafficing which multiple Venezuelan officials are involved in. Only in the last month have sanctions that target the Venezuelan economy been imposed. Please anyone correct me if I am wrong.
The US should not be deciding who runs things in Venezuela. Also, Maduro is kept in power by Cuban agents who are strategically placed throughout the Venezuelan government and whose loyalty is not to the Venezuelan people. They have been instructed to keep Maduro in power by any means necessary. Venezuela is in a bad place and the US cannot solve the problem and should not be trying to.
I am a reasonable person and my understanding of language and communication is predicated on words having a meaning that everyone knows and understands. If we all have different meanings for words then we are not even talking the same language. Conepts can certainly have a chromatic meaning not only open to interpretation but healthy discussion, but for that to work we have to at least agree on the meaning of the words themselves.
*Concepts
gimme edit oh bbs gods!
Edited: I realize my initial response was overly harsh. I do find it frustrating to have a dialog with someone who un-ironically talks about “thought-police socialism” while blurting sound bites programmed into them by vested interests.
You seem to be conflating communism (control of production & markets by the state) and socialism (prioritization of resources to social benefit over individual profit). Socialism has markets, by definition, which makes it compatible with a capitalist economy. You treat the two as mutually-exclusive when they are, in practice, overlapping. Pure, free-market capitalism doesn’t exist in reality. It’s inherently unstable. The infrastructure that allows trade is dependent on state or at least collective investment that immediately moves the needle away from free market capitalism. Even the simple concept of currency requires an authority to set the standards of trade and exchange (which is functionally, even if not nominally, a government). Thus, there are taxes. Taxes in turn are used by government at the very least to run itself. At that point, you’ve dipped your toes into socialism. From there, it’s a continuum to the other extreme, which also doesn’t exist in reality.
Not all communism is M-L
If you would like to avoid condescension, please avoid using fact-free blurbs from libertarian groupspeak. It’s only fair. Thanks!
Late stage imperialism - Why the hell is boingboing uncritically regurgitating war machine propaganda?
Here’s a better take:
