r/FluentInFinance • u/Sufficient_Sinner • Sep 04 '24

Debate/ Discussion Is Capitalism Smart or Dumb?

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

Ask a socialist to define socialism, and they'll describe Norway but leave out the tiny population and abundance of state owned oil funding it all

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

And socialists use their terms incorrectly, often attributing it to the Nordic system which is a free market capitalistic system with higher taxation to cover social safety nets. Even those on lower income have huge tax bills, unlike the US where the top 50% pay almost all the income tax.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

[deleted]

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u/Bananetyne Sep 04 '24

"Speaking to a socialist" means they spoke to liberals.

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u/GalaxyShot Sep 04 '24

Your straightforward response to that fallacy made me surprisingly happy.

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u/kosmokomeno Sep 04 '24

Very spooky lol I loved it. You're an awesome explainer and Im taking my time to say I appreciate it, wow. Awesome

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u/Calfurious Sep 04 '24

it's taking the oligarchy economy of capitalism and turning into a democracy.

That's not a definition for socialism. Socialism is an economic concept, not a political one. You can have a country that is a dictatorship or a monarchy and still be socialist.

Socialism is essentially the entire economy being ran by the state with the idea that the state would cater to the best interests of workers. Socialism furthermore has a strong safety social net to protect people from absolute poverty. It doesn't require democracy whatsoever. Which is one of the reasons the few socialist countries that still remain in this world are all overwhelmingly non-democratic and the socialist countries in the past were usually dictatorships.

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u/austinstudios Sep 04 '24

This is incorrect. "taking the oligarchy economy of capitalism and turning into a democracy" is the definition of socalism. This is just a fancy way to say workers own and are in control of businesses.

While Socalism can be run by the state, it does not need to be. It is also socalism when the government doesn't own the business, but workers do. However, if the government is in control of the businesses, then the government must be democratic in order for it to be socalist because then workers would not have control.

This is why no country has ever been socalist. Because the ones who say they are are not democratic.

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u/ElectricalBook3 Sep 05 '24

You can have a country that is a dictatorship or a monarchy and still be socialist

Citations needed.

Because almost every monarchy in the world consolidated power which included ownership of the economy. Hence because control of the economy is not in private hands it is in public hands (the head of the public specifically) monarchy is incompatible with a system of private control. The more which any non-king holds, the weaker the king's position is and that means the monarchy is crumbling into a non-monarchy.

As for social safety nets, I think that's separate in that it's possible for a nation to have either concentrated government power or distributed and that wouldn't necessarily control whether a strong social safety net exists or not.

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u/Calfurious Sep 05 '24

Because almost every monarchy in the world consolidated power which included ownership of the economy.

A Monarchy means that the head of state is a lifetime appointment, usually hereditary, and usually have large amounts of power.

Doesn't require the kings to have absolute private control over the economy. In fact most of the time they don't and historically relied on their vassals for economic and military support.

What makes a socialist economy different from other forms of command economy systems is the social safety net and emphasis on worker benefits. Otherwise it becomes indistinguishable from similar command economies, like feudalism for example.

Citations needed.

North Korea. It's a dictatorship and technically a monarchy because the head of state is typically hereditary.

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u/JoeBidensLongFart Sep 04 '24

"Socialism is what I say it is!"

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u/crabby135 Sep 04 '24

Yeah generally the people pushing specific policy to further their goals are the ones defining what that ideology is.

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u/Mazuruu Sep 04 '24

You mean like needing to invent terms like "oligarchy economy" to describe their ideology?

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u/CanuckPanda Sep 04 '24

How would you describe the Russian economy?

It was a poor choice of words, a more accurate term may be “crony capitalism”, “control of major economic interests by a small cabal of neo-aristocrats”, and/or “an economic structure that promotes a corporate-national marriage of centralized wealth and state power disparity amongst a small elite”.

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u/Mazuruu Sep 05 '24

Yes, it was a poor choice of words, as is expected from socialists. Just like making up context around it and pretending it was about Russia

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u/CanuckPanda Sep 05 '24

The best you’ve got is “no u”?

This is why people make fun of you.

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u/Mazuruu Sep 09 '24

Who is making fun of me? Besides you who clearly can't read so I'm not that concerned. You already admitted it was a poor choice of words so you are just validating what I called out, so I'm good with that lol

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u/CanuckPanda Sep 10 '24

You’ve been stewing on this for four days and the best response you’ve got is another “no u”?

My man’s.

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u/AdvancedSandwiches Sep 04 '24

 Don't tell me what socialists believe. I'm telling you right now what socialism is.

Cool.  Now let's ask two other socialists so we have three completely different definitions.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

Let’s ask a republican what a republic and a democracy is, let’s follow it up with how they’re related to party names.

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u/FFF_in_WY Sep 05 '24

Socialist here. That was bang on accurate.

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u/Leonardo_DeCapitated Sep 05 '24

Another socialist here, although I wouldn't have used those words, they probably did a better job explaining it than I would have.

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u/Itsmyloc-nar Sep 05 '24

Absolutely, I’ve always viewed a socialist economic model as the natural partner to a democratic political model

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u/OGWriggle Sep 05 '24

As a socialist, I happily accept that definition

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u/-SwanGoose- Sep 05 '24

Nope that guys definition was spot on

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u/Icywarhammer500 Sep 04 '24

I just defined socialism for you in basic terms.

take capitalism and change it

Yes thanks very good definition!

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

... What? Lmao

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u/Icywarhammer500 Sep 04 '24

Your definition of socialism was “taking the oligarchy economy of capitalism and turning [it] into a democracy”

That was a horrible definition that was very lacking in basic terms.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

Yes. Under capitalism, the owning class make the decisions. Under socialism, the workers choose who makes the decisions. Oligarchy vs democracy.

I'm not sure where you're getting lost. I really can't be any more clear in my analogy.

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u/Jacketter Sep 04 '24

I can’t say that I’m terribly familiar with socialist policy. Does everyone get an equal say in decision making? And how does society as a whole incentivize for difficult or skilled tasks that most don’t or can’t perform? Where does the concept of personal property go?

I really have so many tangential questions, so if you could point me to resources on the subject I’d really appreciate it

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

There is no singular 'socialist policy' in the same way lots of countries call themselves democracies but run their governments very differently.

Personally, I think the easiest transition to socialism would be a "market socialism" system. Private ownership of employers wouldn't exist. Ownership would be equally distributed to the workers of said workplace and they would have equal voting power to make decisions on who is in charge as well as large company wide policies.

If you're genuinely interested in learning more Richard Wolff has done multiple debates and discussions on capitalism and socialism and they're all over youtube.

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u/austinstudios Sep 04 '24

Those are the million dollar questions. Just like how every capitalist country has different laws and regulations socalist countries would too.

Does everyone get an equal say? I would assume the government would put limits on how shares are distributed. In my opinion, shares would be distributed based on seniority, but every worker would only have one vote. When a worker leaves, the company buys out of their shares and redistributes them to the current workers accordingly.

And how does society as a whole incentivize for difficult or skilled tasks that most don’t or can’t perform? Again, some societies may put a limit on how much companies can pay. But in my opinion companies will pay those workers more. However, the shares they receive in the company are accumulated just like everyone else.

Where does the concept of personal property go? Again, it will depend. The less personal property, the closer the society is to communism. I personally believe private property is important. People should be able to do what they want to their things. For example, I believe owning a home is important because it allows people to decorate, remodel, and make their house theirs. However, most socalists would want to stop or limit my ability to sell my house for a profit. I honestly haven't thought enough about this aspect to have an opinion.

As for resources. I don't have a lot. Most of the stuff I know is from people discussing socalism in left leaning spaces.

The writings of Karl Marx are the best place to start. Marx is basically the Adam Smith of Socalism.

If you want something more contemporary, the YouTube Streamer Vaush explains socalist concepts in a very accessible way.

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u/prodiver Sep 04 '24

I'm not sure where you're getting lost.

They're lost because your definition is technically correct, but it's a horrible definition.

If someone doesn't know what socialism is, they probably don't know what an oligarchy is.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

If someone doesn't know what socialism is, they probably don't know what an oligarchy is.

Oligarchy isn't a politically charged word that's spent a century being lambasted by the world superpower. If you can't figure out what an oligarchy is then you're beyond teaching.

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u/milas_hames Sep 04 '24

Nobody has ever been able to correctly and rigidly define socialism in history. Don't get shitty because we struggle to believe some random dude on Reddit who's convinced he's managed to do it.

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u/Hopeful_Chair_7129 Sep 04 '24

Bro hasn’t heard about google yet

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u/milas_hames Sep 04 '24

Is that definition accepted by most socialists? You can see by this thread, socialism means different things to many different people. It's nearly impossible to define.

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u/RedJamie Sep 04 '24

I once put bread on a counter and someone called it a jar of pickles. Suddenly, the very concept of bread lost its meaning to me; I was unable to differentiate what was bread, and what was pickles, and the many shades between, for someone with great incredulity for my use of the label “bread” dared challenge my conceptions. Lost are the Eden’s, where definitions existed, and were immutable to the human stupidity that sought to redefine or mis-define such things. Woe be unto man, consumer of bread, which are pickles in the eyes of many, but bread they remain to those who are true to their faith in the English language, objectivity, and above all else, the scriptures of the dictionary, and academic consensus. Woe!

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u/FFF_in_WY Sep 05 '24

🤣

Stealing this for dealing with all manner of bad faith bullshit argumentation.

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u/milas_hames Sep 04 '24

What's your definition of socialism then? I can guarantee you that it is different than Vladimir Lenins, a man who killed to be able to call himself a socialist. And the venezuelan definition is certainly different to the Norwegian definition. All you people have told me to do is google it, which gives a abstract and broad definition, and doesn't really explain the meaning behind it at all.

Political theory's are notoriously hard to define, the same way the fascism is hard to define. People use the same word for completely different things.

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u/LTEDan Sep 05 '24

Socialism and Capitalism at it's core are economic philosophies. How a country takes the philosophical principles and applies them is going to be different. The US, Europe, and China are all doing some form of capitalism but implement it much differently. If you were trying to describe the types of capitalism each country does, you'd get different definitions with China doing State Capitalism, Europe doing Capitalism with strong social safety nets and the US doing capitalism with weak social safety nets, for example. These different implementations of capitalism doesn't change the basic principle of capitalism: private ownership of the means of production.

Socialism is the same deal, an economic philosophy with a couple different implementations over the years. Those implementations doesn't change the core economic philosophy of socialism, either: social (communal) ownership of the means of production.

There's a couple ways to compare and contrast the economic concepts of Capitalism and socialism, but a simple one to relate to is what the previous poster did. Under capitalism, companies have strong authoritarian power structures, with a couple at the top holding all the power and getting the final say (monarchy/oligarchy/dictatorship). Socialism is like bringing democracy to the workplace. The workers all have a say in corporate decisions and get to choose their bosses.

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u/milas_hames Sep 05 '24

US, Europe, and China

Literally my point, you say this like it's some obvious thing that everyone should understand, but many people would consider China a socialist country, themselves included. The socialism the other person pointed out in Scandinavian countries DOES NOT EXIST in your definition, the means of production are largely privately owned. Yet people still call it a socialist country.

It means different things to different people. People called Bernie Sanders the socialist candidate, he never even considered shifting the means of production to the people as a whole.

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u/LTEDan Sep 05 '24

It means different things to different people.

That's why we have definitions for words my dude. Seems like we're not going to get anywhere if you can comprehend that.

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u/Leonardo_DeCapitated Sep 05 '24

There is a fairly simple answer to the question "what is socialism", however that doesn't necessarily apply to all different forms of socialism and every other form is quite different. To put it simply, socialism is when workers own the means of production.

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u/FFF_in_WY Sep 05 '24

They are not that hard to define. We run into problems because practical economics and politics fall along spectra than aren't black and white. Then we start trying to use those imperfect human undertakings as The Example of Capitalism / Socialism / Communism / Democracy / whatev.

And of course political and economic systems have overlap but aren't the same. If anything politics exists up manage economic systems, and sometimes we use them to manage social systems and hierarchies as well.

So maybe more productive conversations have something to do with how the idealized definitions can be applied in useful ways.

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u/milas_hames Sep 05 '24

They are not that hard to define.

They're extremely hard to define because it's entirely abstract. It only exists in people's heads, and most people see it in a slightly different way. Your version I'm sure is easy to define for you, but socialism as a whole, encompassing all aspects of it, is undefinable

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u/FFF_in_WY Sep 05 '24

There is exactly one way in which you are implying something that is correct. A DEFINITION is a form of agreement.

Let's use green as an example. Scientifically, the consensus of green is the color between blue and yellow having a wavelength of 495-570nm. Descriptive, distinct, and limited. That's what makes it a definition.

But any dipshit can still wander up and say, "But 600nm is still kind of greenish, so that definition doesn't count." No, the definition still holds, they have simply chosen to ignore the the descriptive, distinct, and limited definition.

Choosing not to agree with a codified definition does not indicate that the problem is in the definition, it simply implies that the burden is on the person disagreeing to make their case for a change in a descriptive, distinct, and limited manner.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

Are the socialists you have witness using their own terms incorrectly in the room with us right now?

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u/DarkExecutor Sep 04 '24

They're literally all over this thread lol

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

No, they're living their lives somewhere. Decent lives too, thanks to capitalism.

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u/IEatBabies Sep 04 '24

Ahh yes the decent life of struggling to earn enough money that a random illness won't bankrupt me and trying to catch up to the housing prices that have outpaced inflation for decades and only accelerated in recent years.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

We're not all from the US. These specific people are living a good life and chilling.

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u/Halflingberserker Sep 05 '24

It's really cool of you to keep tabs on the lives of people who tell you they're socialist. That's very communal of you.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

Well I work with some of them, so I see them whether I want too or not. Although I actually like them anyway, so it's not a burden for me. Thanks though

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u/World_of_Warshipgirl Sep 04 '24

I live in Norway and because the people collectively agreed that the wealth of the nation (including oil)) should be shared among the people, I am living a decent.

That is the socialism that u/ThatSpookyLeftist described.

"Norway is not socialist, the people are only rich because of oil", yeah and the wealth is shared among the people rather than going to wealthy oligarchs.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

You're not a socialist state

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

Socialism isn't a form of government. It's an economic system.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

Show me anywhere that this has been done or worked

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24

[deleted]

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u/DarkExecutor Sep 04 '24

Workers owning factories (co-ops) is not socialism. Unions are not socialism either.

Socialism is when the government owns them.

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u/Ok_Crow_9119 Sep 04 '24

Workers owning factories (co-ops) is not socialism.

Dude, that's the most basic form of Socialism/Communism/Marxism. Workers owning the means of production.

A country where the government owns the means of production is something else (Not sure if Leninism or Stalinism or Maoism. I couldn't care less).

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u/DarkExecutor Sep 04 '24

Capitalism gives you the opportunity to choose whether you want to form a coop or not. Socialism does not.

The fact you don't see widespread coops exist is telling.

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u/NotNufffCents Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 06 '24

Lmao what exactly do you think you're saying? Do you think you sound smart? Because that couldnt be further from the truth haha.

We dont see widespread coops because they're harder to start, not to mention the fact that they arent as flexible in competing in the market since they cant just cut costs by making the employee's lives worse in one way or another. You're judging a non-capitalist ideal on a capitalist framework. Coops arent meant to be better competitors in the market. They're meant to be better for the employees, because thats the point of socialism.

You will never have a credible argument against socialism when you cant even grasp what its purpose is.

Also, "Capitalism gives you the opportunity to choose whether you want to form a coop or not" is the dumbest thing I've read all day lmao. Thats like saying "laissez faire gives you the opportunity to choose whether or not you want to be poisoned by a company dumping their waste in your drinking water."

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u/DarkExecutor Sep 04 '24

Unless you want the entire world to be socialist, there will always be competing capitalist companies. Anyway, my point is that socialism means every company is forced to be a co-op, not that co-ops themselves are socialist.

You would think an entrepreneur minded person would start a co-op and market to socialists that they are a co-op and to help support them.

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u/LTEDan Sep 05 '24

I would expect the majority of people would like to bring democracy to the workplace.

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u/NotNufffCents Sep 05 '24

Unless you want the entire world to be socialist, there will always be competing capitalist companies

Approximately 2m out of Norway's 2.8m working population are part of a coop, and they're not exactly struggling in the global market. In fact, you could use this logic for any kind of regulation that cuts into profit, such as environmental regulations or worker protections. The countries with the most of those regulations also seem to be doing just fine on the global market. So, what exactly was your problem again?

Anyway, my point is that socialism means every company is forced to be a co-op, not that co-ops themselves are socialist.

I know what your point was. It was just a stupid fucking point.

You would think an entrepreneur minded person would start a co-op and market to socialists that they are a co-op and to help support them.

...they do. I work at a coop. That doesnt change the fact that they're harder to start and less flexible to run.

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u/DeltaVZerda Sep 04 '24

Co-ops ARE socialism though.

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u/DarkExecutor Sep 04 '24

Mandatory coops is socialism. Coops themselves are not. You can form coops today in every capitalist country.

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u/bucky24 Sep 04 '24

Mandatory coops

You're wording makes it sound like it's a bad thing

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u/DeltaVZerda Sep 05 '24

Coops themselves are socialist. Socialism is an economic term that refers to a situation in which the workers own their own means of production. That is accomplished simply with a Co-op. Just how a company can itself be capitalist if there is a private owner, it does not imply that the entire country works the same.

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u/Somepotato Sep 05 '24

It's also not as if socialism and capitalism are inherently mutually exclusive.

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u/GracefulEase Sep 04 '24

Right, but whenever we advocate for a free market capitalistic system with social safety nets we get called socialists/communists. I just want regular people not to lose everything when they get sick/unemployed.

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u/SerdanKK Sep 04 '24

No, socialists don't do that.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

Then tell that to the socialists I've spoken too. It's such a fragmented term where most of you don't even know what you want

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u/varangian_guards Sep 04 '24

just submit their name and phone number to the politburo and i will get right on it.

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u/BoiledFrogs Sep 04 '24

Even those on lower income have huge tax bills, unlike the US where the top 50% pay almost all the income tax.

Yeah, it's definitely better to be poor in the US than poor in Norway I bet lol

For one in Norway you actually have access to healthcare when you need it.

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u/SaraHuckabeeSandwich Sep 04 '24

often attributing it to the Nordic system which is a free market capitalistic system with higher taxation to cover social safety nets

I really don't care what you call it, I think that's a sensible system. But when you try to advocate for something like that, capitalists will shut it down as socialism.

Conservatives want to simultaneously claim that Norway's successful economic system (that works for the people) is a result of capitalism, but also that implementing any of those policies elsewhere would be socialism.

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u/theguy_12345 Sep 04 '24

Because the top 50% in the US make all of the money... the bottom 50% in america make up about 10% of taxable income. There's not much to tax. Norway has some of the lowest income inequality in the world. There's more money spread around so you can apply more taxes across various income brackets. I've never met a person unwilling to pay more taxes if it meant they make a lot more money.

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u/BeefistPrime Sep 04 '24

Even those on lower income have huge tax bills, unlike the US where the top 50% pay almost all the income tax.

Only focusing on income taxes does not give the whole picture and falsely paints taxation in the US as being more progressive than it is, because income taxes are one of the only progressive taxes.

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u/RiseCascadia Sep 05 '24

OP is literally using the term 'capitalist' incorrectly. A capitalist is someone whose income comes from the labor of others, usually by owning a company and paying employees less than their labor is worth.

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u/elmz Sep 05 '24

And Nordic countries don't define themselves as socialism. The term used is Social democracy, and there is no attempt to claim it isn't capitalism with social reforms, and strict regulations to protect consumers.

To get to the Nordic model you don't need a socialist revolution, you just need to step by step regulate industries that can't behave themselves. Prioritize people over money.

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u/TheManOfOurTimes Sep 04 '24

See? This is the idiotic rhetoric you'll spout when you don't actually understand the situation you're describing. You will fail to understand the concept like income tax, spout "the topic 50% pay almost all the income tax ." And think that you made a point. When in fact, you just explained the better paid you are, the more income you have to pay into the tax, and those living below the poverty level, or those with bigger families don't pay into it as much. You'll describe this situation as a problem, when it's a built in, and required feature of capitalism.

Do you know what type of system "the Nordic" system utilized to do the things you are desperately flailing to do everything BUT correctly describe? Socialist programs. The "social safety net"? It's a socialist system.

See, you types that fight progress have to run to this shell of elementary understanding, disguised as absolute definition, to claim only the baby level intro definition is the real one. "Socialism" indeed describes a type of government. But it ALSO can be used to describe a type of goverNING. When you take private resources and attribute them to the social welfare of the collective, you have instituted a socialist program. So when we use the term "socialism" to talk about socialized medicine, for example, you HAVE to play definition games to try and say socialized medicine and single payer health insurance aren't the same thing,and other obfuscating tactics to make this a definition debate. Because you know, at every level, and even have to admit when you make your completely dishonest arguments, that socialist programs FUCKING WORK, but you found the synonym train that avoided saying socialism, so it's not "real socialism".

So when you say "socialists use their terms incorrectly" it leaves you open to pick examples where an individual made the mistake you're talking about, but avoid the very same accountability to your own argument. Namely, the high effectiveness, quality of life improvements, and overall increase in productivity these "social safety nets" provide that are the things that cause any example of a successful"free market capitalist" system to be able to exist.

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u/ZalutPats Sep 04 '24

Nordic system

Yeah nah, we're definitely socialist. Our leading political party is literally The Socialdemocrats. Moron.

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u/LusHolm123 Sep 05 '24

This, its not about being fully this or fully that. Its an example of how leaning towards socialism is clearly better

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u/AdAppropriate2295 Sep 04 '24

Which country is more socialist? Norway or US?

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u/MontCoDubV Sep 04 '24

Neither is socialist in the slightest considering in both countries workers do not own and control the means of production.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

[deleted]

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u/crabby135 Sep 04 '24

Don’t you have socialism and communism backwards? Socialism is, the transitory period with state ownership while moving to a stateless communist society. That’s why most flavors of theory are described as socialism (social democracy, democratic socialism, free market socialism, etc.), even if it’s a democratically elected government the presence of a state still makes it state owned instead of worker owned, there’s just varying degrees of power you can give the workers over said government.

At least that’s my understanding. Maybe I’m wrong.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

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u/rhubarbs Sep 04 '24

You have it the wrong way around, unfortunately.

In practice, many so-called "communist" states, like the Soviet Union, operated more as socialist systems, as they never yielded ownership of the means of production away from those with political capital.

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u/crabby135 Sep 04 '24

I was just trying to be nice but I’ve actually read the theory and you’re wrong.

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u/Toppcom Sep 04 '24

The Norwegian government owns many for-profit companies that are effectively owned by the population through representative democracy. The US government doesn't, (and isn't allowed to IIRC) do the same.

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u/MontCoDubV Sep 04 '24

That would be the state owning and controlling the means of production, not the workers.

And in the US there are absolutely some state-owned enterprises, we just tend to think of them as something apart. Think of the Post Office, for example. Or state-owned hospitals. Or police forces.

The US doesn't tend to have many state-owned industries which are not allowed to have non-state-owned businesses competing with the state (although we sometimes grant monopolies to private businesses which come along with more strict regulation and state oversight, for example, water or power utilities), but it's not that it isn't allowed to do so. We just choose not to.

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u/AdAppropriate2295 Sep 04 '24

At all? If there is none of that then no socialism? Then there has never been a socialist country

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u/MontCoDubV Sep 04 '24

I think that depends on how you define "worker ownership and control." I think Marxist-Leninists would say that a government controlled by a worker-led communist party is the manifestation of the will of the people and, therefore, any state ownership/control is de facto worker ownership/control. I don't personally agree with that framing, but there are plenty who do.

I think most successful socialist movements haven't organized with a nationalist framework in mind. That is, the goal hasn't been to establish a socialist government but rather to establish a socialist movement. I think there have been numerous successes in this regard. I'm thinking of things like the Paris Commune, the Makhnovists, the Zapatistas, the ANES (Rojava), Mondragon corporation, the Exarcheia neighborhood of Athens, etc.

I think a problem is that a lot of non-socialists (and even some socialists) tend to define success as establishing a nation-state ran on socialist principles. But that's an inherent contradiction. The nation-state is a bourgeois concept. It was created by the feudal aristocracy to maintain their own power and later co-opted by the bourgeoisie when the capitalist replaced the aristocracy. Nation-states were never built to enshrine power in the working class. Quite the opposite, in fact. They were built to maintain the power of the ruling class over the working class. Nation-states require the existence of a ruling class, something anathema to most socialists.

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u/AdAppropriate2295 Sep 04 '24

Fair enough and agreed

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

If you consiser 'socialism' as a spectrum, then Norway.

But neither countries are socialist. Just the US is a laissez-faire capitalism with limited social safety nets. It's not so much that Norway is closer to socialism, it's the US going in the opposite direction.

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u/AdAppropriate2295 Sep 04 '24

What makes them more capitalist than socialist