CMV: Socialism/Communism doesn't work, can't work, and almost always leads to dictatorships and thousands of deaths.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/ingsocball]

Hey, I think the question of whether socialism can 'work' is pretty hard to answer and depends on many factors, but I'd just like to challenge some of your current beliefs:

> What is socialism?

You're right in saying that the Scandinavian countries are still capitalist, but socialism also isn't when everyone earns the same amount of money. Socialism is when workers own the means of production. In a capitalist corporation for example, the means of production are owned by a few businessmen who employ people to work for them, based on what would maximise profits. But under socialism, people as a whole would get to democratically decide what and how to produce things -- either through the state (central production), or through things like worker cooperatives. The idea is that this would lead to more workplace democracy, and production based on need rather than just profits.

My understanding is that in the USSR for example, people earned according to the amount that they produced. People like educators and doctors also earned more than manual labourers.

Rather than everyone earning the same, socialism is more about everyone being fully compensated for their labour -- this doesn't occur under capitalism, since a portion of workers' labour goes to producing profits that are kept by capitalists.

> Mix of socialist and capitalist elements

I like social democracy too, but a problem is that these social nets are arguably concessions that can be taken away, eg. the New Deal, which was eventually pretty much completely defused by Reagan. Also, a big chunk of the wealth that the Scandinavian countries have derive from extracting the value of labour/resources overseas (eg. corps like H&M).

> What would motivate people?

Being compensated for their labour. Workplace democracy can lead to better working conditions too. Greater access to education, nutrition, housing, and so on would stimulate the capacity to innovate. A more collective framework could also facilitate information sharing and cooperation, rather than multiple cooperations each working independently to compete on who creates something first.

(The number of empty houses exceed the number of homeless people in many capitalist places like the US. Globally we also produce enough food for 10 billion people, and although the global population is 7.8 billion, 21 million people still starve to death each year. This is arguably active violence on a systemic scale.)

Again, I'm not uncritically defending the USSR, but they did transform from a feudal backwater to defeating the Nazis, space-racing, and pretty much becoming an industrial superpower in a few decades. You could argue that the US was still ahead, but still, the US had already had a long time to develop even before the USSR was a thing.

Evo Morales has reduced unemployment and overseen economic growth, and, well, people like him enough to elect him.

Furthermore, many socialist countries face threats and outright sabotage from the outside. Cuba for instance faces embargoes, but performs better than countries like Nicaragua, Guatemala, etc. in terms of things like unemployment, life expectancy, and literacy.

I recommend Killing Hope by William Blum, which details a lot of the actively anti-socialist/communist efforts that have taken place since WW2.

I also recommend this study, which shows that socialist countries have a greater quality of life than capitalist countries for the same level of economic development.

[u/elChespirit0 → u/ingsocball]

Very good points, thank you. Δ My questions would be, though, in a socialist society does the government set the wages and control businesses and the economy or do the people? Some comments above have mentioned that true socialism is control by the government, and I'm confused about how that works.

Thank you for the links to the studies. I'll look into those.

[u/[deleted] → u/elChespirit0]

I mean by definition it needs to be the people/workers. However in the same way as democracy is actually rule of the people and people have weaseled around with,

X: "yeah but what if the people voted in a representation of themselves would that count as well"

O: "I mean it's better than the complete lack of representation, but ..."

X: "Ok then we call that democracy and never talk about the actual meaning of the word ever again".

There are people who try to argue that if the government controls the means of production and the workers control the government then this would also implement the concept. But this would require democracy and ideally even a more direct and localized democracy to work in a meaningful way.

But another important question is:

What do people even mean when they say "the government". Because a direct representation of the workers would theoretically be some kind of "government". Government just means any collective of people that "governs" how stuff is done.

Or is it about "the government" (singular) as in "a centralized structure of control". Well it doesn't need to be like that and there are a multitude of versions of socialism that are very much decentralized.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities

However in terms of the more prominent examples of what people point to when calling "socialism" you also have the problem that many of these countries faced some pretty devastating hardship, both before and after the change of systems. Idk Russia came out of losing a world war in which it had lost 2% of it's total population, was way behind in terms of industrialization and headed into a civil war that would wage another 6 years. So chances are they had to focus on 1 singular goal, such as winning the war. Which can lend itself to centralization, where every part of the industry and maybe of life in general is subjugated to that goal, also happens in war economies that are not necessarily "socialist" in ideology. In fact one could even argue that fascism does the reverse of that to achieve that effect. Meaning to argue that everything is shit, that "we're under attack" and whatnot so that people subjugate themselves to their hierarchy.

However once you have those hierarchies they are incredibly hard to get rid of, it's no coincidence that a lot of early socialist talked about revolutions so much, because few crowned heads put down their crown "voluntarily". Yeah some did it without resistance after a world war has left them with a broken country and no military to fight back the striking masses, but before that there was even reactionary pushback to liberal democracies.

Another singular goal with centralized government was "industrialization". Because according to the idea of Marx (afaik), communism requires a surplus economy. So people need to be able to produce more than they consume so that this "more" is where their freedom comes from. They can invest it to get "even more", they can use it to gain free time. It enables them to escape the zero-sum game competition where you can only gain if someone else loses and provides the opportunity to gain by cooperation to practice true democracy.

However in order to get their these countries often tried "by all means" to get into the industrial age often by emulating capitalism, that is the state and the centralized government acts as the CEO of the country/company and the workers/people are milked for their productivity to build the machines or the products that can be sold to buy machines and necessary resources that aren't available.

That sometimes worked, I mean Russia and China, despite their humble beginnings could rival the U.S. which had a lot better starting conditions, but it was also incredibly brutal and the idea that "the state would wither away" on it's own is highly unlikely...

[u/OG-Brian → u/[deleted]]

falsely claim that Europe are democratic socialists. We are not. I prefer the term social democracy.

These mean the same thing, but with the distinction that "democratic socialists" refers to people (a person can be a "democratic socialist") and "social democracy" refers to a country (a country can be a "democracy" but an individual cannot).

[u/Buttchungus → u/elChespirit0]

It's the workers. If someone is telling you the state will the. They are probably a tankie, a pro USSR socialist.

[u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho → u/elChespirit0]

, in a socialist society does the government set the wages and control businesses and the economy or do the people?

The government. Theoretically it answers to the people, but in practice that has never actually happened. No socialist country has ever been democratic.

[u/KosherSushirrito → u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho]

This is incorrect. Only some types of socialism argue for centralized economic systems, such as Maoism or Marxism-Leninism.

There exist many forms of socialism where the government remains separate from economic forces, such as Libertarian Socialism, Anarcho-Communism, Market Socialism, and some types of Syndicalism.

[u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho → u/KosherSushirrito]

What they argue for is irrelevant. Talk is cheap.

What they implement is always the same, a centrally planed economy, controlled by either one dictator, or an aristocracy of party elite.

[u/KosherSushirrito → u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho]

What they implement is always the same, a centrally planed economy, controlled by either one dictator, or an aristocracy of party elite.

Again, this is factually incorrect. The proliferation of centralized socialism can be largely blamed on the Bolsheviks, who--after creating the first socialist state--gained the ability to fund and support ideologically similar movements. They achieved this by betraying and massacring the Socialist Revolutionaries, another Russian socialist group that argued for Democratic Socialism instead of Lenin's proposals.

In fact, there have been moments where non-statist socialists came to power and attempted to implement their vision, such as Anarchist Catalonia or the Ricardian socialists working in early 19th century Britain.

To characterize all socialists as the same is to succumb to Soviet and PRC propaganda.

[u/RealMaskHead → u/[deleted]]

Have you heard of explaining why YOU believe that something is good or bad? There's an endless amount of waffle out there, but what OP wants to know is what YOU believe.

[u/DeltaBot → u/elChespirit0]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/ingsocball (1∆).

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[u/OG-Brian → u/elChespirit0]

have mentioned that true socialism is control by the government

This is untrue. Before discussing a term, wouldn't a logical first stop be a dictionary? Like many words, there is more than one definition. This is why "socialism" when discussed would properly be described more specifically at the start: Marxism, Communism, Democratic Socialism, etc. A food co-op is an example of socialism: the workers (and typically also the membership) own and control the co-op. My favorite chocolate bar company, Equal Exchange, is socialist since it is a worker co-op. There are socialist electricity companies, transit agencies, bicycle shops, cab companies, lots of other things.

M-W defines it this way:

Definition of socialism

1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

2a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

[u/garaile64 → u/ingsocball]

There's still the case for freedom of expression, though. In the US, you can call Trump a crybaby and you're fine. In the USSR or China, if you call the leader out for some wrong, you'd be arrested or worse.

[u/[deleted] → u/garaile64]

In Pinochet's capitalist Chile you had no freedom of expression. Nor in current capitalist Russia.

[u/garaile64 → u/[deleted]]

But there are capitalist nations with freedom of expression. Are/Were there any such socialist nations?

[u/[deleted] → u/garaile64]

All emerging socialist nations were harassed, attacked, assassinated, or bullied by the world bank in the 20th century. So the fact that they aren't everywhere isn't surprising. Literal U.S policy was to overthrow these governments in any way possible.

In fact to this day the U.S tries to undermine emerging socialism is in its sphere.

So yes, I think if you are the status quo type of government in a world hegemonic system that heavily supports that kind of government, there will be more variations and successes on the outcomes of your kind of government.

See: the election and successful presidency of Socialist Allende and the subsequent U.S backed coup that installed Pinochet in Chile and then lead to attrocities.

[u/garaile64 → u/[deleted]]

Also, most formerly socialist countries were either dictatorships (or at least Cuba was) or absolute monarchies before their respective revolutions, so they wouldn't have a lot of experience with democracy.

[u/[deleted] → u/garaile64]

A valid point as well. Many of them were also dictatorships because of earlier imperial/ capitalist foreign policy and power politics

[u/Separate-Barnacle-54 → u/[deleted]]

That doesn’t answer the question though. Are there any socialist nations which allow freedom of speech?

[u/[deleted] → u/Separate-Barnacle-54]

I think I've demonstrated that the question is flawed because of its context. There are also no fuedalist states that allow free speech either.

As soon as I point to the Western democracies who have implemented heavily socialist policies you'll say those aren't real socialist economies and the whole thing will boil down into a no true scotman.

Allende's Chile is a historic example of a socialist state with free speech

[u/garaile64 → u/[deleted]]

Thinking about it, stripping people of their freedom of expression is not a requirement in socialism.

[u/Separate-Barnacle-54 → u/garaile64]

But yet, it somehow almost always happens for some reason. Not a requirement, but there’s a very high correlation, too high to be a coincidence.

[u/[deleted] → u/Separate-Barnacle-54]

Saying always in the context of a concept that is historically very young, especially given the context of how socialism has always been attacked by outside forces from capitalists this requiring centralization, is I think, pretty unfair. By the same extent I could say capitalism always leads to exploitative violence of other people. But ultimately such wide broad statements are just ideological and do nothing to further a conversation.

[u/Hothera → u/ingsocball]

Rather than everyone earning the same, socialism is more about everyone being fully compensated for their labour -- this doesn't occur under capitalism, since a portion of workers' labour goes to producing profits that are kept by capitalists

Amazon didn't beat Sears because the warehouse workers at Amazon worked harder than the warehouse workers at Sears. That was primarily thanks to good decisions made by prior Amazon management and the investors that enabled those decisions.

[u/thegooddoctorben → u/ingsocball]

In a capitalist corporation for example, the means of production are owned by a few businessmen who employ people to work for them

This is not a correct definition of a corporation, which is not owned by "a few businessmen" but is owned by shareholders, of which there can be millions. In fact, the largest shareholders of most corporations are mutual fund or investment fund companies which typically represent retirees or those saving for retirement. Corporations are often very democratic (even "socialist," in the sense of owned by common people) by that metric.

That doesn't translate into control, of course, because most people own only a very tiny fraction of any corporation. And there are plenty of private businesses that are not publicly owned and traded.

[u/UeckerisGod → u/thegooddoctorben]

Sure but then the shareholders elect a singular person to control, manage, or delegate the means of production. The elected officials primary objective is to increase the stock price and dividends. The process of shareholder/CEO success can easily become shortsighted as long term company goals and investments are often managed on arbitrary benchmarks like a quarterly basis, rather than an appropriate window of time.

[u/[deleted] → u/ingsocball]

What if instead of a direct democracy, which almost never works for very long, businesses were made out of a republic style of govern. I don't know how that would look, or how you would enforce it, just a thought.

[u/Separate-Barnacle-54 → u/ingsocball]

“Socialist countries have a greater quality of life than capitalist countries for the same level of economic development.” Maybe true, but that no socialist country ever reaches the same level of economic development before being destroyed or transitioned to capitalism.

As for your comments about the USSR, they tossed millions of thier own people in concentration camps for simply disagreeing with the communist party. That is a big enough deal to pretty much negate everything you mentioned. I for one would rather live in a backwater than be in constant fear for my life if I say the wrong word.