The problem with socialism is that people put it as: “You won’t need to do any work and still get money”.
And that makes the whole system sound stupid, because it just won’t work that way.
“You won’t need to do any work and still get money”.
Redditors mis-defining socialism as capitalism again.
Unlike workers, Capitalists make their living, not by clocking in and being paid a certain fixed wage per hour, but through absentee ownership. Their wealth is earned while sleeping, playing golf, or visiting the mailbox to collect pieces of this wage theft, often in the form of stock dividends. A worker’s wealth is dependent on the number of hours they can work; a Capitalist’s wealth is based on how much absentee property they can accumulate, and as such can multiply infinitely. Some Capitalists earn an average worker’s yearly salary in a single night’s sleep.
For example, a Copper mine owner neither physically mines the copper, and (living thousands of miles away) likely delegates day-to-day operations to a hired manager. Yet, because they have a piece of paper that says they own it, they get a large cut of everything that was mined: the ultimate free lunch.
A 1983 report by England national income and expenditures found that on average, 26 minutes of every hour worked (or 43% of labor value added) by English workers across a wide range of industries went to various exploiting or unproductive groups, with workers receiving only 57% of their pre-tax productive output as wages<sup>1</sup>. In other words, at least 40% of the work you do every day is stolen by Capitalists.
Perhaps because you are not in spaces where people do so, trying to make Socialism and Communism sound stupid to make other people uninterested in others that would talk about it.
It might even be a part of someone’s misinformation campaign, really.
The same place had people calling themselves Muslim and trying to make others angry at them, in ways that it would increase -ive sentiment towards the religion itself.
Simply put, the moment you put a buzzword onto anything (like any *-ism), that opens it to be grouped with anything anyone might claim it to be. And that’s why one needs to make sure to explain what they mean by the word, every time they want to argue about its pros/cons with others.
That’s the problem.
It is pretty easy to smear any *-ism or honestly any buzzword.
See what’s happening with the word AI.
Some scientists use a very specialised model to make an actual +ive impact and everyone says “AI is great!” and use that to drive funding for destabilising the technology industry/market.
Those who like to irresponsibly control people, will use buzzwords to attract people into groups and then use them to further an unrelated agenda by slowly drifting away from everything the word once stood for.
This is essentially the history we know of: under the names of gods of religions, of languages, and then ideologies and regimes.
In the end, all of them go to help those who will control people without caring about how they use them.
I don’t have a solution for others.
Only one that I decided for myself and then applied it.
You gotta find your own balance point for how much you care about correctness and how much you are fine being led astray by “leaders” in turn for likeability and easy conversations.
I personally don’t subscribe to the idea of leaders who can’t justify their position. Maybe your problem is that you see socialism as a system to be implemented rather than a thing that you do? Like, socialism is, and should be a constant revolutionary project, not just a static position.
Like, socialism is, and should be a constant revolutionary project, not just a static position.
If you try to put it that way, that then again opens it for others to add/remove as they feel like.
While I understand that socialism is not some hard program that can exactly apply to every scenario, there has to be some tenets of it that are defended well, to prevent a malicious actor from uprooting its base.
My personal solution is simply that I don’t subscribe to any *-ism and don’t group myself with anything even if it tends to provide similar solutions in the current scenario, simply because in some other one, the group’s solution might end up greatly differing from what I would consider acceptable.
Like, socialism is, and should be a constant revolutionary project, not just a static position.
If you try to put it that way, that then again opens it for others to add/remove as they feel like.
While I understand that socialism is not some hard program that can exactly apply to every scenario, there has to be some tenets of it that are defended well, to prevent a malicious actor from uprooting its base.
There’s is. It’s really simple: “From each, according to their ability, to each, according to their need.” Anything else on top of that is philosophical.
My personal solution is simply that I don’t subscribe to any *-ism and don’t group myself with anything even if it tends to provide similar solutions in the current scenario, simply because in some other one, the group’s solution might end up greatly differing from what I would consider acceptable.
This is a similar tact that I took when I was about 16-17, but I find that to be a very naive point of view. Regardless of whether or not you want to apply any label to yourself (which is perfectly valid) the material conditions of the system we live in will come down on you too. So you either end up in the “We are stronger together” camp, or you end up in the “Me and mine are what needs to be protected. Other people be damned” camp. And if you find yourself in the former, you most likely align with people who call themselves socialist, and if you find yourself in the latter, well then you’re probably a bootlicker
Exactly, that’s why it was weird of the commenter to object to someone saying that socialism isn’t “You won’t need to do any work and still get money” with “you should read some theory” as if socialist theory said that that was exactly what socialism is
Then you didn’t understand what was being said and should reread it. People work in socialist countries like I work in China we just have a minimum standard guaranteed to us and the government actually works for us instead of for corporations.
read some theory and look at real socialist practice
I live in a socialist country. And it works (well, at least better than current US).
You should go around interjecting people who say, “You won’t need to do any work and still get money” and link them to places where they can read the theory, to reduce such BS’ers.
Do you live in Cuba, Vietnam, the PRC, DPRK, Laos, or Venezuela? If not, you don’t live in a socialist country, but a social democracy, which is capitalism but with safety nets. These social democracies in Europe rely on imperialism to subsidize their safety nets.
Heyyy! No spoilers.
Now they don’t have the drive to read my extremely lengthy comment explaining the situation and then trying to guess my country from that.
I live in a country that went from Imperial control to almost fully Socialist (except for the Police, which are mostly tamed bullies) and is now rapidly progressing towards Capitalism (probably because anyone that refuses to do so, gets on the offside of US).
And PRC qualifies as neither Socialist nor Capitalist.
If it’s not on the list, it isn’t socialist. As for the PRC, public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy and the working classes control the state, it’s socialist by definition.
I find it hard to believe that China is engaged in territorial expansion when it hasn’t dropped a single bomb in 35 years
Or do mean the border dispute with India? Because that’s an artifact of the British drawing shitty borders and imposing them on subjugated people and those people have not established an effective framework for redressing the problem yet
Forget British, forget military occupation. What decides who is worthy of controlling a place?
I believe, one that is there during hard times23. PDF
And considering how China tried to cut off downstream from Tsang Po, even if I were to assume China controlled all of Indian territory, that act doesn’t make Chinese government particularly desirable. And if we consider that China doesn’t control said territory, then that makes China a bad neighbour at best and an incompetent governor at worst.
See, I am not very patriotic. I am fine with whatever the name of my country is. But the difference between how the land resources are controlled and distributed over the years, make me seem like China will end up being a worse Central Govt. than India (which isn’t particularly great already), for the given territory.
The problem with socialism is that people put it as: “You won’t need to do any work and still get money”.
And that makes the whole system sound stupid, because it just won’t work that way.
Use the correct words and explain the real thing.
Redditors mis-defining socialism as capitalism again.
Unlike workers, Capitalists make their living, not by clocking in and being paid a certain fixed wage per hour, but through absentee ownership. Their wealth is earned while sleeping, playing golf, or visiting the mailbox to collect pieces of this wage theft, often in the form of stock dividends. A worker’s wealth is dependent on the number of hours they can work; a Capitalist’s wealth is based on how much absentee property they can accumulate, and as such can multiply infinitely. Some Capitalists earn an average worker’s yearly salary in a single night’s sleep.
For example, a Copper mine owner neither physically mines the copper, and (living thousands of miles away) likely delegates day-to-day operations to a hired manager. Yet, because they have a piece of paper that says they own it, they get a large cut of everything that was mined: the ultimate free lunch.
A 1983 report by England national income and expenditures found that on average, 26 minutes of every hour worked (or 43% of labor value added) by English workers across a wide range of industries went to various exploiting or unproductive groups, with workers receiving only 57% of their pre-tax productive output as wages<sup>1</sup>. In other words, at least 40% of the work you do every day is stolen by Capitalists.
deleted by creator
Are you arguing about a meme and demanding it be remade for you?
no.
I can use some GIMP, if I required that.
No socialists say that though. That’s just what opponents of socialism pretend socialists say.
Yes
Or maybe just someone fooled by said pretenders.
I don’t see anyone explaining socialism that way.
Capitalists love making straw men of socialism like that.
Perhaps because you are not in spaces where people do so, trying to make Socialism and Communism sound stupid to make other people uninterested in others that would talk about it.
It might even be a part of someone’s misinformation campaign, really.
The same place had people calling themselves Muslim and trying to make others angry at them, in ways that it would increase -ive sentiment towards the religion itself.
Simply put, the moment you put a buzzword onto anything (like any *-ism), that opens it to be grouped with anything anyone might claim it to be. And that’s why one needs to make sure to explain what they mean by the word, every time they want to argue about its pros/cons with others.
I suppose that exists on Reddit, but I don’t really see that much overall.
I’ve only heard anti socialists say that as a way of smearing socialism. This is the kind of shit you hear in a PragerU video or something.
That’s the problem.
It is pretty easy to smear any *-ism or honestly any buzzword.
See what’s happening with the word AI.
Some scientists use a very specialised model to make an actual +ive impact and everyone says “AI is great!” and use that to drive funding for destabilising the technology industry/market.
Those who like to irresponsibly control people, will use buzzwords to attract people into groups and then use them to further an unrelated agenda by slowly drifting away from everything the word once stood for.
This is essentially the history we know of: under the names of gods of religions, of languages, and then ideologies and regimes.
In the end, all of them go to help those who will control people without caring about how they use them.
What’s your proposed solution then?
I don’t have a solution for others.
Only one that I decided for myself and then applied it.
You gotta find your own balance point for how much you care about correctness and how much you are fine being led astray by “leaders” in turn for likeability and easy conversations.
I personally don’t subscribe to the idea of leaders who can’t justify their position. Maybe your problem is that you see socialism as a system to be implemented rather than a thing that you do? Like, socialism is, and should be a constant revolutionary project, not just a static position.
If you try to put it that way, that then again opens it for others to add/remove as they feel like.
While I understand that socialism is not some hard program that can exactly apply to every scenario, there has to be some tenets of it that are defended well, to prevent a malicious actor from uprooting its base.
My personal solution is simply that I don’t subscribe to any *-ism and don’t group myself with anything even if it tends to provide similar solutions in the current scenario, simply because in some other one, the group’s solution might end up greatly differing from what I would consider acceptable.
There’s is. It’s really simple: “From each, according to their ability, to each, according to their need.” Anything else on top of that is philosophical.
This is a similar tact that I took when I was about 16-17, but I find that to be a very naive point of view. Regardless of whether or not you want to apply any label to yourself (which is perfectly valid) the material conditions of the system we live in will come down on you too. So you either end up in the “We are stronger together” camp, or you end up in the “Me and mine are what needs to be protected. Other people be damned” camp. And if you find yourself in the former, you most likely align with people who call themselves socialist, and if you find yourself in the latter, well then you’re probably a bootlicker
You really should read some theory and look at real socialist practice before you arrogantly state things that are just completely false.Edit: misread the comment thought the were making the quoted point.
So you’re saying that noone does any work in socialist countries? They wouldn’t last many days if that was the case
No? To the contrary, people need to work if they are able, at least until automation can cover most production and distribution.
Exactly, that’s why it was weird of the commenter to object to someone saying that socialism isn’t “You won’t need to do any work and still get money” with “you should read some theory” as if socialist theory said that that was exactly what socialism is
I don’t think that was their intention.
Based on their edit it wasn’t, they had misread the original comment
I understand that that is not what Socialism actually means.
People who thought of the system weren’t idiots.
I think you replied to the wrong person
Nope
Then you didn’t understand what was being said and should reread it. People work in socialist countries like I work in China we just have a minimum standard guaranteed to us and the government actually works for us instead of for corporations.
yeah i did actually read it multiple times to make sure i didn’t misread it, did you?
Let’s double check before making accusations next time
I live in a socialist country. And it works (well, at least better than current US).
You should go around interjecting people who say, “You won’t need to do any work and still get money” and link them to places where they can read the theory, to reduce such BS’ers.
Do you live in Cuba, Vietnam, the PRC, DPRK, Laos, or Venezuela? If not, you don’t live in a socialist country, but a social democracy, which is capitalism but with safety nets. These social democracies in Europe rely on imperialism to subsidize their safety nets.
They live in India
Ah, gotcha.
Heyyy! No spoilers.
Now they don’t have the drive to read my extremely lengthy comment explaining the situation and then trying to guess my country from that.
Sorry!
I live in a country that went from Imperial control to almost fully Socialist (except for the Police, which are mostly tamed bullies) and is now rapidly progressing towards Capitalism (probably because anyone that refuses to do so, gets on the offside of US).
And PRC qualifies as neither Socialist nor Capitalist.
If it’s not on the list, it isn’t socialist. As for the PRC, public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy and the working classes control the state, it’s socialist by definition.
I find it hard to believe that the majority of the working class people consider territorial expansion to be good for anyone in this age.
I find it hard to believe that China is engaged in territorial expansion when it hasn’t dropped a single bomb in 35 years
Or do mean the border dispute with India? Because that’s an artifact of the British drawing shitty borders and imposing them on subjugated people and those people have not established an effective framework for redressing the problem yet
Nepal
Why did the British not colonise Nepal
Detaining citizen in Shanghai, if it’s Chinese citizen, why need VISA? If it’s an Indian citizen, why detain?
Forget British, forget military occupation. What decides who is worthy of controlling a place?
I believe, one that is there during hard times 2 3. PDF
And considering how China tried to cut off downstream from Tsang Po, even if I were to assume China controlled all of Indian territory, that act doesn’t make Chinese government particularly desirable. And if we consider that China doesn’t control said territory, then that makes China a bad neighbour at best and an incompetent governor at worst.
See, I am not very patriotic. I am fine with whatever the name of my country is. But the difference between how the land resources are controlled and distributed over the years, make me seem like China will end up being a worse Central Govt. than India (which isn’t particularly great already), for the given territory.
China isn’t expansionist, though.
You are an interesting person