It’s mostly thanks to USA propaganda and the whole “Red Scare” that began in the 1950s
I mean doesn’t it mean a system where the people take care of themselves and neighbors?
Not really, the system is supposed to be about a government and economy that cares about the well being of its people first, such that several wealth distribution methods would be applied to ensure minimal inequality.
The entirety of civilization is based on socialism to one degree or another. Even dictators depend on socialism. The tipping point is where that socialism becomes leveraged for personal ambitions.
The kind we know from history and China has the problem of giving some individuals way too much power over others. But so does capitalism in the long run, in way meaner ways.
There are various kinds of socialism. Some “take care of themselves and neighbors” & some merely claim to.
One of the merely claims types is authoritarian socialism, which includes Marxism–Leninism.
Authoritarian socialism, or socialism from above, is an economic and political system supporting some form of socialist economics while rejecting political pluralism. As a term, it represents a set of economic-political systems describing themselves as “socialist” and rejecting the liberal-democratic concepts of multi-party politics, freedom of assembly, habeas corpus, and freedom of expression, either due to fear of counter-revolution or as a means to socialist ends.
That ideology does not respect & protect inherent individual rights & liberties recognized since the Enlightenment. Authoritarian socialism is hated for abusing human rights, and it’s often incorrectly assumed that all socialism is authoritarian. That explains the hatred.
Kinds of socialism that respect & protect human rights do exist, however, and they have a better claim to a system of self & mutual care. There’s little reason to hate those.
It would seem the common problem in any political system is always authoritarianism? Is there historical case where a king or similar actually helped the people that I can study more?
bhutan maybe?
Well, over here hard-line socialism is tied directly to Soviet attempts of taking away our independence through military force after us being occupied for well over a thousand years.
So yeah, a hard sell. But we have softer socialist policies these days, but I don’t see a shift towards a fully socialist system.
Care? hahahaha. You made me laugh.
One reason I can think is we haven’t yet seen a working socialist society, which often fail for external reasons.
For example, the socialist government in Cuba was severely undermined by the USA imposed blockade.
A more recent example is Venezuela, while you can think what you want about its current government, I don’t think USA should interfere with any sovereign nation.
There’s almost like a pattern, like someone, somewhere doesn’t like the idea of socialism to succeed.
China needs Taiwan to fail because the Chinese Communist Party maintains that democracy is incompatible with the Chinese culture. Having a very successful Chinese democracy shows that Chinese culture is compatible with democracy.
In a similar way, capitalists do everything they can to scuttle socialist countries, because a working socialist country would show that it was viable. Hence endless embargoes, wars, and a steady stream of propaganda. This was true for the entire life of the Soviet Union, and continues to this day for socialist countries.
There are plenty of surviving socialist states, and Cuba and Venezuela and Vietnam for that matter still exist despite extensive US meddling so it’s weird to call them non-surviving.
Whether you want to call China socialist is a whole different kettle of worms, but I think it demonstrates rather handily that socialism’s second greatest burden beyond the necessity of fighting off capitalists is the authoritarianism of Marxists.
I’m a total lamen but what makes Marxism authoritarian?
Marxism posits that socialism is best achieved through a command/centralized economy. There’s plenty of room for interpretation and of course being a Marxist doesn’t mean you have to agree with 150 year old socioeconomic theories on every point but generally that’s the form Marxist governments have assumed, probably because it is in the interest of the people running a government to take all the power they can.
If the government controls production from the ground up there’s just no other model to call it but authoritarian, everything within that society can only happen by their consent or by breaking the law.
I agree, that’s why I called them non-working socialist states.
My point is we haven’t yet seen how well (or bad) could a socialist state work if left alone.
The people who hate it are those who think themselves better than their peers. They think they deserve more than their peers, and that socialism transfers their superior effort to the benefit of their inferiors.
They see socialism not as everyone helping everyone, but as they, the successful being forced to support them, the lazy.
Yes. My one note would be that it may be more to the root of it to say that they see it as the good (anything they like) having to help the bad (anything else). These sorts almost always reduce down to good/bad, me/them, clean/dirty because they (like all of us in our own ways) simply desire understanding and the surety it provides. Framing things as 0/1 is much easier to understand than actually facing the grey of reality. It’s easy to want easy. Not often good or helpful, but just so dang easy to abide by.
There used to be a country called the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
It was built on the principles of socialism
It turns out that actually living in a socialist state is oppressive to the point where millions upon millions were starved because that was what was needed to give socialism the chance to take off in a capitalist world.
Read a fucking book
Tell me you’re an American without telling me you’re an American.
Next up: The Nazis were socialist, it’s in the name!
People don’t really like change.
Think about free public libraries. They’re fairly popular, and not controversial outside of fringe libertarian types and assholes. People like that you can borrow books and other media for free. Usually there’s a bit of a backlash if there’s a movement to shut down libraries or limit their services.
Imagine if free public libraries didn’t exist, and someone tried to invent them today. People would be having screaming fits about communism. It’s stealing from the authors. it’s ruining publishing. We don’t need tax dollars for this when we have amazon. Blah blah blah.
It’s the same with other things we could socialize. health care is a privatized nightmare. If we somehow got a public option in, eventually people would start reflexively defending it.
So what I’m saying is many people don’t really have a set of internally consistent beliefs. They just don’t like change.
Such a good point. Every once in a while I come across a particular social policy in a European country that someone from there is astonished doesn’t exist in other countries and on paper you think this would be great but you would know it would be such a hard sell in your / other countries. I think on a city / regional level there is a lot more about looking what other places are doing well top adopt them but don’t see it as much on an international level (outside of the EU anyway)
Propaganda.
People don’t know what socialism actually means because of propaganda…
you can ask someone who is against “socialism” whether they like it by talking about elements of it without explicitly mentioning the word “socialism” and they will probably agree with it.
People don’t know what socialism actually is beyond literally defining it as bad and scary. It’s insane how uneducated and stupid most of us are.
You need a definition. You didn’t define it, and people who hate it rarely define it. If nobody knows what everyone is talking about, then it’s all a waste of time.
So, what do you think it means?
Propaganda works.
Arguments I hear are usually something along the lines of “it’s going to destroy the economy”, “it destroys jobs”, “I’m rich and they’ll tax me a lot” (said by people who aren’t actually rich). Also, confusing social democracy (Germany, Nordic countries) with what the Soviet Union and China were doing.
Yeah, capitalism has conspired to make us believe, as a group, that resources are somehow incredibly limited while a small cabal of elites gobble up insane quantities of resources for themselves while depriving the majority of those same resources.
Pure altruistic socialism would evenly redivide those resources, giving to those who need what they need.
It is anathema to capitalism, but it is the only society that would actually work in a post-scarcity world, which we might actually be approaching, assuming that the capitalists don’t destroy it first.
The world has had enough resources for post-scarcity for decades, if not centuries. Before, the problem was logistics, now it’s will.
Oh it has always been will. Let‘s not pretend like capitalism has the better logistics and therefore a better world wouldn‘t have been possible sooner. That’s only romanticizing capitalism.
I’m talking about methods of transport and storage. Food isn’t likely to rot before it gets where it’s going, like it was a couple hundred years ago.
I think very few of the ruling elite would support a post scarcity world. Elon Musk keeps talking about it the most and he is one of the guys I trust the least to intentionally bring it about.
I think this is the biggest one. It’s the word, but it doesn’t matter which word is used. All the propaganda machines will fuck with it as quick as they can.
Also, confusing social democracy (Germany, Nordic countries) with what the Soviet Union and China were doing.
yes socialism means a lot of things to a lot of people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism#Etymology
it was invented a long time ago in association with a utopian fantasy
Socialism, as far as Marx was concerned, is a transitional stage to Communism. This is why it gets a lot of push back. Because of that connection. Worse, youve got generations of people conflating the two. And worse still, you have a few examples of people who were claiming to be socialist, who were really just using socialism for their own ends.
The reality is that Socialism is about everything being about the betterment of the people. That assets are a shared ownership, rather than privately owned. This in turn creates a fairer distribution of the wealth generated. So everyone’s lives improve.
The issue, the real issue, is that socialism needs a very large government in order to work. The fear is that this would create out of control bureaucracy. With middle mangers everywhere doing middle manger things that would create a system that was slow and worse far easier to corrupt. On top of that, you have the issue of competition not being the driving force of innovation. The government would control and mandate investment and innovation. Which again comes back to the middle mangers. There is also an issue with free speech. After all, if the government controls everything, where do you go if that government doesnt see the issues that its created? And worse still, how might it handle those dissenting voices?
The reality is that no one system is “the best” and really what would work best is a mixed system. One that builds a well regulated economy while maintaining a safety net for the people. So you would have private businesses, competition, innovation combined with free healthcare, free education, unemployment support, worker rights, high taxes, and high transparency and accountability.
ELI5
People dislike socialism because they often feel like their hard work and effort does not get fairly rewarded. Why would you work your whole life away to become a doctor and save lives when someone else wastes their time lost in vice.
Well you’re 5 you piece of shit and your efforts at not pissing the bed have been pretty minimal at best. But do you still eat? Do you have a roof and a bed to piss all over? Who cleans that mess every time? People hate socialism because it sucks to be the provider. It also sucks to suffer. And in life we often forget this. We forget it takes all of us. We forget what it is to be helpless. We forget those who provided for us. And we get angry when we have to provide for others when we feel so left out of the party.
In short dont forget. Don’t forget what you have been given and don’t forget to share. Dumb kids.
