I don’t see anything in the socialist philosophy that precludes individuals in positions of leadership. And I certainly don’t see anything about excluding funds for capital improvements to the nation-state - or even the world as a whole.
The Soviets seemed to manage running a space program that routinely outpaced their American counterparts while still juggling tenants of socialist economics with a hierarchical leadership structure and significant investments in new productive output. That’s how they achieved Superpower Status in the midst of a World War while states like France, Japan, and Brazil languished for the rest of the century.
I’ll spot you that building a functional socialist system is difficult, especially when you’re battling hostile outside forces. Allende’s Cybersyn put a big fat nail through Mises’s Economic Calculation Problem shortly before Pinochet and his goons had the project terminated. We’ve had a parade of Iranian presidents attempt socialist internationalism across the Middle East, only to see their diplomats gunned down, blown up, and poisoned to death by the enemy intelligence services. Even when countries can move unfettered - as Raul Castro and Nicholas Maduro kinda-sorta did during the Obama administration - people regularly make mistakes and miscalculations, attempting to provide short term relief to an impoverished population at the expense of longer term economic development.
And then sometimes a system flat out fails - as pretty much the entire Warsaw Pact did during the 1990s - due to internal contradictions and external pressures.
Socialism isn’t infallible. Socialists aren’t immaculate. The experiment of Communism is ongoing, in the same way the experiment of American Liberalism and Saudi Monarchism and German Fascism continues apace. Part of the struggle is getting people to see enough merit in a blueprint to begin building. Nobody knows how to do anything until they try.
The Soviets ate their own propaganda and thought that the future is in space and not in technological progress. They missed the digital revolution. Being the best socialist state doesn’t help against stronger capitalist states.
Part of the struggle is getting people to see enough merit in a blueprint to begin building.
There is no blueprint for a full system. Nobody wants to repeat the leadership style of the successful days of the USSR. And as you can see, barely anybody is willing to acknowledge that void so it won’t be filled anytime soon.
What if both statements are correct? People love the parts but we don’t know how to blend it into a coherent working system.
The comparison of the Fediverse with Bluesky suggests that people reach goals less efficiently without leaders and capitalist funding.
I don’t see anything in the socialist philosophy that precludes individuals in positions of leadership. And I certainly don’t see anything about excluding funds for capital improvements to the nation-state - or even the world as a whole.
The Soviets seemed to manage running a space program that routinely outpaced their American counterparts while still juggling tenants of socialist economics with a hierarchical leadership structure and significant investments in new productive output. That’s how they achieved Superpower Status in the midst of a World War while states like France, Japan, and Brazil languished for the rest of the century.
I’ll spot you that building a functional socialist system is difficult, especially when you’re battling hostile outside forces. Allende’s Cybersyn put a big fat nail through Mises’s Economic Calculation Problem shortly before Pinochet and his goons had the project terminated. We’ve had a parade of Iranian presidents attempt socialist internationalism across the Middle East, only to see their diplomats gunned down, blown up, and poisoned to death by the enemy intelligence services. Even when countries can move unfettered - as Raul Castro and Nicholas Maduro kinda-sorta did during the Obama administration - people regularly make mistakes and miscalculations, attempting to provide short term relief to an impoverished population at the expense of longer term economic development.
And then sometimes a system flat out fails - as pretty much the entire Warsaw Pact did during the 1990s - due to internal contradictions and external pressures.
Socialism isn’t infallible. Socialists aren’t immaculate. The experiment of Communism is ongoing, in the same way the experiment of American Liberalism and Saudi Monarchism and German Fascism continues apace. Part of the struggle is getting people to see enough merit in a blueprint to begin building. Nobody knows how to do anything until they try.
The Soviets ate their own propaganda and thought that the future is in space and not in technological progress. They missed the digital revolution. Being the best socialist state doesn’t help against stronger capitalist states.
There is no blueprint for a full system. Nobody wants to repeat the leadership style of the successful days of the USSR. And as you can see, barely anybody is willing to acknowledge that void so it won’t be filled anytime soon.