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Cerebral Bore posted:Have you seen the motherfucker who's currently ruling France? Do you really want one of his sycophants? At this point i'd take it
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Oct 30, 2018 01:04
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Isn't this essentially how Carl Johan became king of Sweden back in the early 19th century?
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Oct 30, 2018 05:55
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Katt posted:If you instead use the commonly and very widely understood meaning of "socialist" as a spectrum of varying degrees of public welfare with a wide and deep social safety net and government regulations then yes Sweden is pretty socialist. Sweden is one of least equal societies in Europe, and the one with the high billionaire-per-capita outside of Switzerland in the entire West.
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Oct 30, 2018 10:23
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Boatswain posted:Sweden is one of least equal societies in Europe. How? By what measure is that true? I've looked at Gini (no) and gender equality (no).
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Oct 30, 2018 10:41
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Randarkman posted:Isn't this essentially how Carl Johan became king of Sweden back in the early 19th century? Yes, that's the joke. Dirk Pitt posted:So Steffe couldn't get it done either and now M is back in the driver's seat if my Swedish is good enough? Well, not really. It means that Mr. Talman once more gets to decide who he'll give the task to try to create a government. It could be M who gets the ball again, but it could be someone else: for example, C has said no to both M and S, so Annie could be asked if she can do it better herself (which I doubt, but hey, it's one option). EDIT: Comedy Fasc option is that Jimmie gets it, and he forms up the brown-blue wet dream of a SD-KD-M government, with L and C folding and not actively voting against them. Yay! lilljonas fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Oct 30, 2018 |
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Oct 30, 2018 12:48
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Maybe Sweden will just opt out of having a government at all like Belgium.
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Nov 2, 2018 07:43
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Well, the upside of having a functioning state apparatus is that it can just keep chugging along whether or not there's an actual government in place, unlike eg the US where poo poo just crashes and burns the moment the parties can't agree on a budget. To continue the socialism derail, I'd personally argue that "socialist state" has a very specific meaning - it's the socio-economic system of the former Soviet Union, it's Eastern European client states, maoist China etc. These nations used the word "socialist" to refer to their societies, economies and modes of government, and they were referred to as such by both their peers and their opponents. Such states are defined by a single party dominating all state functions, an intermingling of state and party functions, state ownership of all major industries and economic enterprises, the abolishment of private property, and a brutal suppression of critics and political opponents. To use the same word to refer to both the Soviet Union and modern-day Sweden renders the word "socialism" meaningless, and just plays into the hands of the free market fundamentalists who think anything to the left of Ayn Rand is stalinism.
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Nov 2, 2018 09:13
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In regards to socialism discussion. The social democrats in sweden was one of the founders of the socialist international...they were part of the socialist conference in Copenhagen 1915, etc. I get that meanings of words change, but I dont understand why people look towards communist nations/parties when they want to define socialism, since the communists is a whole other thing.
Zombiepop fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Nov 2, 2018 |
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Nov 2, 2018 09:36
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Learning is hard, let's just come up with our own definitions of socialism.
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Nov 2, 2018 10:03
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Mr. Sunshine posted:Well, the upside of having a functioning state apparatus is that it can just keep chugging along whether or not there's an actual government in place, unlike eg the US where poo poo just crashes and burns the moment the parties can't agree on a budget. That's really more of a peculiarity in how the United States assigns responsibility for deciding budgets that I hope no other sensible democracy has.
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Nov 2, 2018 10:48
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Zombiepop posted:In regards to socialism discussion. The social democrats in sweden was one of the founders of the socialist international...they were part of the socialist conference in Copenhagen 1915, etc. I get that meanings of words change, but I dont understand why people look towards communist nations/parties when they want to define socialism, since the communists is a whole other thing. Yes, that's all true. But if Sweden is a socialist society simply by virtue of having social democrats in power, that would mean that swedish society would radically alter every time there's a change of government, and that's simply not true. I just can't see any useful definition of socialism that allows for inherited wealth and overwhelming private ownership of the means of production, both of which exist in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and most other nations that outsiders (read americans) like to point out as "successful socialist states". There's nothing about a robust welfare state along the Scandinavian model that is uniquely socialist, and in fact the first modern welfare state is arguably Bismarck's Germany - a decidedly conservative and anti-socialist nation.
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Nov 2, 2018 10:55
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Nah thats not it, I dont argue that sweden is like "the one" socialist state, or that welfare is unique to socialism or whatever, my argument is that socialism is defined by socialist parties as the socialdemocrats in contrast to people trying to define it based on communist nations. Also socialist ideology and practice are 2 different things in reality. Just my 2 cents. I guess it's meaningful if you want a more nuanced discussion about what socialism can be.(not communism) I might have misread you, im a bit tired. gently caress now I have edited this even more, and im stupid, dont even get what in my text you are replying to. Zombiepop fucked around with this message at 11:20 on Nov 2, 2018 |
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Nov 2, 2018 11:07
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Socialism is an umbrella term which covers basically any system where capital is primarily controlled by the public, rather than private parties. It's a meaningless term in the same way "democracy" is a meaningless term because it covers basically any modern flavor of government.
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Nov 2, 2018 11:34
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Zombiepop posted:In regards to socialism discussion. The social democrats in sweden was one of the founders of the socialist international...they were part of the socialist conference in Copenhagen 1915, etc. I get that meanings of words change, but I dont understand why people look towards communist nations/parties when they want to define socialism, since the communists is a whole other thing. I wonder what might have happened in the intervening century that might have made the differences more noticeable and seemingly at odds. 
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Nov 2, 2018 15:56
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"im collectively owned! im collectively owned!!", i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and transform into a residual welfare state where homelessness is punishable by law and polish truck drivers get paid 15 kr./hr while living in abject squalor
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Nov 2, 2018 16:07
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Detta är något av det bästa jag sett. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-OgXq4Lqyw
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Nov 2, 2018 17:38
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His Divine Shadow posted:Detta är något av det bästa jag sett.
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Nov 2, 2018 17:51
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Mr. Sunshine posted:Yes, that's all true. But if Sweden is a socialist society simply by virtue of having social democrats in power, that would mean that swedish society would radically alter every time there's a change of government, and that's simply not true. I would argue that the sheer momentum of socialism in Swedish society built up over the last century means that a 4 or 8 year run of a right-leaning government will at best allow it to nudge the country more towards the middle. There's no stopping this socialist train (yet). Katt fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Nov 2, 2018 |
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Nov 2, 2018 18:31
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Katt posted:I would argue that the sheer momentum of socialism in Swedish society built up over the last century means that a 4 or 8 year run of a right-leaning government will at best allow it to nudge the country more towards the middle. There's no stopping this socialist train (yet). ...I'm not sure if you're taking the piss here, or if you're serious. Any progress Sweden was making towards a future socialist society definitely ground to a halt some 30 years back, and since then the social democrats have mostly been custodians of the status quo. I see no indication that Sweden is on any path to the abolition of private property.
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Nov 2, 2018 19:39
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So the law firm the government hired to investigate one of the numerous tax scandals was itself advising one of the banks being investigated. It continued advising American pension funds on the same type of fraud during the investigation. Or, as I like to call it, Socialism.
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Nov 3, 2018 01:35
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Corruption exist everywhere. I would say Sweden has a problem with corruption since people for some reason believe it doesn't exist here. See Nya Karolinska and no one getting sent to jail/fined, its all just honest mistakes and incompetence.
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Nov 3, 2018 11:20
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Zombiepop posted:Corruption exist everywhere. I would say Sweden has a problem with corruption since people for some reason believe it doesn't exist here. See Nya Karolinska and no one getting sent to jail/fined, its all just honest mistakes and incompetence. It's sickening that the result of the NKS scandal is four more years of the same assholes in charge. This is not how you prevent corruption guys.
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Nov 3, 2018 12:15
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Mr. Sunshine posted:To continue the socialism derail, I'd personally argue that "socialist state" has a very specific meaning - it's the socio-economic system of the former Soviet Union, The issue with this discussion is that that is not the accepted definition of "socialist", at least not in northern/western Europe. Socialist thought developed from a reaction to the excesses of the semi-feudal capitalism of 19th century Europe. The main issue being that the values produced by society as a whole ended up concentrated in the hands of a few at the top and that all of society was essentially structured for owners of capital to extract wealth from the labour of others. All branches of socialism agree this is bad and should be changed, but then you get a split between the ones who say society should be reformed and the ones that say that only violent revolution will affect the needed change. The reformers further divided between those who believed in abolishing private property as an end in and of itself, and those who believed in redistribution of said private property as sufficient to accomplish an egalitarian society. There is also the co-joined split between those who believed in one-party rule and those who believed in democracy. The one-party branch argued that democracy inherently will dilute the marxist goals, while the democrats argued that one-party rule is authoritarian and therefore anti-socialist by its very nature. Social democrats are the product of the last branches. Its belief in democracy necessarily precludes pure Marxism, as most people actually quite like private property. Its belief in redistribution over state ownership is quite watered down compared to the other branches. It is however not merely one of the branches of socialist though, it is the only successful one. Success being measured by the improvement in the rights and living standards of working people compared to said 19th century semi-feudal capitalism. It's not stalled in the quest for abolishing private property and nationalising all the things. It believes that stuff to be tools rather than ends in and off themselves. And it further believes it can achieve the goals of socialism (as fair, free and equal society as can be created by man) without said tools. (I personally think we could do with a wee bit more nationalizing) quote:To use the same word to refer to both the Soviet Union and modern-day Sweden renders the word "socialism" meaningless, and just plays into the hands of the free market fundamentalists who think anything to the left of Ayn Rand is stalinism. Entirely true. Which is why most people living in socialist European countries refer to the SU and friends as "Communist". And ourselves as "Socialists". Democratic socialists, or social democrats if prodded. But the important thing here is that most of us consider the commies to be No True Socialists, on account of the whole dictatorship thing. authoritarianism is a right-wing thing you see, so really stalin was a facist and you cant pin the bad stuff the SU did on us lefties  In Scandinavia there has mostly been a Socialist party and an Commie party, and while they have always cooperated they have been distinct modes of though and doctrine. Socialist governments in Sweden did not let the Left party into the defense planning meetings, despite being propped up by them in parliament. Courthouse fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Nov 3, 2018 |
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Nov 3, 2018 15:39
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Courthouse posted:liberals.txt https://www.nrk.no/norge/krf-dagen-derpa_-flere-fylkesledere-vurderer-a-ga-av-1.14277677 Lots of moaning, but nobody is willing to do something about it. I predict that the continued existence of a christian party in Norway will turn out to be more important to the voters than any split between the center and the right.
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Nov 3, 2018 17:07
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Zombiepop posted:Corruption exist everywhere. I would say Sweden has a problem with corruption since people for some reason believe it doesn't exist here. See Nya Karolinska and no one getting sent to jail/fined, its all just honest mistakes and incompetence. You seem to think this constitutes aberrant behavior in an otherwise functional system. I'm saying that's how it's always worked. The examples in my wint parody are also real and contemporary, and I don't think it serves Socialism to be positively assosciated with any of it.
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Nov 3, 2018 21:35
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I am fully aware of the early split between revolutionary and reformist socialists, and the enmity between social democrats and communists. But I have no loving idea of what reality you live in when you say stuff like:Courthouse posted:... most people living in socialist European countries refer to the SU and friends as "Communist". And ourselves as "Socialists". Again, there is no definition of socialism that allows for an overwhelming majority of the means of production to be privately owned. A society in which the capitalist class controls the means of production can by definition not be a socialist society.
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Nov 3, 2018 22:06
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Mr. Sunshine posted:Swedes do not refer to themselves as socialists, nor do they refer to their society as a socialist one. They'd say socialdemokrat and socialdemokratic, respectively. But evidently we live in different bubbles then, because half people around me cannot shut up about how we live in a socialist nightmare where earning money is essentially illegal. And if you stopped a man on the street and asked if the ruling Socialdemokratiska Arbetarpartiet were socialist the only people who would deny it would be tankie university students. Because the man on the street doesn't much care about the semantics between a "socialist state" and a "socialdemocratic state". Nor between socialist and socialdemokrat. My friend referred to Scandinavia as "socialist capitalists" when she was explaining to an american exchange student, which I am sure would have most of DnD crying blood. quote:Again, there is no definition of socialism that allows for an overwhelming majority of the means of production to be privately owned. A society in which the capitalist class controls the means of production can by definition not be a socialist society. Is it your assertion that socialism can never be democratic then? Since a western socialdemocratic society cannot realistically fully nationalize the means of production without losing elections every now and then, leading to conservative parties privatizing stuff back? And can a non-democratic nation be socialist once you have no more collective control over parliament?
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Nov 3, 2018 23:08
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Courthouse posted:But evidently we live in different bubbles then, because half people around me cannot shut up about how we live in a socialist nightmare where earning money is essentially illegal. Yeah, that's the aforementioned crazy libertarians. There's a lot of them in tech and finance circles, but they're a tiny minority in the nation as a whole. Courthouse posted:Is it your assertion that socialism can never be democratic then? Since a western socialdemocratic society cannot realistically fully nationalize the means of production without losing elections... My instinct is to just tell you to gently caress off, but that would probably net me a probation. If you really wanna know what more either read the source material or go look up, I don't know, philosophytube or some poo poo, because you're coming across as either incredibly naive or just arguing in bad faith.
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Nov 3, 2018 23:23
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Courthouse posted:"socialist capitalists" Courthouse posted:Is it your assertion that socialism can never be democratic then? Since a western socialdemocratic society cannot realistically fully nationalize the means of production without losing elections every now and then, leading to conservative parties privatizing stuff back? And can a non-democratic nation be socialist once you have no more collective control over parliament? Crudely put, in a socialist society you only own what you use. You can own a house, but not an apartment complex. You can own a car, but not a car factory. This is a radically different society to the one we currently have in Sweden, where ownership of anything is mainly limited by how much money you have. Can a socialist society be democratic? I dunno. None so far has been. I also can see no path through current democratic institutions that would take us to a future socialist society. But I'd also argue that if socialism can't be democratic, it's not worth pursuing. I want to make very clear that I am not arguing that socialism - as envisioned by Marx, Engels, Oscar Wilde or Orwell - is a bad thing. Only that, if we go by any reasonable definition, the Soviet Union under Stalin is a hell of a lot closer to it than modern-day Sweden.
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Nov 4, 2018 00:06
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I guess socialism can be democratic, unless said democratic process ended up in negating said socialism, which would inherently no longer make it democratic socialism. Also, what is democracy? Capitalism and liberalism claim to be democratic, but these systems are heavily invested in subverting the democratic process through voter suppression, gerrymandering and, you know, basically controlling most of the frames of references we westerners have. People who claim to have democracy as their foremost ethical imperative generally stand to gain from said democracy. It's very convenient, and not really that convincing. They often turn out to not be in favor of said democracy as soon as popular opinion turn against them. Personally, I feel like having a clear ideological agenda is more useful and honorable, even if it is one I disagree with. Democracy is often a good tool, and certainly a wonderful ideal, but it is extremely exploitable. Democracy on a grand scale feels like a Star Trek utopia at this point, and the people who get it the most right seem to be the anarchists organizing on a small scale in their community. thotsky fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Nov 4, 2018 |
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Nov 4, 2018 00:46
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Anyway Annie Lööf trying to form a government, yes or no?
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Nov 4, 2018 00:55
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Zombiepop posted:Anyway Annie Lööf trying to form a government, yes or no? Only one answer: lol
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Nov 4, 2018 01:05
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You do realize that social democracy and democratic socialism are fundamentally different things, right? You posted a lot of words but come to some pretty odd conclusions. Courthouse posted:Entirely true. Which is why most people living in socialist European countries refer to the SU and friends as "Communist". And ourselves as "Socialists". Democratic socialists, or social democrats if prodded. But the important thing here is that most of us consider the commies to be No True Socialists, on account of the whole dictatorship thing. authoritarianism is a right-wing thing you see, so really stalin was a facist and you cant pin the bad stuff the SU did on us lefties Has anyone ever actually told you the second world wasn't socialist? Because it totally was, they just did a really lovely job at it, and I've never met a leftist who claimed otherwise.
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Nov 4, 2018 02:18
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Noted social democrat Olof Palme very explicitly said he was a "democratic socialist" on several occasions, for example in this 1982 election debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V7IqUjFcoQ You can't really claim Palme worked for making the workers seize the means of production, though. For him, social democracy was democratic socialism in practice. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Nov 4, 2018 |
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Nov 4, 2018 03:22
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Courthouse posted:"socialist capitalists" "That's like a sheep loving the farmer." - Stutter Dawes
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Nov 4, 2018 03:33
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Since you are talking about the relationship of socialism and democracy, well... The reason for one-party states was pragmatism in a given situation rather than something any consistent Leninist would hold to be correct across time and place. The countries turned socialist were either not modernized yet (or given the push by another one-party state that wanted malleable satellite states). Socialism was theorized on the basis of a modernized capitalist society: eliminating private property in means of production is something that comes naturally to propertyless people, but is typically opposed by all sorts of independent producers. Revolutionary nonmodernized countries could not be simultaneously democratic (as in ruled by the people in general) and socialist because the peasant population would be likely to oppose socialism, so the party was set up as a gatekeeper for candidates that would enable a compromise solution of universal suffrage and socialism, which was comparatively democratic at the time, but became worse with the reforms of liberal democracy and corruption of communist parties. (The ethics were... complicated, because peasant economies could not compete with capitalist economies and were destined to become either capitalists or their colonies. But the expropriation could not be done "apolitically" like in countries that just have constitutions that prevent the democratic suppression of landlords and such.) Now, the majority of people in the whole world are urban. The property of what we call "the middle class" is mostly stuff they use while having to work for an employer anyway: homes, transportation, pension savings. They have few non-ideological reasons to oppose whatever system guarantees that to them. Even like small business owners typically treat what they do as a slightly nicer alternative to (un)employment, it's not a huge hurdle to offer them nice things. A population that builds up the fervor to overturn their rulers for good comes with the ideology issue already solved. One-party-states are a spent force, their establishment in the first place was kind of a long shot emergency strategy that no one knew how far it could carry them. Of course when they were at their height, they propagated an ideology that justified their existence way past their prime, but that's just base opportunism that dies out when no one gets paid for believing that anymore. Note: by "socialism" here I mean taking action to move toward production in common and distribution by need, or being farther along the path than others have been historically, which I think is a definition that manages to encompass as many people that have called themselves socialist as possible without rendering the word to refer to a fantasy rather than real processes. Parliamentary reformism is a fair attempt as long as it's transformative rather than alleviating the problems of capitalism in order to preserve capitalism, and I think the difference between demsocs and Keynesian socdems is found there even as they inhabit the same party and use the same methods. Social democratic countries were dominated by the latter working together with capitalists within a liberal-democratic state. Maybe they passed for socialists back when there were a lot of socialist goals to achieve that didn't threaten capitalism, but after those dried out they became an obviously conservative force. States have been the tool of choice of most socialists, including demsocs, so I don't object to "socialist state" to refer to a state dominated by socialists, whether democratically or by force. But it has to be understood as a tool that will be made useless by its own successes and may be surpassed by better tools long before the success of socialism, and anyone who insists on a spent tool when useful ones are available ends up fighting socialism rather than advancing it. "We need a healthy amount of capitalism with a healthy amount of socialism" is the opportunistic call of the fallen social democracy. Demsocs are up for challenging capitalism in order to go further, but within the liberal-democratic state and usually through schemes of slowly crowding out or buying out capitalist corporations within market-based economic activity. Communists are for building the seed of a new popular form of organization and using it to smash the liberal-democratic state and expropriate capitalists (with a lot of disagreement on the specifics and also whether the new form of organization could rightly be called a state).
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Nov 4, 2018 12:45
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uncop posted:"We need a healthy amount of capitalism with a healthy amount of socialism" is the opportunistic call of the fallen social democracy. That is to say, problems are bad, but their causes are extremely good. To put it another way, a hammer can be used to build a house, but it is in fact better to keep smashing your dick with it relentlessly until all your friends leave you and somebody steals the hammer away to pawn it off for heroin, only to be hate-crimed by the hammer's new owner, a 300-pound sack of recessive genes with a primal urge to smash everything in sight.
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Nov 4, 2018 15:52
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 https://www.dn.se/nyheter/politik/uppgifter-till-dn-m-blockerar-annie-loof-fran-att-sondera/ Is this a tactic or is Ulf really going to be prime minister?
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Nov 5, 2018 09:49
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   If it's a tactic it's not a very good one. EDIT: Also mandatory WHY DID WE WAIT ALMOST 2 MONTHS TO DO THIS, WHY NORLEN MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Nov 5, 2018 |
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Nov 5, 2018 09:59
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MiddleOne posted:
Are we really going to have racists in charge? Really??
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Nov 5, 2018 10:12
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