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The question, particularly with interested responses from US goons who strongly identify as liberal or conservative on the American linear political spectrum, is "How do you define Socialism and how do you feel about it?" Coming from a highly politicized career path in the defense contracting industry, many people have offered up their definition of socialism and it always seems to change based on the way they feel. Some say it's government redistribution of wealth, others say it's government tyranny by controlling its citizens' assets and others try to avoid the government argument completely by saying it's workers owning the means of production and nothing more. For example, many conservatives say socialism is bad. So a few examples of what they might say are "Venezuela is a prime example of socialism in action" or "Socialism kills any incentive to work and its supporters in the US like Bernie Sanders or AOC will hurt us" and "Socialist countries kill people's incentive to work and always go bankrupt". On the flip side, liberals who support it will say "Many other countries have higher standards of living and have socialist programs like Universal Health Care or National Health Systems" or "A social safety net will ensure people are happy and ready to contribute" or "Capitalism destroys people and resources at the expense of profit". The big conflict of course comes from arguing which policies are socialist and which aren't. For example, conservatives I know frequently said that the ACA (Obamacare) was socialist and didn't belong in this country. Trying to be skeptical of any claim by either side, my question to them was "Well, what about the defense industry that we work for that is paid off of taxpayer dollars?" The response was generally that national defense was something individuals couldn't coordinate so it had to be taken care of by the government and tax (or printed) money was necessary. This seemed to satisfy them for justifying their own positions as being government-based but not socialist. However, then when questioned further about "conservative" interference in the free market, such as the $12B bailout for farmers affected by Chinese tariffs, the general response was "That's not socialism, socialism just means workers control the means of production, nothing more", seemingly at odds with other common statements like Obamacare being socialist or the defense contracting agency being an exception to socialism since agriculture is something individuals determine in the market and not a government mandate. The ultimate culmination of these contradictions, and what prompted me to post this thread, was someone in the wonderful world of Facebook comments posting a link to Ben Shapiro's denial of Scandinavian socialism at https://www.dailywire.com/news/28102/wapo-columnist-who-advocated-socialism-no-i-really-ben-shapiro where it finally culminates in “. . . they’re capitalist countries with redistributionist tendencies.” Again, it seems anything that works is "capitalism with redistributionist tendencies" whereas a failed country like Venezuela is "pure Socialism". So Obamacare was really capitalism with redistribution tendencies and not socialism like so many people claimed? Liberals are more consistent, since they advocate for government spending, but still duck a few issues. The main one being, how would you classify Venezuela and make sure any attempt at socialism doesn't end up like Venezuela? Most say it was a dictator based on political ideology contrary to any progressive constitution that did in Venezuela rather than socialism, but again, some will push the "Workers own the means of production is all it means, Venezuela didn't have that and wasn't socialist". The main issue from the left seems to be how far to push it - should we have a national health system where the government controls healthcare, or a private healthcare system where the government controls pricing and coverage for all people? Should we go near a total welfare state or accept certain limits with our natural resources to keep from pillaging the environment to get everyone a big house? How do you deal with the inevitable group, no matter how small a percentage of the total, who says "I don't want to work but will take all I can from society?" Ultimately the liberals fail to address how to bring in someone who wants to live on their own in the wilderness or with a small group of likeminded people and have nothing to do with government. Certainly I can understand why everyone needs to contribute to constitutionally mandated requirements of most first world countries like basic defense and a court / criminal justice / police system, but have a hard time finding it convincing to say a man who wants to live on his own in Wyoming must pay taxes to support healthcare and schooling for kids in Maine, Mississippi or California if he doesn't want to claim any of these benefits himself. So, how do you define socialism and what are your thoughts on it?
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Jan 28, 2019 17:20
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It would be cool if this debate got solved once and for all, because I've noticed that even socialists don't agree on what socialism is (e.g. just try asking whether the USSR counts as socialist or not), which can make it a difficult topic to discuss. In comparison, it seems like there's much less confusion and argumentation over what counts as capitalism, even when involving people with radically different political views. I'm a social democrat who likes wikipedia's definition: quote:Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and workers' self-management of the means of production as well as the political theories and movements associated with them. Social ownership can be public, collective or cooperative ownership, or citizen ownership of equity. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them, with social ownership being the common element shared by its various forms. To me, the USSR does count as socialism, just a lovely kind, because the extent to which workers truly owned or controlled the means of production was limited due it being a super centralized/top-down one-party state. Kind of how corporate subsidies from the government are still capitalism, it's just (unusually) lovely capitalism.
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Jan 28, 2019 17:37
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Cicero posted:It would be cool if this debate got solved once and for all, because I've noticed that even socialists don't agree on what socialism is (e.g. just try asking whether the USSR counts as socialist or not), which can make it a difficult topic to discuss. In comparison, it seems like there's much less confusion and argumentation over what counts as capitalism, even when involving people with radically different political views. Good answer. I didn't want to dwell too much on my views in the OP outside of general observations, but I'm kind of bifurcated between social democrat and libertarian. I think people need to make strong left-wing communities in order to make scientific and social prosperity as well as have interaction with our leaders. On the other hand, if people want to live by themselves, then outside of bare constitutional requirements I don't think we should tax them and force them to participate in national health or education systems, but neither should they get any benefits. A good summary of this is Frank Herbert's interview where he discusses technopeasantry. http://libraryguides.fullerton.edu/ld.php?content_id=16184648 Currently I'm more anti-Republican because, in addition to the obvious mess going on now, I received far too much hypocrisy from them in the defense industry. You can claim "defense is necessary" all day, but unless you're actively trying to discourage needless projects, eliminate waste on useful projects or avoiding the general placing of the shareholders above the warfighter, then you're a hypocrite by decrying other forms of government spending. That plus man social issues like gay rights and their war on drugs is poison to me.
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Jan 28, 2019 18:37
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I agree with Cicero. I would say I'm further left than social democrat but I bet that probably stems from our disagreement over capitalism's ability to be reformed.Jolly Jumbuck posted:The main one being, how would you classify Venezuela and make sure any attempt at socialism doesn't end up like Venezuela? I'll leave it to others to "classify" I guess. I will say that if I was in charge I wouldn't have let the agriculture industry remain private so that it could buy all the cheap gov't food and export it for a profit, and wouldn't have remained dependent on the biggest baddest capitalist on the block for my food supply. In general though I think a lot of the failures of socialist/communist states are the result of a lot of top down changes without much changing in the work place or on a micro level. You need workers having a say in what happens over production that they do or it's bullshit, imo. So an economy structured around worker co-ops as a minimum requirement. This would be my primary criticism of the USSR's economic reforms. Although also I keep in mind they were under the gun and weren't really comparable to modern day western/rich countries - it's just something we should look at and learn from. Jolly Jumbuck posted:You can claim "defense is necessary" all day, but unless you're actively trying to discourage needless projects, eliminate waste on useful projects or avoiding the general placing of the shareholders above the warfighter, then you're a hypocrite by decrying other forms of government spending. Plus when you do nothing but start fires all over the world then stumble around trying to put them all out... COMRADES fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 18:45
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Jolly Jumbuck posted:On the other hand, if people want to live by themselves, then outside of bare constitutional requirements I don't think we should tax them and force them to participate in national health or education systems, but neither should they get any benefits.
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Jan 28, 2019 18:48
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quote:On the other hand, if people want to live by themselves, The other problem with this is that this is a fantasy that has no basis in reality. Where are they going to go? Mars? Some rural area that's still owned by the government anyway (then they demand payment for it and send men with guns?)? Then if you so happen to be sitting on something the capitalists want you're gonna get took for it. Say your independent and free cabin sits on a good deposit of rare earth minerals. Say a real estate developer decides that's his forest now and he has all the permits to show it. And even if you wanted to do that, you'd have to learn tons of survival skills first. Go out into the woods right now, likely you'd die in a day or two. All the skills you've accumulated and worked on until saying "screw it I'm outta here" are more than likely worthless in the wild. There's no real ability to just pack up and move to the frontier and be left alone in 2019. There's no real voluntary choice of whether or not to participate in society. People are communal which is why: Rent-A-Cop posted:The problem here is that segment of society is 1% Davey Crockett cosplayers and 99% weird pedophile doomsday cults. and really this is all one reason (of a few) why land itself should be communal but anyway. COMRADES fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 18:50
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The USSR represents an idea of socialism which was put into practice in a particular time and place and produced a powerful nation which therefore had a lot of influence over the concept of socialism, both in people reacting to it and in people following it. But I like Richard Wolff's point about it not actually having some pretty key parts of Marx's analysis involved. It didn't sufficiently change the position of the worker in their workplace, a state directed economy is powerful but it doesn't really liberate the worker, it just makes them dependent on different people who might have more of their interest at heart in some ways than their capitalist boss might, but might remain woefully lacking in others. Personally I put a lot more hope in ideas of collective ownership, giving actual material power to people to make decisions that immediately affect their lives. Democracy on a level and in places where you spend most of your day. Sometimes this extends to odd places in that I'm not actually hugely in favour of social housing because if the government owns your house then a hostile government might elect to take it off you, as happened in the UK with a lot of the social housing stock. People shouldn't own each other's houses, but I very much like the idea of people owning their own personal dwellings, it's when that translates into a market and commodification of housing that it becomes a problem. I think the strongest ideas that stem from Marx and his concept of socialism are those that concern giving people real power over their lives, and you can look at his analysis of how power works in society to give you good insights into who presently has it and ways you might get it to people who don't. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 18:53
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OP I think you should decide whether this is a thread for talking about socialism or a thread for you to explain your anti-government beliefs because those two purposes are very obviously going to interfere with each other. As far as what socialism is, I think its pointless to try and define an ideology without historicizing it. This is especially true in the case of socialism, which is often linked to a specific historical project deriving from a series of revolutions in countries around the Atlantic Ocean and later Asia. I think socialism will be hard to talk about coherently outside of that context.
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Jan 28, 2019 18:55
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Jolly Jumbuck posted:So Obamacare was really capitalism with redistribution tendencies and not socialism like so many people claimed? Also yeah. There's nothing socialist about requiring people to purchase private insurance via a private healthcare system. I like this line of argument: "Obama is a communist! ACA! Venezuela!" -> "Ahh what the Scandinavians have isn't real socialism though!" What? Which is it then? They don't know. They probably even benefit from ACA. COMRADES fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 19:01
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The part where Medicaid got expanded is arguably socialist in nature, since Medicaid is a government-run health insurance (?) program.
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Jan 28, 2019 19:07
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Just because government does a thing doesn't mean it is 'socialist,' though. That's just kind of the narrative that conservative Koch Bro propaganda wants to push. Medicare still funnels tons of government money to private companies. I wouldn't say the military is socialist even though I like to rib conservatives by telling them it is nothing more than a massive welfare jobs program.
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Jan 28, 2019 19:09
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Thanks for all the responses so far.COMRADES posted:The other problem with this is that this is a fantasy that has no basis in reality. Where are they going to go? Mars? Some rural area that's still owned by the government anyway (then they demand payment for it and send men with guns?)? Then if you so happen to be sitting on something the capitalists want you're gonna get took for it. Say your independent and free cabin sits on a good deposit of rare earth minerals. Say a real estate developer decides that's his forest now and he has all the permits to show it. True, I probably got ahead of myself (although there are people who could live in the wild, they're few and far between in today's highly structured society and open land availability is a problem). Land rights, water rights, and general transportation and easement are a huge issue that a lot of pure libertarians don't have good answers for. Same with national defense (ie, legitimate defense against threats people can't take care of without large scale socialized defense contstruction projects such as ICBMs). I'm not really anti-government, insomuch as I think huge problems occur when trying to force societies of very different cultures together. The US is drastically different so that asking someone in Maine to pay more taxes to subsidize someone in Mississippi or Oregon is almost the same, on a personal level, as asking them to subsidize someone from a relatively obscure place like Mongolia. There's no real connection outside of landmass birthplace defined by people. I think if the national government all but dissolved, people in various isolated regions (rural and Urban) in the US would be crazy not to establish some sort of social contract (socialism?) with each other, but can't blame them for presently not wanting a big world, national or even state government. If the US started a national health system but gave individual townships or individual people the options to opt out, I'd probably opt in and shake my head as a lot of poorer rural communities who claim to be self-supporting opt out and subsequently collapse due to not having adequate healthcare available for their citizens. If on the other hand, things started becoming crooked and moved in the direction of Venezuela, I'd probably opt out and go with the best local options I could find and hope for the best. Edit: Another example that comes to mind was a tea party protest way back where they protested Obamacare but called for No Cuts to Medicare. They have no problem with the government subsidizing a subset of the population (based on age in this case) as long as it was "paid into" but vehemently oppose Medicare for All or even Obamacare, a fee-backed program. Yet the claim to be independent and, presumably, capitalist not socialist. Jolly Jumbuck fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 19:21
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Cicero posted:The part where Medicaid got expanded is arguably socialist in nature, since Medicaid is a government-run health insurance (?) program. The government funnelling money to private healthcare providers by guaranteeing their fees isn't... really socialism... Or like, it's really not socialism by virtually any standard.
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Jan 28, 2019 19:24
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OwlFancier posted:The government funnelling money to private healthcare providers by guaranteeing their fees isn't... really socialism... COMRADES posted:Just because government does a thing doesn't mean it is 'socialist,' though. That's just kind of the narrative that conservative Koch Bro propaganda wants to push. Medicare still funnels tons of government money to private companies. I think, "we already have socialism and you're totally fine with it, actually" is an easier sell than it being some completely new, alien thing. Cicero fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 19:31
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Cicero posted:Replacing private health insurance companies is arguably socialist, even if it doesn't go all the way and replace private healthcare itself. Health insurance is a sizable industry, I don't see why the government owning it wouldn't count as socialist in some sense if the government taking over other industries counts. If the government owned and operated the healthcare services then yes it would be socialist by some definitions but this is far more like the british privatization of the rail services where the government just throws money at private companies to run any service they want and guarantees all their profits, it's literal handouts to rich people. A big government money faucet that anyone who owns a hospital can stick their head under and guzzle at as long as they bring some old people along to watch isn't really compatible with any definition of socialism. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 19:53
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I'm not saying it's socialized healthcare, just that it's socialized health insurance. That's still an incremental improvement.
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Jan 28, 2019 19:56
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Cicero posted:I'm not saying it's socialized healthcare, just that it's socialized health insurance. I... guess that's technically accurate in the sense that you are socializing the costs of maintaining a for-profit healthcare industry... But it's pretty far removed from socialism and I would strongly suggest not calling it that because it doesn't really have rhetorical value and nor is it accurate.
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Jan 28, 2019 19:58
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I still don't see why it wouldn't count, if you accept that the USSR was a form of socialism chiefly because the government owned and controlled various industries, with the government counting as "the workers" in some sense. So far you've just pointed out that the delivery of healthcare itself is still private and for-profit, but that's not the industry I'm talking about. edit: I'm actually confused about this as a general rule: it seems like most socialists considering nationalizing some companies/industries as a socialist measure -- e.g. Kshama Sawant arguing that we should nationalize Boeing and retool it to build buses -- but then some other industries do not count as socialism if nationalized. Cicero fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 20:05
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Cicero posted:I still don't see why it wouldn't count, if you accept that the USSR was a form of socialism chiefly because the government owned and controlled various industries, with the government counting as "the workers" in some sense. So far you've just pointed out that the delivery of healthcare itself is still private and for-profit, but that's not the industry I'm talking about. I would suggest that if you're going to call something socialism it should probably be a little bit more distant from the function of propping up incredibly usurious private industrialists? Like if you have an entire economy that runs via state control and has strategic objectives that include large scale social efforts to raise people's material standards of living that's a bit more credibly socialist than throwing bazillions of dollars at private healthcare because old people won't vote for you if you don't. Intent and context do matter a bit, I think. If you took control of all healthcare infrastructure and retooled it towards providing the maximum availability of needed service to everyone, then that's something you can argue is a pretty socialist idea even if it's in a tradition that I wouldn't necessarily agree with on all things. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 20:12
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OwlFancier posted:I would suggest that if you're going to call something socialism it should probably be a little bit more distant from the function of propping up incredibly usurious private industrialists? quote:Like if you have an entire economy that runs via state control and has strategic objectives that include large scale social efforts to raise people's material standards of living that's a bit more credibly socialist than throwing bazillions of dollars at private healthcare because old people won't vote for you if you don't. It kind of sounds like you're saying that nothing counts as socialism until the economy is 100% socialist.
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Jan 28, 2019 20:16
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If the government establishes a monopoly on healthcare funding then it's going to depend on how it goes from there. Certainly it's likely to see support from socialists as an immediate measure to improve people's quality of life, however it could quite easily turn into the mother of all pork barrel spending initiatives if that's as far as it goes. It should be followed up with attacks on the privately owned infrastructure itself to bring costs down and eliminate the for profit element. If you manage to achieve a good level of control at that level and especially if you went as far as introducing collective ownership of healthcare infrastructure you really would be heading towards socialist as an accurate label there. But yeah, basically, you don't have socialism unless you have fairly comprehensive worker (or state, if we're being historical) control of industry. If you don't even approach that for a fraction of a single industry then it's kinda diluting the term beyond utility, I think.
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Jan 28, 2019 20:21
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See, the way I look at it, if the government banned private residential landlording and instead built and ran massive amounts of public housing itself, that would count as socialist, even if maybe the contractors hired to build the housing or to get the materials to build the housing might be in private industry, and even if private commercial landlords were still around. I don't think the whole system has to be socialized before you can call any part socialism. I think there's nothing wrong with saying that something like Medicare is a limited form of socialism, at least within its industry. And I think it's even counterproductive to deny that, because many of these programs are quite popular. The GOP can't do poo poo about Medicare, because people like it too much, even within their own, nominally anti-government party. That seems like a success worth bragging about and rhetorically building upon. Like, if someone asks you, "would socialism mean more things like Medicare instead of private insurance companies?" Wouldn't you want to say, "Oh yeah, absolutely" rather than, "oh no, sorry, that's actually not socialism"? Cicero fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 20:26
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I think if you run around saying that limited government funding of private healthcare is socailism you're going to run into some problems when you run into actual socialists who want to guillotine all the landlords and eradicate housing as a commodity. If someone asked me what socialism meant for healthcare I'd say it would mean if you were sick you could see a doctor and get whatever treatment you need and not think about paying for it. You get it because you need it.
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Jan 28, 2019 20:28
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What's wrong with saying "it's socialism for the health insurance industry, and we need more stuff like that in other industries too"?
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Jan 28, 2019 20:30
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Cicero posted:And I think it's even counterproductive to deny that, because many of these programs are quite popular. The GOP can't do poo poo about Medicare, because people like it too much, even within their own, nominally anti-government party. That seems like a success worth bragging about and rhetorically building upon. As an aside, it was quite clever of Bernie Sanders to label his idea "Medicare for All". He's taking an existing program (socialist or capitalist with redistribution tendencies) and trying to extend it to the whole population rather than a subset, the population over 65. Therefore, for someone to complain about Medicare for All and call it socialist while not advocating getting rid of it as it currently stands is showcasing people's selective desire for government that benefits them but nothing beyond that.
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Jan 28, 2019 20:30
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Cicero posted:What's wrong with saying "it's socialism for the health insurance industry, and we need more stuff like that in other industries too"? "socialism for the health insurance industry" is kind of a nonsense phrase. The concept of insurance is one that only exists because of capitalism. Socialism for the health insurance industry would be running the health insurance industry over in a T34 and setting fire to the ruins. That's the problem with applying the term wildly because it does mean quite a lot of important stuff other than just the government throwing money at things. It's like the "everything I dislike is fascism" problem but backwards. Not every improvement in the world is socialism. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 20:33
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That's basically what Medicare for all would do, though: there wouldn't be space left for the private health insurance industry. You're right that "insurance" doesn't really make sense anymore when it's socialized, but you know what I mean.
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Jan 28, 2019 20:35
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I think basically that if you're going to talk about them, that you can't really just avoid the fundamental conflict between socialism and capitalism for very long and you shouldn't try to because people are gonna call you on it pretty fast. If you just want to make the word socialism into "things I like" then you're gonna have problems when people try to use the term to describe more specific ideas and their relationship to capitalism or other left wing ideas. I don't think socialism is really a difficult or even particularly controversial idea to describe to people from principle so if you want to talk about it it's worth doing that rather than just trying to attach it to things you or they might like while avoiding any trace of theory.
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Jan 28, 2019 20:38
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I'm not saying it's just anything I like. I think it involves social ownership of the means of production, and these days "production" also includes various services, including insurance or insurance-like services.
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Jan 28, 2019 20:41
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I would suggest that at least specifically the health insurance industry is such a spectacularly capitalist thing that saying you're going to socialize it rather than destroy it might render the word a bit... nonsensical.
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Jan 28, 2019 20:50
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Cicero posted:I still don't see why it wouldn't count, if you accept that the USSR was a form of socialism chiefly because the government owned and controlled various industries, with the government counting as "the workers" in some sense. So far you've just pointed out that the delivery of healthcare itself is still private and for-profit, but that's not the industry I'm talking about. The difference (in theory mind you) is that with the USSR the people run the healthcare system via the government which they elect and which then appoints officials who run the healthcare system at all levels for the people's benefit, whereas Medicaid does nothing regarding healthcare companies run in an autocratic manner with 0 input from the workers or patients for the shareholders' benefit. The fundamental relationship between employer and employee isn't changed. All it is is the govt pays for private healthcare for people who can't afford it. The most collective thing about it is the govt is supposed to negotiate pricing with the private companies but that doesn't really happen. So yes, providing healthcare for people who can't otherwise afford it is a social program but that doesn't necessarily mean it is 'socialism.' Definitions can be fuzzy of course, that's why you have the thread. E: I would say the USA has been getting to the point where even proper shepherding of capitalism is called 'socialism' in recent years tbh. The supply siders hijacked everything and in their frenzied greed are running it into the ground as fast as possible. EE: when leftists say 'nationalize that' they generally mean 'and operate it under a democratic framework.' Nationalization in of itself is not socialism. Eminent Domain is 'nationalization.' The Fed buying securities to save banks is 'nationalization.' COMRADES fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 21:19
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Socialism - A society without commodity production, exchange value, the State, and allows for freedom of association. If it's got any of those then it ain't Socialism. Zuhzuhzombie!! fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 21:26
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COMRADES posted:The difference (in theory mind you) is that with the USSR the people run the healthcare system via the government which they elect and which then appoints officials who run the healthcare system at all levels for the people's benefit, whereas Medicaid does nothing regarding healthcare companies run in an autocratic manner with 0 input from the workers or patients for the shareholders' benefit. Zuhzuhzombie!! posted:Socialism - A society absent commodity production, the State, and freedom of association.
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Jan 28, 2019 21:27
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Yeah I suppose so. Could also say it's just making the most efficient risk pool possible but yeah.
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Jan 28, 2019 21:29
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Socialism in one country is silly enough without going for socialism in one arbitrary sector of one industry. If I grow spuds in my back garden and then eat them that doesn't make it socialism.
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Jan 28, 2019 21:32
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Cicero posted:I have no idea what you're getting at here. Socialism isn't "properly managed Capitalism" in spite of anyone's good intentions. Welfare policies aren't Socialism. Capitalism is defined by commodity production and the use of the State to mediate between labor and Capitalists.
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Jan 28, 2019 21:32
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OwlFancier posted:Socialism in one country is silly enough without going for socialism in one arbitrary sector of one industry. quote:If I grow spuds in my back garden and then eat them that doesn't make it socialism.
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Jan 28, 2019 21:35
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Again I take a bit of issue with ism vs ist, here. I think the former should imply a degree of totality beyond "the government guaranteeing the existence of the private healthcare sector"
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Jan 28, 2019 21:37
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Cicero posted:Don't see what's wrong with calling it limited or incremental socialism. Does only revolutionary socialism that takes over everything at once count? No, but at no point in history has incremental and reformist changes from one mode of production to another been achieved. It's always been total, large scale, and violent. quote:No, but if you collectively manage a potato farm with a bunch of other farmers and then collectively share the proceeds, is that not socialism? It's about as much Socialist as the Khmer Rouge was.
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Jan 28, 2019 21:37
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I don't know if I would describe the transition from feudalism to capitalism as being non-incremental and non-reformist. Violent and eventually total, sure, but it took a while and was quite distributed across geography and time and also lacked central oversight.
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Jan 28, 2019 21:39
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