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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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'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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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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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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A lot of socialists don't count the USSR and similar countries as socialist. Their reasoning is that you need the workers to own the means of production, and the states of the USSR and similar countries didn't/don't really represent the workers.
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Feb 5, 2019 12:44
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