Dem leader Joe Crowley loses primary

[Leonhard]

This is really about me, isn't it?

You're one of the more level headed people here.

[Cow Poke]

You're one of the more level headed people here.

I'm sure there are those who would go into hysterics of laughter over this, Leon - but I've always enjoyed your input, and, as far as I can tell, have always treated you with respect.

[seer]

What's totalitarian about Denmark? Its cheaper to start a company in Denmark than in the US. In your country you have to pay for health insurance and all other stuff like that.

Its called the Nordic Model. Its basically free market capitalism, with the usual restraints, and then a comprehensive welfare system and collective bargaining.

Well first you are not a socialist country, you are a capitalist country with generous welfare benefits. In a true socialist model the state controls the means of production and the distribution of goods.

[Terraceth]

I wonder if the Democratic Party's endorsement of Kevin de Léon is less about him winning this election and more about the calculation that Diane Feinstein has a not unreasonable chance of dying in office (she's the oldest member of the Senate), and that this move might give him favorable status in the special election.

[Leonhard]

Well first you are not a socialist country, you are a capitalist country with generous welfare benefits. In a true socialist model the state controls the means of production and the distribution of goods.

I thought you were talking about social democracies. Never mind then.

[Starlight]

I thought you were talking about social democracies. Never mind then.

It seems to me seer swaps back and forth whenever it's convenient. Any policies to the left of him he tends to view 'bad' because they're "socialist". But if someone points out to him that social democracies are the most successful countries in the world today and that they have those policies, then his response is that the reason those countries do okay is because they're fundamentally capitalist. And then he tends to add on a rather unfalsifiable hypothesis of his that it's only a matter of time until the social democracies collapse due to them having betrayed their capitalist roots.

In a true socialist model the state controls the means of production and the distribution of goods.

By the way, if you're going to be a stickler for definitions about 'true socialist' models, your definition here is only one possible example of how socialism can work, not the definition of it. Socialism refers to "social ownership and workers' self-management of the means of production" and it in no way has to be the state that does those things. A cooperative, whereby all employees of a company are the shareholders/owners, is just as much an example of socialism. Or a factory being owned and controlled by the local community is just as much an example of socialism. Having a centralized government-run economy like the USSR is only one possible way of implementing socialism, and IMO a particularly poor way because it typically seems to fail to achieve the basic socialist goal of "social ownership and workers' self-management" (e.g. who would seriously argue that the average worker in the USSR had any meaningful sense of ownership or control over their workplace?).

[seer]

By the way, if you're going to be a stickler for definitions about 'true socialist' models, your definition here is only one possible example of how socialism can work, not the definition of it. Socialism refers to "social ownership and workers' self-management of the means of production" and it in no way has to be the state that does those things. A cooperative, whereby all employees of a company are the shareholders/owners, is just as much an example of socialism. Or a factory being owned and controlled by the local community is just as much an example of socialism. Having a centralized government-run economy like the USSR is only one possible way of implementing socialism, and IMO a particularly poor way because it typically seems to fail to achieve the basic socialist goal of "social ownership and workers' self-management" (e.g. who would seriously argue that the average worker in the USSR had any meaningful sense of ownership or control over their workplace?).

I'm not sure where you are getting your definitions of Socialism, remember the theory Marx and Engels presented was considered socialism. And in practice it is largely top down control, and we have a hundred years of actual history to know how that works. The cooperatives you are speaking of are capitalistic in nature, it is really no different that a number of people getting together and starting a business.

[Starlight]

I'm not sure where you are getting your definitions of Socialism

Well if you're in doubt you could always start with wiki and learn some basics:

Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and workers' self-management of the means of production[10] as well as the political theories and movements associated with them.[11] Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective or cooperative ownership, or to citizen ownership of equity.[12] There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them,[13] though social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms.[5][14][15]

Okay, two key concepts there:
1. Social/collective ownership of factories/farms ('the means of production')
2. No set-in-stone single idea about how those are socially/collectively owned.

remember the theory Marx and Engels presented was considered socialism.

I consider myself a socialist. I listen daily to podcasts by people who are socialists. I know little about Marx, and zero about Engels. For some reason people today don't seem to generally think it's necessary to slavishly adhere to ideas of the past. If I want to learn about physics I listen to a modern physics lecture, I don't go and dig up Newton's centuries-old writing on physics and read them. Same with socialism and the writings of Marx and Engels.

But, to cite wiki again:

By the late 19th century, after the work of Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels, socialism had come to signify opposition to capitalism and advocacy for a post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production.[34][35] By the 1920s, social democracy and communism had become the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement.[36] By this time, socialism emerged as "the most influential secular movement of the twentieth century, worldwide. It is a political ideology (or world view), a wide and divided political movement"[37] and while the emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first nominally socialist state led to socialism's widespread association with the Soviet economic model, many economists and intellectuals argued that in practice the model functioned as a form of state capitalism[38][39][40] or a non-planned administrative or command economy.[41][42]

I would associate myself with the social democracy / democratic socialist parts of socialism rather than the communist branch which I have basically no interest in. In today's world, the social democracies are the most successful countries in the world. Communism was a failed experiment that didn't achieve any of the socialist goals and the way it worked barely qualifies as "socialism" IMO except on technicalities. You appear to associate the state-run/centrally-planned economies that most communist states have had, with socialism... as the wiki article notes those things are not normally regarded by experts as being socialist (and I personally wouldn't regard them as such).

And again in the definition from wiki above there's the repeated emphasis on vagueness of the method of social ownership. The term "socialism" is not tied to any specific idea about how things are owned. It's merely the idea that there be some form of collective ownership of resource-producing entities (i.e. things like farms, factories, mines, some types of businesses). It is not tied to the idea that the State ought to own or run businesses or control the economy.

And in practice it is largely top down control, and we have a hundred years of actual history to know how that works.

I 100% agree that top-down, hierarchical, dictatorial systems are bad. That's what makes me left-wing because the left-wing, as I understand it, opposes exactly that. And much to Rogue's ongoing disgust, this is why I personally tend to not regard communist dictatorships as left-wing, because despite their intentions to implement economic systems they saw as left-wing, they nonetheless had top-down dictatorships which are antithetical to everything left-wing politics stands for.

The cooperatives you are speaking of are capitalistic in nature, it is really no different that a number of people getting together and starting a business.

Yes and no. You're right in that they're not all that different to the current system in many ways. They're a group of people getting together to start a business, which then competes in a free market. Yes. And that is the democratic socialism I support. But you're wrong when you say that's not socialism. That's exactly what socialism is. It's workers and/or the wider community having power over the business, as compared to capitalism where only the owner of the business has power over it and where the workers are employed/contracted for their work and where the profits they make go into the business owner's pockets as opposed to their own.

So a few half-way policies between capitalism and socialism include (a) labor unions - where employees band together to give themselves power over the business they work in, and are able to exert pressure on the capitalist owner of the business, (b) employee representation on the board - e.g. Germany requires that 50% of board members be worker-appointed so that workers are able to exert their own interests within the business, (c) employee share schemes - where employees own shares in the business and are able to exert some control over it as a result.

But once you get to something like a cooperative, where all the employees together own the business, that is 100% full-on socialism. If every business in my country was a cooperative, I would be totally happy to say we were a "socialist" country. That's the sort of thing socialism means to me. Would we still have a free market? Of course. Would we still have a democracy? Of course. Would the average entrepreneur still be able to have a great idea and start a new business venture? Of course. Would a person in central government be planning out the entire economy, down to each and every last business and store? Of course not. Would each and every business be owned and run by the central government? Of course not.

Are cooperatives the only business structure that meets the criteria of democratic socialism? No. They're simply one of the most common and most successful forms in the present day. Data from around the world shows they're a much more stable and successful form of business than is the standard capitalist business model. To me it's not surprising that if employees are given a real say in the business and a real sense of ownership in it and control over it, that the business tends to do better. But a lot of modern democratic socialists are thinking about ways to improve cooperative business structures to include the local community too, e.g. what if the local community gets to vote to elect a representative to the board of the cooperative? etc.

This is why when you guys on this board try to conflate democratic socialism with historical communism, I just mock you... there are basically no similarities other than sharing a few historical roots. It's why the democratic socialist George Orwell wrote Animal Farm to point out that communism was basically just a more dictatorial form of capitalism, and that democratic socialism was the only real alternative to those systems.

[One Bad Pig]

Well if you're in doubt you could always start with wiki and learn some basics:

Given the controversial nature of the topic, Wikipedia is a terrible place to start.

[seer]

So a few half-way policies between capitalism and socialism include (a) labor unions - where employees band together to give themselves power over the business they work in, and are able to exert pressure on the capitalist owner of the business, (b) employee representation on the board - e.g. Germany requires that 50% of board members be worker-appointed so that workers are able to exert their own interests within the business, (c) employee share schemes - where employees own shares in the business and are able to exert some control over it as a result.

Except trade unions are in decline in the West, even in Germany:https://www.economist.com/the-econom...-are-declining. I just don't see your Utopia happening anytime soon or at all except in some isolated cases.

[Starlight]

Given the controversial nature of the topic, Wikipedia is a terrible place to start.

The way US conservatives attack all possible sources of knowledge and information is, yet again, duly noted.

Wiki actually tends to be pretty good, in my experience, on well-known but divisive topics. About the worst it tends to get is someone adding a sentence in that says something like "but these arguments are all wrong, as proven by my favorite author, SomeGuy [12]". The articles wiki's not always great for are not divisive topics, but rather on really obscure topics where one person has written the article from a slanted point of view and nobody else knowledgeable has read/corrected the article.

[Starlight]

Except trade unions are in decline in the West, even in Germany:https://www.economist.com/the-econom...-are-declining. I just don't see your Utopia happening anytime soon or at all except in some isolated cases.

I've actually been thinking for a few days about starting a thread about how trade unions are the future and how we'll see a rise of / return of trade unions over the next couple of decades.

Data I would point to would include (1) polling data showing public support of / positive opinion toward trade unions is at an all time high, as high it was during the 60s; (2) various conclusions by the IMF etc from analyzing 20th/21st century economic data that the strength of trade unions directly affects the average wage, and that the reason Americans (and people in other countries) haven't seen average wages rise since 1980 was due to the decline of trade unions; (3) The Scandinavian countries have the strongest unions today, and they're the most successful countries in most respects.

[TheWall]

Starlight I have a reccomendation.
Read the communist manifesto. Then read works like Storming the Heavens, The Gulag archipelego, and any history book you can on communism. I plan to read these books st some point.

[seer]

I've actually been thinking for a few days about starting a thread about how trade unions are the future and how we'll see a rise of / return of trade unions over the next couple of decades.

Data I would point to would include (1) polling data showing public support of / positive opinion toward trade unions is at an all time high, as high it was during the 60s; (2) various conclusions by the IMF etc from analyzing 20th/21st century economic data that the strength of trade unions directly affects the average wage, and that the reason Americans (and people in other countries) haven't seen average wages rise since 1980 was due to the decline of trade unions.

More wishful thinking? The question is, why are they being abandoned now, even in Europe? If the advantages are so clear why the decline over the last 30 years or so?

[rogue06]

Except trade unions are in decline in the West, even in Germany:https://www.economist.com/the-econom...-are-declining. I just don't see your Utopia happening anytime soon or at all except in some isolated cases.

Not to mention that the businesses have been known to simply move their headquarters to another country so they're no longer a German company but a Swiss company, or a French company or even go overseas and become an American or Canadian company etc.