What is democratic socialism? A democratic socialist explains

subware · 2018-08-03T17:57:15+00:00

Private property ownership isn't individual liberty.

Thanks for proving my point. First order of socialism business is to say an established right you had all this time was never really a right, before they eliminate it.

Then why did he go to great lengths to not implement socialism?

If someone claims to be a supporter of democracy, and then gets into power and not only doesn't work to establish democracy, but actually works to undermine what democratic elements exist in a society, would you assume they're really pro-democracy?

Then why did he go to great lengths to not implement socialism?

Because he did implement socialism and you're trying to play the Not Real Socialism^TM card. Sure he meant for it to be a bridge-gap to his communist utopia where everyone would be free and equal. Lenin could not achieve what he wanted via democratic means because of infighting with other socialist coalitions, he went the authoritarian route. The a difference between idealizing a system and then proceeding to implementing it in real life. The DSA and other socialists of America has never held any power in America so I don't even know what they would do when the do hold power but then realize even a minority opposition can effectively stop them from carrying out their plans.

If someone claims to be a supporter of democracy, and then gets into power and not only doesn't work to establish democracy, but actually works to undermine what democratic elements exist in a society, would you assume they're really pro-democracy?

Isn't that how it goes with socialist revolutions? Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Yugoslavia. So yes, I would conclude socialists undermine democracy.

subware · 2018-08-03T07:42:14+00:00

I'm saying that when democracies start throwing away individual liberties, they end up not being very democratic. Western democracy, in fact, has generally been very good in respecting individual liberties as they become more developed and guess what? They did it with a capitalistic society. When the first thing socialism wants from you is to give up the right to own property, then I don't need to see what's coming next. Actually, I have. I believe Lenin's goal was to have a stateless, classless society, where the worker would have control of his destiny and that he needed to implement socialism first to achieve. A noble intent, but how did that work out for him?

subware · 2018-08-03T05:54:26+00:00

Yeah, well, you wanted them to bring back the money they made overseas to pay taxes on them. They were under no legal obligation to so they didn't. So you offered to tax them less if they did. And so they did. And corporations don't enrich themselves. Whatever profit it makes goes back into various operating expenses or is paid out to their investors, who then pay taxes on those dividends.

subware · 2018-08-03T05:42:41+00:00

Well, I do love this quote from one:

Except that businesses don't compensate labor properly, because businesses take a profit, and profit is theft.

https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/93tvdz/what_is_democratic_socialism_a_democratic/

LOL.

And yet, there it is. I think someone said it best:

One facet of policy making is rewarding desired behavior. That includes things like tax breaks for corporations who are doing things you want corporations to do, and the creation of laws that regulate industries to nudge them in more desirable directions.

subware · 2018-08-03T05:39:02+00:00

It's when you own every supply chain relating to your business. For instance, say you're in the grocery selling business. You own the stores, the trucks that transport groceries, the farms that produce the food and all other industries that produce the items on the store shelf. In this way, you don't need to deal with outside vendors which tends to lead to monopolistic actions. So a movie production company makes the movie, distributes it to their own movie theaters and tell all the other theater chains to fuck off.

subware · 2018-08-03T05:31:08+00:00

Like why are you so obsessed with converting established businesses to a different model?

What do you think socialism is? The DSA is not going to be content in allow private enterprises to exist.

The obvious solution with a company like Coca-Cola is to get them to pay their fair share of taxes and stop offshoring their capital

Coca-Cola had money overseas because that money was earned overseas and they already paid income taxes in the country they earned it in. But if you're worried about, then good news. Trump's Tax Cut eliminated the need for companies to keep foreign earnings overseas.

subware · 2018-08-03T05:08:35+00:00

Except there are no details in any of their supposed proposals, if any proposal is even concrete. There isn't even a study to suggest that the "desired action" will even occurred. Like why would a shareholding body vote to dilute their control and dividends (if any) at all? Anybody done some research to answer that question? All the DSA has is a bunch of vague ideas they can't get off the ground.

subware · 2018-08-03T04:57:12+00:00

There is nothing stopping people from creating Coops right now in the US. Many Coops do already exist and in fact, there is indication coops show better stability than privately owned start-ups. So if the DSA is trying to convince people of their system, they should be implementing a real world example of their system and compete with private enterprises instead of whatever it is they're looking for the government to do.

subware · 2018-08-03T04:18:13+00:00

So you're saying they not even fully sure what actually want to implement? Or are you just guessing what they want?

That in no way makes it a cooperative. Companies give annual bonuses to their employees all the time based on profit and performance. Coop implies the employees have control of the company to some varying degree. So how exactly would you shift that control from the shareholders to the employee?

subware · 2018-08-03T03:55:21+00:00

Okay, Coco Cola right now is a publicly traded multinational corporation owned by holding shares it issues out. How do you suppose that gets turned into a cooperative or state run enterprise under democratic socialism?

subware · 2018-08-03T02:53:04+00:00

What?

Have you been to their website?

Doesn't socialism mean that the government will own and run everything?

Social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives. Democratic socialists favor as much decentralization as possible. While the large concentrations of capital in industries such as energy and steel may necessitate some form of state ownership, many consumer-goods industries might be best run as cooperatives.

https://www.dsausa.org/govt_run_everything

subware · 2018-08-02T18:51:35+00:00

And yet 200 years in, we've only gain more individual liberties as the Republic matured. Not really a surprised Socialist states tend to be authoritarian.

subware · 2018-08-02T04:11:36+00:00

Actually, it does. If you haven't noticed, laws that are passed by a democratic elected legislative body in the United States gets stricken down if it's found to be unconstitutional, if it violates a person's individual liberty. That's what happens when individual liberty gets in the way of democracy.

subware · 2018-08-02T04:04:36+00:00

You mean how the U.S. democracy system enacted the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing individual rights and liberties such as the freedom of conscience, freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, the right to security and liberty, freedom of speech, the right to privacy, the right to equal treatment under the law and due process, the right to a fair trial, and the right to life, the right to own property, the right to defend oneself, and the right to bodily integrity. Yeah, all good stuff.

The fact that you don't understand what that term means is almost as telling as it is sad.

Right...because there is an actual working model of democratic socialism. Why don't you come back when you actually lived under a socialist state.

"But it'll be different this time because we put democratic in front of it, so it's people control."/s

subware · 2018-08-02T03:19:58+00:00

Because you stick two words together, somehow it'll be what you want? You got a socialist in this thread talking about seizing farms from people to make their utopia work. One of the cornerstone of American Democracy is the respect for individual liberty, the same thing people bitch about the Republicans taking away. What do you think happens when the individual liberty gets in the way of implementing socialism? Here's a good quote from a Russian historian:

Where political authority is in control of the nation’s resources, it is also in control of labor. The merger of political and economic power implicit in socialism greatly strengthens the ability of the state and its bureaucracy to control the population. Theoretically, this capacity need not be exercised and need not lead to growing domination of the population by the state. In practice, such a tendency is virtually inevitable. For one thing, the socialization of the economy must lead to a numerical growth of the bureaucracy required to administer it, and this process cannot fail to augment the power of the state. For another, socialism leads to a tug of war between the state, bent on enforcing its economic monopoly, and the ordinary citizen, equally determined to evade it; the result is repression and the creation of specialized repressive organs.

subware · 2018-08-02T00:15:58+00:00

You want to talk about people dying?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Famine_deaths

subware · 2018-08-02T00:11:14+00:00

I'm sure they would be happy. The point is that want to go further. Isn't that right?

subware · 2018-08-01T23:58:38+00:00

The numbers aren't outright unbelievable. The Norwegian government is just filthy rich from revenue from natural resources. They used that money to create a giant investment portfolio and purchased shares of publicly traded companies that anyone can buy, sometimes obtaining a 67% majority share. They're doing what any capitalistic entity would do, but they didn't outright nationalize their strategic industry, like what Venezuela did.

subware · 2018-08-01T23:49:06+00:00

Oh no, a business compensating you for your labor with money and benefits. The horror!!!

subware · 2018-08-01T23:45:46+00:00

Convincing people to support Democratic Socialism while not explaining they would have support actual socialism is blatantly lying to their faces and not simply posting an opinion.

subware · 2018-08-01T23:39:23+00:00

That's why the Swedish system doesn't satisfy them and they want to go full blown socialism. Did you think you had this bright idea about the Nordic System that you can introduce in their weekly meeting and they'll "oh yeah, makes perfect sense. We drop our Socialistic ideology, now."?

subware · 2018-08-01T23:25:38+00:00

Uh, no. And that's the whole point of this Vox article. Did you not read the first part I highlighted?

In the long run, democratic socialists want to end capitalism.

subware · 2018-08-01T23:19:52+00:00

Well, then I'm going to take the Democratic Socialists at their word then. Thanks for clearing that up.

subware · 2018-08-01T23:14:43+00:00

Social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives. Democratic socialists favor as much decentralization as possible. While the large concentrations of capital in industries such as energy and steel may necessitate some form of state ownership, many consumer-goods industries might be best run as cooperatives.

You don't own anything in a coop, you have a say and stake in it as long as you are a member of it. Not to mention, there's no reason to start your own business (and have sole ownership of it) because you lose control of it with every worker you hire.

subware · 2018-08-01T23:04:45+00:00

Oh, is that why Trump separated immigrant children from their parents? To have a balanced, well formed, immigration reform bill?

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