Socialism/Communism in America
According to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, 52% of millennials would prefer to live in a socialist or communist America. I can only imagine that those numbers are similar or worse for Gen Z that will soon be able to vote. Also, as older generations start to die off socialism will have room in America’s economic/political system.
Are we screwed going forward? Will America turn socialist?
This is low key why you should support republican judicial nominees, even if they’re weird on social issues. The court system can block a lot of the egregious socialist stuff, but only if the judges don’t themselves support it
You guys are stubbornly single minded. Rigid political stances are better for crumbling down to pieces instead of positively leading to change.
Don’t know if I would call Socialism and Communism “positive change.”
That's a very good point, and another thing people fail to realize is that Republican judicial nominees really are not that conservative. People were shitting their pants when Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were nominated, acting like a 5-4 court makeup would be devastating. They conveniently forgot that the exact ratio of justices also defended Obamacare, declared numerous Trump executive orders unconstitutional, allowed gay marriage, etc. According to 538, the conservative nominees are actually more moderate than the liberal ones (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-supreme-court-might-have-three…).
I totally agree with this. That is what I love about judges is they (usually) make decisions that are derived from the constitution, regardless of political views.
It is beyond horrifying! Nothing breaks my heart more than watching the greatest nation in the history of the world be taken for granted. Most Americans literally can't even comprehend how fortunate they are to live here and are instead taught to hate their own country. Imagine telling someone during the Cold War that in a few decades, the United States Congress will have self-described socialists as elected officials - absolutely astounding. Wish we could deport the self-avowed socialists to Venezuela so they can gain some first-hand experience and exposure.
This. I've been to developing countries and you see people in slums with no running water, no electricity and they have to work day in and day out just to be able to eat rice, beans with some vegetables. People seriously need to go on a mission/volunteer trip and see what it's like in other countries. The reality is that even the poor here are faring way better than much of the world's population. And now the younger generation decides to equate "equality" with disrespecting the national anthem and soldiers who gave their lives for the very freedoms we have, tearing down US history, and looting local businesses (who ironically enough comprise of minority owners), and defunding police (which has led to increased crime in already poverty stricken areas).
I agree. There’s potential for civil war in our lifetime and it would be over homegrown socialism/government tyranny. I’d probably move to Singapore or somewhere else with true capitalism.
I wish people wouldn’t take the US for granted. Yes, there are some problems (some people think more than others), but when put into a world view we have it pretty well off here.
Encourage you to read this https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-sup… (Warning: its quite long, maybe break it up into a few readings) Gives tremendous insight into what business and financial leaders think about the future of this country, and their rationale behind why they think it.
Note while the articles hinges on unrest, tension, and chaos such conditions are important for authoritarian states to emerge. Hitler emerged as a leader after fixing the German economy that was smashed due to hyperinflation. The USSR emerged after the common class wanted to rise up against the Russian elites (Russian Revolution). The Opium war and results led to imperial China's decline which eventually led to the rise of Chairman Mao (granted there was a revolution conflict in between as well).
As an aside the term "social democracy" is utter nonsense. All of these states already have "hate speech" laws in place and some even have "dignity speech" laws in place. Purposely ambiguously worded to fine and put in prison those with non woke views or those who make non PC comments.With the rise of technology into every day life, those states will over time devolve into Big Brother type states (You MUST read 1984, if you haven't read the book). Of course most millennials and Gen Z look at arbitrary "happiness ranking" websites that are wildly biased. Free speech is the core tenet of democracy and once that is taken away, control increases over time.
Anyways I could go on and on about this, but this post is getting too long already. Will wait for others to chime in.
I saw a satirical headline from the Babylon Bee the other day: "Nation that kills 3,000 babies a day feels morally superior to slaveholders from 200 years ago."
Human beings are hopelessly flawed and often cannot (or will not) recognize evil for what it is, even when evil dances upon the graves of more than 100 million victims. The Jacobins have espoused a Satanic ideology since the 18th century, and no matter how many people are murdered, impoverished, or enslaved in its name, its proponents will not recognize the evil of socialism for what it is. In their defense, there is not one of us--myself included--who is not prone to this spiritual blindness. Given the proper circumstances, any of us could mistakenly invert morality.
With regard to Gen Y and Z's embrace of socialism, I tend to default to Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Disagree with the last quote. How can you justify looting/burning of stores in the name of "equality" as stupidity? That is absolutely malice, criminal and should be treated as such. Same with cancel culture. It is an absolute violation of fundamental rights that the Bill of Rights says is "Endowed by our Creator." It isn't stupidity to go ruin someone's career that has a few non woke viewpoints (and now people are actively scouring social media to do it). That is absolutely malice, and should be treated as such.
Well, I thought the discussion was about the generational embrace of socialism, not BLM or Antifa protests/riots...
I do not attribute to malice our generation's embrace of socialism. I attribute that to a narrow set of extremists who took over the academy/public education, Hollywood, the media, and corporate America and to the lazy conservatives who allowed it to happen and who said all we needed to do was win elections. The takeover of our nation's core institutions by philosophical (and theological) radicals has led to a generation that is totally ignorant. These new generations don't have any clue that socialism has always led to mass murder, grinding poverty, and human slavery. They don't know. They were never taught it. These new generations have no religion, so they fill the God-sized hole in their hearts with an ideology that gives them spiritual manna.
I think this is very important: perspective. I’m sure when people were holding slaves back in the day they didn’t think of it as flawed or flawed enough to make a change until the civil war. In the future, people will look back at the beginning of the 20th century and see how fucked up it is that we killed babies and the people of the future would never vandalize/destroy properties or find it as acceptable.
Every Socialist I knew in high school ended up making stupid life decisions like drugs, partying and excessive spending on materialistic garbage. If you asked them what were their career ambitions, they wouldn't have an answer, yet they wonder why they are so poor.
In college, I noticed many socialist students were actually from wealthy families, but they got rebellious and tried to be different from their parents to seem trendy. They were essentially trying to hide the fact that they were living on mommy and daddy's money.
Most socialists don’t tend to have any self-sufficiency or accountability of themselves.
That last group you mentioned can be referred to as "champagne socialists" or "Neiman Marxists"
"Cappuccino Communists"
Facts
Unrelated to what OP asked, and it is a good question that I don't really have an answer or idea to, but I do have to say that over the last 6 months to a year, the word "communist" has lost nearly all meaning when spoken by the general public.
Before someone says it, no socialism does not look good on paper.
Cringe after time I hear the words.
This question is absurd, but I'll reply with a few thoughts.
1. What passes for socialist ideas in the USA is still very conservative when compared to socialist countries. Also socialism is a spectrum, just like any other economic/political system.
2. Americans say they don't want socialism, yet Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security are two of the most popular government programs.
3. Why does everyone point to communist or state economies whenever socialism is brought up? Nobody wants to talk about Europe, our "developed country" peer group because it makes us look bad.
4. Socialism isn't about giving everybody a free ride. It's about making sure all of the population is above a certain threshold so that the country has a healthier better contributing population. Check how we rank in quality of life, education, and healthcare. Spoiler: it ain't pretty.
5. Capitalism (as implemented in the USA) requires a plethora of people to exploit in order to work. It's in the country's history.
Coronavirus has made painfully obvious that no matter how effective certain "different" things are, Americans as a whole will refuse all outside evidence because we are special and know better.
As someone from Western Europe:
Our healthcare system is good. I am glad I do not have to pay extreme sums for it (other than what I pay for taxes). It is also disgustingly inefficient and corrupt, with procurement management lining the pockets of their friends by paying for exponentially overpriced contracts. It also employs absolute idiots which further ruins its efficiency. Finally, it is taken for granted and abused, largely by health tourists. Old people who have paid into the system their whole lives struggle to make appointments at my local practice, because it’s overrun with health tourists who demand GP attention the minute they sneeze or have a sore elbow (as told to me by four family members who work in the industry).
Our welfare system is a fantastic safety net in principle. It is also a terrible economic drain in practice. It is heavily abused and costs the country billions.
Both of these issues have a moderate economic impact, but an extremely high social impact. It doesn’t matter if the number of people fraudulently claiming a wage from the welfare system has a low overall net impact (estimated to be £2b - low in the grand scheme of things). It is an absolute outrage to those who seek to use the system fairly. The act of abusing the system is worse than the abuse itself.
Onto some other points:
America has high extremes. There are staggering UHNWIs. There are also people living with next to nothing. There is corruption in government and business. However, for the everyday man, your quality of life now is incomparably better to that which it would have been just 100 years ago. Go back 200 years and I don’t even have the adjectives to describe the gulf living standards. This is solely attributable to the capitalist nature of the country (and can be said of any country in the West).
Most people living in ex-Warsaw Pact countries HATE socialism. With a burning passion. It’s difficult to describe the fear and loathing they have of the system. Until you go there and live with them, you won’t be able to understand. Most of them just want to live under a free society, where those who are willing to better themselves are free to do so and to enjoy the rewards of such actions.
Europe (particularly Western Europe) is not socialist. It’s to label them as pure, free market Capitalist societies, but it’s impossible to label them as Socialist. I feel more comfortable labelling them as pseudo-capitalist; capitalism with larger government intervention, sprinkled with social schemes. But as we devolve closer to socialist societies, I’m noticing a huge increase in the authoritarianism of government, to the point of it acting like a police state in ludicrous situations. This is not something you want. I do not see a bright future for personal freedom of thought and expression (the restriction of which is naturally inherent with socialist implementation, whether you like it or not) and it’s a very uncomfortable feeling looking forward.
tl;dr: There is a reason your life expectancy is the highest it’s ever been. A reason why have a small electronic device in your hand, with which you can contact any person on the planet at any time and say anything your heart desires, or with which you can instantaneously retrieve any piece of information ever noted in human history, on any subject. That reason isn’t Socialism.
Great post and the summary says it all! As I frequently tell my far left leaning daughter, socialism can only spend what capitalism creates. It's really that simple. And eventually when capitalism is removed and therefore there is no more creation, socialism runs out of resources to spread (think food rationing).
You can't give away what you don't have. When you stop creating, yous top having. When you stop incentivizing , you stop creating.
I like your points but want to make a few distinctions.
-Ex-Warsaw Pact countries without social freedoms is a result of government regimes. It is not attributable to a socialist-leaning economic system.
-I'd agree with your categorization as pseudo-capitalist, however looking at the spectrum this is still much more socialist leaning than capitalist leaning. The US has socialist aspects but is much more capitalist leaning.
-Our healthcare is also ripe with issues. Insurance companies setting prices for treatment, people (financially speaking) who would be better of dead because of the absurd cost of treatment. There is also the fact that you only have insurance if you have qualifying work - you have to not only work, but work the "right" kind of job to have insurance. And lastly, those who are insured are already paying for the uninsured by this system. In fact, it's one of the reasons insurance companies are allowed to charge outrageous prices.
These kinds of thoughts are exactly the problem. You start out by mislabeling socialism as capitalism with a welfare state and go on to say things to the effect that Western Europe is doing just fine. Then you conclude with a rant against capitalism. The problem is, nobody trusts the American Left because the Left knows exactly what it's talking about when it talks about socialism. You know exactly what you're saying when you assault capitalism as immoral. We understand that when the Left says it's for socialism, it means it's for socialism.
Dude you are clearly conflating socialist, with welfare state. Lots of Americans are fine with the latter, and have been for decades. Western Europe is not socialist, it is a collection of welfare states that are more generous with government benefits than the US.
What’s new is not the welfare state, it is the crazy obsession with income inequality, academic Marxism guiding the ideas of mass movements (just look at all the clueless protestors ranting about “identity” and “power structures” etc) denigration of American institutions and history, and widespread destruction of property, often with minimal consequence. THAT is the socialism that’s rising in this country that many on this forum are concerned about.
I suggest you read up on the Chinese revolution and see the tactics the communists employed early on. BLM is literally a copycat- Attacks on cultural institutions utilizing hordes of ignorant youth
Socialism isn't the government funding social programs through tax dollars. Nobody on this thread is actually talking about social ownership of the means of production which is what real socialism is, and something I am personally not in favor of.
The Soviet Union wasn't socialist because they attempted to provide services (though failed in most aspects) for their populous. The USSR was socialist because it banned the private ownership of industry.
Introducing Socialism in America would be things like abolishing the stock market not universal healthcare funded by taxes.
Maybe you could argue a wealth tax is somewhat socialist, if it can only be paid by selling stock.
In real Communism, the Proletariat and Bourgeois are described as: "...the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour. By proletariat, the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live." Take that how you may.
The reduction of consevative issues to low taxes and small government without paying any attention whatsoever to education and culture is responsible for this. I casually came across Ted Cruz in hearing the other day, he pointed out how the left has tied anti-racism to communism, very much like lgbt and gender stuff as well. As such, you see BLM coming up with stuff like dismantling ''white capitalism''. Don't agree? You are a racist, they will ruin your life. Communism itself isn't popular, but so long that it can be masqueraded with other issues that result in emotional people shutting down their brain, it can be safely pushed through education, corporations etc. It's not even just the US, it's all over the West. In the UK it's rampant.
we went through a bit of progressivism/socialism at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, we went through a red scare, but so far, no nation with the checks and balances we have has fallen to communism, and I anticipate it will stay that way. it's easy to feel despair right now, I get it, but zoom out, look at the long arc of history, and you'll see that democratic capitalist societies have done one thing - improve. nothing I've seen has led me to believe that will change.
What are your thoughts on ambiguous European "hate/dignity speech laws"? Thoughts on EU having an "open border refugee policy" that led to increased crime across its members? I would not say that democratic capitalist societies are always improving...
I don't follow little details like that, so I don't have an answer for you on that specific point. I won't say definitively that it's totally irrelevant, but it sounds like that on the surface.
an important thing to remember is that improvement is never in a straight line. it's possible to have things today be worse than they were 10y ago but then when you fast forward 50y, you see the progress. improvement over long periods of time does not mean that things are "always improving" and if you re-read what I wrote, I did not say democratic capitalist countries are "always improving." more on how a certain law can be a distraction to this idea (that humans generally improve over time).
at one point, the USA debated the benefits of eugenics
we've put Japanese Americans in camps when they were US citizens
we actually had the Supreme Court vote in favor of segregation
I'm sure all of those laws made sense to people at the time, but it doesn't make them right. I don't know about these EU laws, but there is one thing you have to notice about the human race, it seeks improvement, come what may. and some bloc of countries expanding a post-holocaust idea to include other things doesn't change the long upward sloping arc of progress. nothing I've ever seen has made me doubt that this arc will change direction
"The long arc of history" is toward rise and then collapse. Don't let our comfortable lives of technology trick you into believing a false narrative about human progress. The 20th century, even adjusted for population, was the most violent in human history.
agree to disagree. I hope regardless of society, you find happiness
I mean, Microsoft is about to pay key money to the government in order to get a deal done -not taxes corresponding to pre-legislated rates, additional money on top to compensate the Government for forcing a divestiture.
Sounds fairly socialist to me.
The problem with the US is that its citizens have for the past 100 years been spoon-fed extremely polarized propaganda from their corporate overlords.
You've been sold the story that either you live in a free-market utopia, or you'll end up with peak Stalin-era Soviet / 40s-50s China / Khmer Rouge Cambodia/etc. which were plagued by famines, genocides, and wildly inefficient systems.
It's been a decades long battle to instill fear and irrational thoughts about worst case scenarios.
The truth us that young people want SOCIALISTIC ELEMENTS - like a proper healthcare system that won't bankrupt you, educational system that won't put you in a lifetime of debt, and general (social) safety nets that will catch you when you're falling towards the bottom.
Again, if you believe that young people want a new USSR where everyone's allotted a gov. owned home and gov. owned bullshit job, you've unfortunately fallen victim to the propaganda.
Don't get me wrong - the US is a great country, one of the best, if your dream is to reach the stars. In almost no other country can a person go from rags to riches in a very short time, but statistically speaking, it's highly unlikely. Luckily, there are multiple levels of comfort even before you become "wealthy", and and millions upon millions are living such great lives.
But the problem is - that for every one percenter in the US, you have TEN that live in poverty. We're talking crippling poverty that's attacking you from all sides.
If you're poor, life just fucking sucks - and you're far better off living in west-European countries with better social-welfare programs.
See my comment below. Was trying to respond to you but something went wrong
Ever heard the quote "Your actions speak so loud I can't hear you." I think the same is appropriate here. Not "you" meaning you the user, but you meaning the younger generation. The riots/looting/disrespect towards the anthem and soldiers who fought/defund the police/tearing down history/cancel culture , etc.. It's not about reforming America, it's about a totally new America and a new style of government. You may think as an older person that surely only a few college age kids support the looting and riots. But the fact is a majority of the college kids I've talked to were fully supportive of it. This is at your "top" Ivy league schools. These are the future kids of America, the future ones who will be in power. Granted my experience is anecdotal, and I'd be interested to here what you get from engaging with college liberals.
I am liberal by WSO standards but almost every liberal I know is a capitalist.
Find it pretty amazing that just 30 years from the fall of the Soviet Union that communism has become somewhat popular again. If you were to ask most people under 35 what the Cold War was I truly don't believe they'd be able to answer.
Let me first off clarify that I'm far from a socialist. All the conservatives here who will inevitably flame me should know that I'm probably to your right on most social issues so don't think I'm some woke libtard. I fully recognize that capitalism is the greatest incentive system ever devised. Building a modern society takes a ton of work and the only way you can get people to make those incredible sacrifices is to reward them on the back end.
Post-corona, we are absolutely going to need some social programs most on the right would consider socialist - UBI and possibly M4A to name a few. Talking Western Europe social safety net.
The bulk of the unemployed right now are unskilled workers who have been languishing for years. These people are utterly screwed.
Additionally, this is a gut punch to millennials. Graduate into the GFC and a global pandemic / recession when you reach prime promotion and family formation age. The children of the boomers risk becoming a lost generation. Hyper-competitive job market with no long-term future, no families, no children, hell often times no one who lives within 100 miles who genuinely gives a shit about you. Meanwhile, they also happen to find themselves in a culture without a single institution they can depend on that is completely devoid of meaning.
And we wonder where the nihilism we are seeing in the streets comes from
This line of reasoning is full-on divorced from reality. We have now a $23(?) trillion national debt and a $1.5(?) trillion annual budget deficit, not to mention countless tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded Medicare and Social Security liabilities. On what planet is there money for UBI and Medicare for All (UBI proponents claim UBI pays for itself, but it's an obvious lie that's easily debunked)? Every penny that we raise in taxes going forward must go toward reducing our debt load.
Setting aside how immoral UBI is, there is no money left in this country for these crazy political projects. It doesn't exist.
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