European here.
This seems to mainly only be an issue in the US. Socialism = Communism = Enemy
If at all anything, the opposite seems to be the case here. We’re looking at the US as a “this is how bad it will get if we let go” example
In addition: government programs that help everyone = helping black people = no.
I think this is the fundamental reason why the US never went to public/universal anything, be it healthcare, education, whatever.
Yep. We should have told the colonies of Georgia and Carolina to fuck off, and we’ll get around to conquering them, after we kicked The King out of the other 11 colonies.
If one person had voted differently during The Continental Congress, we would have started abolishing slavery
Yeah y’all really don’t want to end up like us. We’re not the land of the free. The streets are most definitely not paved with gold. We’re just a giant ponzi scheme.
No kidding. Their “fix” every year is to either fill all the potholes with asphalt, which the spring rains promptly loosen and get kicked out, or a thin “repaving” layer, which gets destroyed by the summer monsoons. I’m convinced Caltrans is a jobs program for people that can’t get a job otherwise, because those guys can’t seem to get anything done correctly.
It’s actually insane how many of our institutions are actually based on pyramid schemes. No wonder we all use it as the symbol for conspiracy because it is a huge portion of how anything runs in the US. Cover the costs by convincing more people to join in at a less beneficial or profitable step down the pyramid and hope someone else will be coming behind you for you to take from as well.
I have a pothole literally 2 feet wide and at least 10 inches deep on my street that our city just can’t find the funds to fix…
If they won’t do it some helpful citizen might end up reading something like https://www.wikihow.com/Fix-a-Pothole
Europe uses the word socialism differently. It’s a difference in how the words are used and the time they are used. If we consider socialism shared responsibility, we have it America in many ways but we are hesitant to expand it. That’s because of our fear of large government power.
If we me socialism as the workers owning the means of production. Well no country does that. Normally it’s the government owning everything and the workers being abused such as the Soviet Union or Cuba. That’s the large governments Americans dislike.
Yeah, socialism isn’t taxing the rich, it is or at least have always led to brutal dictatorships because the real one is just communism with extra steps.
Social-democracy on the other hand is wonder for the people (see Sweden etc) in real life.
I’m a conservative and read a wonderful article on why conservatives should be leading the charge to a social democracy like Sweden. It really changed my views on why we should be skippering certain endeavors. Just neither party here has really embraced the basic concept.
An example was national health care allowed people to be more entrepreneurial since that is a large risk to not have insurance here.
The USSR collapsed several decades ago. Russia now is fascist, over a Capitalist economy.
There are elements of capitalism there, but I wouldn’t call it a capitalist economy. Capitalism requires that private individuals own the means of production. But, in Russia does anybody outside Putin’s inner circle really own anything?
As a european it’s always been fucking WERID how americans panic and reach for their guns at the mention of socialism.
I mean
There was this whole thing called the Soviet Union then there was like a missile crisis
And there was like a group that called themselves National Socialists and they did a genocide and tried to take over a bunch of land by force
We also had to fight a bunch of talking trees that dug tunnels because military industrial complex and heroin
It’s definitely many layers of propaganda but as an American I definitely understand WHERE it comes from, I understand why most people here flinch at the word.
You also gotta understand we had multiple generations in a row huffing lead gasoline so while younger millennials aren’t impacted as bad, MOST Americans are legitimately lead brained.
It wasn’t just leaded gasoline. I was busy getting hot boxed with cigarettes in my grandparent’s leaded gasoline car before burning some asbestos, plastic cutlery, and batteries in the living room fireplace.
Forget no seatbelts or bicycle helmets. Our chemical exposure would probably send a younger person without a built up tolerance into instant seizure.
I also remember crimping down lead shot sinkers on my fishing line with my teeth. Good times. Good times indeed.
Bruh
The Nazis were literally IN Europe. The USSR literally built a WALL here splitting the continent. And you’re saying that explains why America is the one with socialism PTSD???
Ain’t nothing more American than making everything about you I guess.
This is a genuine question from a European, what does make it difficult to move here?
Several things keep Americans from moving to Europe.
First, immigration laws of the country one is moving to. If one is not able to get a passport from an EU or EEA county based on ancestry, you basically need to be sponsored for a work visa by a company in the country you want to move to, which can be quite difficult. And even then, you have to be employed in that country for long enough to qualify for permanent residency, then citizenship, which can take up to 7 or 8 years in some countries.
If one is lucky enough to have parents or grandparents who emigrated to the US from a European country and can claim citizenship based on that, it’s a lot of work to get all of the paperwork together and verified and accepted by that government’s consulate (at least it is for Germany, but German bureaucracy is … special).
Second, the US is one of the only countries in the world that double taxes its citizens. If someone was born in the United States, they will have to file taxes reporting income to the US government every single year until they die, and PAY taxes to the US government on any income over a certain amount every year until they die, regardless of the source of that income, and regardless of the fact that taxes on the same income need to be paid to the host country.
While I have zero respect for the snivelling shitgibbon name Boris Johnson, he was born in New York and had to renounce his US citizenship to escape the IRS. You also have to PAY the US government $2350 (in cash) for the privilege of giving up your citizenship, which is also…unique.
Sometimes there are tax treaties that can take most of the sting out of the double taxation issue (Norway’s is decent for US citizens), but it depends on the country.
Finally, it just never occurs to many Americans that leaving is even a possibility.
Money for the most part for a lot of people.
Passports are $400+ USD, then there are the plane tickets, which are hundreds of dollars. Then to top it off you need to have room and board while looking for a job and someplace to live.
Another thing I’ve heard is fear of leaving the known and family.
Maybe I just suck at the research, but from what I can tell getting a permanent residence visa is not easy for Americans. If I’m wrong I would absolutely love to know.
Eh for me it’s a lot of things. For one just roots, family and friends. Then next is work, I’d have to find a new job over there (doubtful my current one would let me work abroad), and I’d need to see if visas would let me work over there, and for how long. I would probably make less over there, but cost of living is lower too, so I’d have to do finances. Most countries don’t let you own property unless you’re a citizen, and I wouldn’t be, so I’d have to rent for a while. Path to citizenship would then be difficult, and I would have to pay taxes for both countries. Then just pure logistics of what do I do with everything here, would have to basically start all over. It’d be much easier if I was in my early 20s, but I’m nearing 40 which makes it much more difficult.
In all fairness, we panic and reach for our guns at the mention of just about anything. Right this very moment, I’m pooping on company time, scared out of my wits, a nine millimeter at the ready atop my presently ankle adorning boxers.
By “socialism”, are we talking:
A. Worker-controlled economic system, or
B. What American liberals think is socialism, which is just a capitalist system with welfare.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism[1]
[1] Eatwell & Wright 1999, pp. 80–103; Newman 2005, p. 5; Heywood 2007, pp. 101, 134–136, 139; Ypi 2018; Watson 2019.
1 ↩︎
Today I learned that Socialism is when you do Capitalism in a nice way.
Oh wait, no I didn’t, because Capitalism and Socialism are completely different modes of Production.
Why? OP clearly states “worker controlled systems,” it’s not difficult to see what they’re talking about.
Nope.
Socialism is Worker Ownership of the Means of Production.
The Nordic Countries are in fact Social Democracies, not Socialist Democracies. Social Democracy is Capitalist in nature.
There are specific definitions and I’m sticking to them. If your economy has capitalists controlling companies with workers trading their labor for a wage underneath them, then it is capitalist, full stop.
Unless your economy is full of co-ops or something. I don’t know the common typical structure for a nordic company.
You haven’t even read a single “basic definition” my man.
Here’s one :
Socialism
Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages
socialism
noun a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned OR REGULATED by the community as a whole.
If your economy has capitalists controlling companies with workers trading their labor for a wage underneath them, then it is capitalist, full stop.
Youre refusing (or unable, lol) to understand that “capitalism” does not equal market economies.
Selling things doesn’t mean capitalism. Trading goods doesn’t mean capitalism. Owning a company doesn’t mean capitalism. Having companies with workers doesn’t mean capitalism.
Jesus fucking God I’m tired of explaining concepts that my 8 year old niece could google and learn by her self in five minutes
“unless you have a planned economy you’re not socialist”
Yeah, exactly the point I’m making. Brainwashed morons think socialism means full planked economy, when it’s no such thing.
Fucking spend 2 min on Google, is it so much to ask?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism
Fucking perpetuating shitty 70’s red scare propaganda mf sides are hurting.
“Most powerful empire the world has ever known”
Lol Americans
The Romans conquered the known world with pointy sticks and diplomacy.
The US hasn’t been on the winning side since ww2 despite having nukes and spyplanes.
Even the British Empire spanned the globe, and all they had was cannons, rum, and syphilis.
More importantly, did they have the ability to deploy a Taco Bell, McDonald’s, and Wendy’s anywhere in the world, within 72 hours, just so their troops would have variety of food?
Nope. The Japanese knew they had royally fucked up when they realized that we had ships that were dedicated to ice cream supplies. You have to have everything else needed for war covered, before you start the logistical supply train of ice cream.
No they just had the latrines too close to the food prep area, same effect
But if they fought I’d bet against the pointy stick guys and the syphilis guys.
You seem to completely misunderstand American diplomacy.
Just because America doesn’t have the same style of conquest, doesn’t mean they aren’t conquerors.
America was the first empire to realize that all empires eventually fall whose agenda is toppling nations and replacing their flags with their own.
The USA invented a unique twist: never replacing the country’s flag.
Instead, as evidenced by countless examples such as Iran and Panama, the American agenda has always been installing a new national leader whose interests align with American ideals of democracy and “freedom” (predominantly of the white Christian variety). But they keep their “flag”, or in some sense maintain a national identity through the new leader, so it feels a lot less like they were conquered.
Are you claiming that Victorian England could take modern America in a fight?
A few trolls can take America by installing a puppet red head president who will then dismantle the country in a few years time.
So are you trying to make him say what he didn’t say because your butthurt ?
Lol at the person who said Lemmy doesn’t have many comments.
