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Americans and socialism (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/memes@lemmy.ml
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[–] -3 points 2 years ago (6 children)

I'm Canadian. It's what the founder of our healthcare system, Tommy Douglas, called it.

And yeah, it's the people owning the means of producing health. Socialist healthcare.

Americans scare people with these references to brutal authoritarian dictatorships that call themselves "socialist" but the real cause of all these problems is that they weren't democratic, not that they socialized industries.

Anyways, maybe it's just my autism making me literal as fuck, but I think you guys need to clear that up. This is what the people owning the means of production looks like. It's always going to be adjacent to capitalism, whether it's a socialist industry in a capitalist country, or a socialist country in a capitalist world.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

    It is not Socialist. Social programs are not Socialism. Every economy is a mix of private and public property, that doesn’t make it mixed Capitalism and Socialism. Capitalism and Socialism are descriptors for economies at large, as you cannot remove entities from the context they are in. A worker cooperative is not a “socialist” part of a Capitalist economy, because it exists in the broader Capitalist machine and must use its tools.

    What determines if a system is Capitalist or Socialist is if private property or public property is the primary aspect of a society, and which class has control. In Canada, Private Property is dominant, so Social Programs are used to support that.

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  • [–] -3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    By this absolutist logic, a socialist country is not a "socialist" part of a capitalist world, because it exists in the broader capitalist machine and must use its tools.

    What is the point then? If you don't want to call anything "socialism" until the very last human on earth is socialist, fine, I will focus more on improving people's lives than haggling over definitions.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    This isn't true, though. Socialism is a transitional status towards the goal of Communism, states that are pushing forwards on that goal, or "on the Socialist road," play a progressive role, while Capitalist countries take a regressive role. Socialist countries indeed exist in the context of a world economy dominated by Capitalism, but are moving against that.

    I call many countries Socialist, like the PRC, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, former USSR, etc.

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  • [–] -2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    "Tankie" is a person who cares more about whether a country flies the flag of socialism, regardless of their actions, and dismisses any criticisms about them as "western propaganda".

    China is a capitalist country. They are more capitalist than the western countries you hate so much. Open your eyes. Stop believing Chinese propaganda.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    “Tankie” is a caricature. The idea of a tankie is the ideal vision of a McCarthyian Communist. In reality, the overwhelming majority of people labeled as such don’t actually fit that label, it’s more of a way to cast an image of someone’s positions based on, say, support for AES countries, and twist that into the evil Commie Pinko that haunts the dreams of 1960s children in the US.

    The PRC has a Socialist Market Economy. The vast majority of large firms are firmly in the public sector, while the small firms and self-employed make up the bulk of the private sector, along with cooperatives.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    Interesting, thanks for the Canadian history lesson Perhaps that's where the Americans got their weird terminology from.

    you guys need to clear that up

    Who needs to do what? I'm not sure what I said that somehow gave you the impression I was an American.

    My society pays for universal free healthcare, like everywhere in the civilized world.

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