chenGOD

Socialism doesn’t have a concrete definition. Every link I’ve shown you describes that. You’ve shown nothing except your opinion, and links that say that democracy is possible, but not a necessary condition.

The experiential is highly relevant to people's creation of their world, including definitions. That's just basic sociological thought. The link I provided explicitly defines socialism: "a system of social organization in which private property and the distribution of income are subject to social control. In other words, it's a state-controlled economy in which the state controls the means of production (factories, offices, resources, and firms). There are also forms of socialism in which the means of production are controlled and owned by workers." It then states that one form of socialism is democratic socialism. It is widely recognized that there are many forms of socialism, so there is not one coherent definition, and certainly it is not correct to say that democracy is a necessary condition for socialism. Marx's vision of democracy was a communist society. From that link: "In Marxist theory, a new democratic society will arise through the organised actions of an international working class enfranchising the entire population and freeing up humans to act without being bound by the labour market...between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat" And what did Marx write about the dictatorship of the proletariat? "their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions."[16] In light of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Marx wrote that "there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror." (This is of course the issue with many attempts to establish socialist societies, because interpretations of the dictatorship of the proletariat haven't really allowed for political pluralism, because of the stupidity of establishing a vanguard party). So while some new form of democracy (which isn't really defined beyond "workers have control of the means of production in an equal share") is the end goal, it's not a necessary condition of the starting point. The only necessary condition is the creation of a vanguard party, which may or may not be democratic. Peter Hardi (from the Karl Marx University) wrote the following on the transition from capitalism to socialism "...in traditional theory (and practice) the party first seizes power and only then starts to implement its program of "socialist transformation" of the society; in the new version, the Communist Party first tries to transform society into a more advanced, partly socialistic stage, and then (or simultaneously) attempts to gain power by consensual means in a pluralist society." (Why Do Communist Parties Advocate Pluralism? World Politics Vol. 32, No. 4 (Jul., 1980), pp. 531-552 (22 pages)). YOu can access that article at jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/2010056 (JSTOR set up a system where you get 100 articles to read for free a month, and i couldn't find it on LibGen). I think it makes it pretty clear that democracy is not a prerequisite for trying to achieve a socialist state, at least in the traditional sense of Marxism.

Dictatorships can be socialist, and if you wade deep enough into zeff territory he’ll start talking about the dictatorship of the proletariat. I’m saying that people’s lived experience with socialism in general has been through dictatorships, so it’s hard to fault them if they don’t respond well to the notion, even if it doesn’t align with someone else’s notion of what socialism is. The Wikipedia portal on socialism is quite well done, it provides a broad overview with a lot of relevant citations. But fine: here’s an article which outlines the differences between a socialist and a democratic socialist. That’s cute that you’re misquoting me. In capitalism, firms also have the discretion to enter the market at different price points to meet different demands. Which is why you can buy a $100 bike from Canadian Tire, or a $10K bike from Lance Armstrong’s Ballsack Bikes.

If you can’t see the difference between the state saying “no bikes” and consumers making a choice how to spend their money, I’m sorry, I can’t help you. The pandemic has had an impact on bikes for sure, and Canada experienced a similar issue. But production of cheaper bikes ramped up quickly and that issue is largely solved. The state cannot change direction so quickly (I work in government, and the length of time it takes to make changes in government direction is ridiculous).

The lived experience provides for the definition, and transforms the actual experience. This is the interaction between abstractions and the real world as explained by Karl Poppers three worlds. What do you think central planning is?

Which, if you read the wiki portal link, is varied. the link you provided merely said it CAN flourish, not that it is a necessary condition.

Sure I guess? Meh chencun gotta go do bourgeois shit like spend time with fam.

What do you think the etc refers to? But if screw production is being used elsewhere and some people want bikes, but the state says no dice, those people just go without bikes?

Sure didn’t seem as if Braintree was doing that. It may be useful if it frees me from the lived experience of having gone to see tiesto when the female I was acquainted with expressed her basic human desire to do so.

You essentially mean you can’t reply to any of it. The bicycle factory doesn’t produce the screws themselves. How many times do I have to clarify this.

In the post-Korean War years, North Koreas economy was actually better than the South’s. I wonder what could have changed that?

How do you know how many bikes to make if you don’t know the cost of threaded screws, the cost to store them, shipping costs, and how all that will impact production capacity? Does the average worker think about that, or want to think about that, as they produce a bike? The means of production is the sum of all its parts, and part of it is supply chains. You have risk management, supply management, Human Resources, facility management, etc Most people are not equipped to deal with that, and adding more management adds further inefficiencies to any process, which is inherently implied by expanding control over the means of production.

A simple google will tell you that no supercomputing resources are used for Facebook ads. Most of it goes to energy exploration. Some of it goes to nuclear weapons research which is not great.

You have no idea how production actually works, do you?

Are you still posting them?

Jesus fuck man. What is wrong with you. My whole point is that the average worker doesn’t know what to produce when. My issues with centra planning are well documented throughout this thread, and the sad case of Myanmar is just another example of central planning gone wrong. The Asian model of growth is not central planning, and like other Asian nations that grew rapidly in the 70s 80s and 90s, China does NOT use central planning to determine production. To say otherwise is completely false.

Hey guess what, I’ve been to North Korea twice. They like to show foreigners the best the state has to offer. The best the state in North Korea has to offer pales in comparison to choice and availability of products and services the average South Korean has, and barely competes with what dirt poor farmers in South Korea have. You really can’t understand what South Koreans lived experience with communism might have to offer to the conversation? Communists existed on the Korean Peninsula before the Korean War and in fact there were larger numbers of communists in the southern part of the peninsula before the War, so their lived experience isn’t solely with the atrocity of North Korea. And no North Korean is going to say anything on video to contradict the Dear Marshall, because of the fear of retribution, not only for themselves, but for their family. I told you before: look up Alejandro Cao de Benos. He shills for North Korea, but he has more minders when visiting North Korea than any other foreigner I’ve ever known who goes there regularly.

The Marxism is for babies thing yeah was a LOL. I’m talking about dismissing lived experiences as a valid form of criticism. You often see “just follow the law and you won’t have any problems”, but that is clearly not the lived experience of POC. Similarly, “don’t equate socialism with dictatorship”. But the lived experience of many people under socialism is under a dictatorship. It’s like how so many older Koreans who emigrated to the US are hardcore conservatives that believe in capitalist democracy, because their lived experience with communism is North Korea. I don’t understand why using an analogy is such a controversial explanatory tool.

Yeah freedom and democracy can flourish, not that it’s an essential part. im reading that first linked article: A democratic say in how to allocate resources, to which I have to ask, does the average person have an idea of how commodity supply chains work? Take any craft product you enjoy: beer, coffee, bicycles, local publishing, what have you...think about all the components that go into the manufacture and sale of that product. Do you understand that complete process and can you conduct cost analysis on all those discrete components? I don’t. Markets are not anathema to socialist economies, and yet I see very little understanding of how markets work from many people (so called free marketeers and marxists alike). One of the arguments I often hear against capitalism is that managers create inefficiencies. This can be true, certainly I’ve worked with bad managers. But doesn’t the idea that there should be a democratic decision-making process to resource allocation essentially turn everyone into a manager? After all, a managers job is to manage resources in order to complete a project. Do we really want everyone to be a manager? That article goes on to say: Which is not an argument against markets, but more of an argument for good regulation of markets with actual enforcement. As we have seen in so called “communist” countries, government actors and state-owned enterprises also have the ability to bend markets, even more than corporations, as it the government who writes regulation and legislation. At the end of the day, I’m not saying that there doesn’t need to be strong protection for workers, universal healthcare, etc. Based on my education, work experience, and general life experience in different countries around the world, I do not think that at a large scale, the type of production the article refers to is the best way to achieve those goals.

I read the investopedia one, which mentions democracy almost not at all? As an aside, it mentions Vietnam as a socialist country, but billionaires in Vietnam certainly play an important role in the country’s socio-economic affairs.

BLM is an analogy for lived experience. Again do you think your definition of socialism is the only correct one? The various theories and the voluminous literature would kind of indicate otherwise you know?

My man, would you dismiss the BLM movement in the same way? Policing is not defined by systemic racism, but it exists and that’s their (POC) lived experience with it. Also, I don’t agree there is one consistent definition of socialism. I’m not saying that dictatorship equals socialism (unless you want to discuss the dictatorship of the proletariat), but I don’t think democracy is a necessary component of many definitions of socialism.

TheUS has all of the things that other OECD countries have, the only exception is the healthcare issue. Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Chile and Colombia are all white countries? Interesting. There are other examples of well regulated capitalism, but the OECD is an easy starting point. The reality of course is that all of these governments use mixed economic policy to varying degrees. The actual biggest worst example of capitalism is China, because they use capitalism to further their authoritarian regime. That's a good strawman you're building there. Considering we're talking about the domestic polity, the externalities are not a consideration. But since you asked, of course I care about them. And the best way to improve their lot is to institute transparent governance structures that build trust in institutions, and promote entrepreneurship (which can be a mix of private industry and state initiatives) with a sufficient social safety net to provide for the basic needs of the people in those countries. State allocation of resources is not an efficient means of development.

Democracy is an essential component of some forms of socialism. The definition at the wiki portal is broad, but useful. The problem is that basically all attempts at establish communist countries have turned into dictatorships to date. I think you being so dismissive of a person's lived experience is pretty unkind. Myanmar is a beautiful country that has gone through some very horrible experiences for basically all of the 20th century. Ne Win may have been genuinely trying to implement a Socialist government through the Burmese Way to Socialism, but he found out that nationalizing industry and withdrawing from the global economy led to serious economic hardships, and his response was to double down as well as repress demonstration. The military rule post-independence was one full of corruption and disastrous decision making based on ego, superstition, and nationalism. If that's his or her lived experience with socialism, that's what it is with them, much how zeff's lived experience with American capitalism defines his relationship with it. Basically all of the OECD countries, excluding America. It's there, keep looking. Oh wait, you'll never find it because you don't want to admit that it can exist.

All the ones I linked in other posts. Russia's demographic collapse was well underway in the 70s. Fast privatization with little oversight or regulation is primarily to blame for the slow recovery, including good doses of corruption ensuring that infrastructure and institutions were never fully developed. except for all the examples I listed.