People hate socialism because they believe it is a right/freedom be able to privately own and control the “means of production” from tools to assembly lines to mines and groves.
Thatcher said it best: “There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.” and by economic liberty she means that ability to own / exclusively control any (non-sentient) thing.
(end LI5)
Personally, I think authoritarian socialism (sometimes called “communism”) is problematic due to the authoritarian part. I think libertarian socialism (often called “anarchism”) is problematic because “warlords” (selfish people willing to use violence to hoard property) will naturally arise from any sufficiently large group and I think they are best opposed via a State with a “monopoly” on violence. But, I am convinced that rent-seeking behavior has been choking Capitalism for a while and it’s only gotten worse since I was born (1980)… something needs to rein it in, and I think that something has to be very democratic and significantly socialist, but I don’t really have a name for it myself.
People hate socialism because they are propagandized to full stop. Most people will never own actual capital so why would they be afraid of not being able to privately control it. This conflates the idea of private ownership and ownership of capital. This in itself is also propaganda.
Thatcher’s actual policies hurt working class and benefited corporations. Strange people would bring her up in a conversation meant to portray socialism negatively.
On to your points. Rent seeking existed long before the term ever existed just like fascism. It has always been bad, think of company towns back in 1800’s being the very definition of extreme rent seeking behavior. I had thought we were done with that concept but the unbelievable concentration of wealth has brought it back.
There is no one to reign it in because the systems are completely captured by the wealthy through their proxy corporations. Fascism spread like wildfire across the globe and the dominate social structure is now corporations, not governments.
There is no answer to this because all the answers threaten this dominance. We have (non wealthy people) been checkmated before I was ever born.
But hey, life is not so bad. You can always take advantage of your fellow man to get a leg up and it is highly encouraged by a legal system that is designed to protect the wealthy and not punish white collar crime.
Rent seeking existed long before the term ever existed just like fascism. It has always been bad
IIRC, Adam Smith (from “Wealth Of Nations”) decried rent-seeking behavior and implicitly defined a “free market” as one without (free of) rent-seeking, as a form on monopoly, among other things.
So, yes, it was a recognizable problem in Capitalism before it was ever given name, and I wasn’t trying to deny that, just to note that the whole time I’ve been alive it’s consistently gotten worse.
As it has gotten worse my whole life. Adam Smith could have never have conceptualized mega corporations. In fact, corporate law at that time would have never allowed for them to exist.
There is no such thing as authoritarian socialism, that is a paradox. Marx and Lenin argued that the only viable path to communism as an ends, which involves the withering away of the state, required a transitionary period.
Marx proposed something akin to direct democracy — which he called dictatorship of the proletariat — while Lenin proposed the idea of a centralized, rightist vanguard party that would seize power on behalf of the people and oversee the transition. Rightist means to leftist ends. It was a gamble that did not succeed as Lenin’s illness and death, and the rise of Stalinism, remade the vanguard into a permanent new ruling class in direct conflict with Marx’s stated ethos.
Capitalism seems to turn into cronyism. Maybe the issue is that none of the above can lead to a permanent or long term solution that is without abuse or unnecessary hardship. David Graeber fought the idea that authority and governments have to exists by giving examples of ancient civilizations that had no ruler. What if all the modern forms of government since then are just a huge transitionary period for humanity that exist until we reach a more civilized state in our evolution that doesn’t include paralysing greed and constant war?
“Withering away of the state” and “it’s like, how much more STATE can you get? The answer is none. None more state” are extreme opposites.
Did the state wither away? No. Then communism was not accomplished.
Stalinism was as communist as Hitler’s National Socialists were socialist. False branding is a hallmark of rightism. Their propagandized, muddied, impoverished use of language does not magically turn their little hand-carved lies into real boys.
I’m using the standard meaning of authoritarian socialism: “Academics, political commentators and other scholars tend to distinguish between authoritarian socialist and democratic socialist states, with the first represented in the Soviet Bloc”
I know what you are using. It’s capitalist propaganda and always has been. We need to stop using paradoxical terminology that was designed deliberately to confuse and terrify. What you are describing is literally known as “state capitalism.” Funny how that, like all the intentional-by-design failings of capitalism, gets rebranded as “socialism” in an effort to preserve capitalism’s entirely-gaslit reputation.
Socialism demands equality and equity, which fundamentally cannot exist in a stratified society. If there is a ruling class, they own and control the economy and nothing belongs to the people. So like I said, it’s paradoxical.
People hate socialism because they believe it is a right/freedom be able to privately own and control the “means of production” from tools to assembly lines to mines and groves.
Thatcher said it best: “There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.” and by economic liberty she means that ability to own / exclusively control any (non-sentient) thing.
(end LI5)
Personally, I think authoritarian socialism (sometimes called “communism”) is problematic due to the authoritarian part. I think libertarian socialism (often called “anarchism”) is problematic because “warlords” (selfish people willing to use violence to hoard property) will naturally arise from any sufficiently large group and I think they are best opposed via a State with a “monopoly” on violence. But, I am convinced that rent-seeking behavior has been choking Capitalism for a while and it’s only gotten worse since I was born (1980)… something needs to rein it in, and I think that something has to be very democratic and significantly socialist, but I don’t really have a name for it myself.
People hate socialism because they are propagandized to full stop. Most people will never own actual capital so why would they be afraid of not being able to privately control it. This conflates the idea of private ownership and ownership of capital. This in itself is also propaganda.
Thatcher’s actual policies hurt working class and benefited corporations. Strange people would bring her up in a conversation meant to portray socialism negatively.
On to your points. Rent seeking existed long before the term ever existed just like fascism. It has always been bad, think of company towns back in 1800’s being the very definition of extreme rent seeking behavior. I had thought we were done with that concept but the unbelievable concentration of wealth has brought it back.
There is no one to reign it in because the systems are completely captured by the wealthy through their proxy corporations. Fascism spread like wildfire across the globe and the dominate social structure is now corporations, not governments.
There is no answer to this because all the answers threaten this dominance. We have (non wealthy people) been checkmated before I was ever born.
But hey, life is not so bad. You can always take advantage of your fellow man to get a leg up and it is highly encouraged by a legal system that is designed to protect the wealthy and not punish white collar crime.
IIRC, Adam Smith (from “Wealth Of Nations”) decried rent-seeking behavior and implicitly defined a “free market” as one without (free of) rent-seeking, as a form on monopoly, among other things.
So, yes, it was a recognizable problem in Capitalism before it was ever given name, and I wasn’t trying to deny that, just to note that the whole time I’ve been alive it’s consistently gotten worse.
As it has gotten worse my whole life. Adam Smith could have never have conceptualized mega corporations. In fact, corporate law at that time would have never allowed for them to exist.
There is no such thing as authoritarian socialism, that is a paradox. Marx and Lenin argued that the only viable path to communism as an ends, which involves the withering away of the state, required a transitionary period.
Marx proposed something akin to direct democracy — which he called dictatorship of the proletariat — while Lenin proposed the idea of a centralized, rightist vanguard party that would seize power on behalf of the people and oversee the transition. Rightist means to leftist ends. It was a gamble that did not succeed as Lenin’s illness and death, and the rise of Stalinism, remade the vanguard into a permanent new ruling class in direct conflict with Marx’s stated ethos.
Capitalism seems to turn into cronyism. Maybe the issue is that none of the above can lead to a permanent or long term solution that is without abuse or unnecessary hardship. David Graeber fought the idea that authority and governments have to exists by giving examples of ancient civilizations that had no ruler. What if all the modern forms of government since then are just a huge transitionary period for humanity that exist until we reach a more civilized state in our evolution that doesn’t include paralysing greed and constant war?
Which became “communism” / authoritarian socialism.
“Withering away of the state” and “it’s like, how much more STATE can you get? The answer is none. None more state” are extreme opposites.
Did the state wither away? No. Then communism was not accomplished.
Stalinism was as communist as Hitler’s National Socialists were socialist. False branding is a hallmark of rightism. Their propagandized, muddied, impoverished use of language does not magically turn their little hand-carved lies into real boys.
I’m using the standard meaning of authoritarian socialism: “Academics, political commentators and other scholars tend to distinguish between authoritarian socialist and democratic socialist states, with the first represented in the Soviet Bloc”
I know what you are using. It’s capitalist propaganda and always has been. We need to stop using paradoxical terminology that was designed deliberately to confuse and terrify. What you are describing is literally known as “state capitalism.” Funny how that, like all the intentional-by-design failings of capitalism, gets rebranded as “socialism” in an effort to preserve capitalism’s entirely-gaslit reputation.
Socialism demands equality and equity, which fundamentally cannot exist in a stratified society. If there is a ruling class, they own and control the economy and nothing belongs to the people. So like I said, it’s paradoxical.