It’d sort of be like seeing an American look askance at you eagerly snarfing Goat-milk cheese, and then saying, “Stupid American! He doesn’t understand that dill-weed goat cheese is the REAL goat cheese.”
No, the America understands just fine. It you who picks the cheese you like and pretends it’s the real or ‘authentic’ cheese. The worst you can say about the American is that he doesn’t much like goat cheese and shies away from trying kinds he’s unfamiliar with, and that he pays attention to the fact it all comes from the same dairy.
In perfect agreement, except for one nitpick: What you’re saying applies to progressivism or social democracy, as distinct from democratic socialism. But you are correct in that nowadays, most self-ID’d “socialist” parties operating in democratic systems seem to have no real goals any more beyond social democracy. “The theology of the final goal” has been largely forgotten.
So, the US are in the minority in their definition of socialism (and note how the way you define it there means there is zero difference with communism. Makes it all the more easy to throw both away and label them as unworking or improper for development, when a large part of the Western world has developed using socialist policies).
History moves on and can change and alter the meanings of words, apparently you got stuck in the XIXth century, and didnt bother to check out how the world outside of the US operates. Considering your posting history, I cant say that I am that surprised.
Anyway, you are aware (and so was John Mace) that socialism outside of the United States means progressive. So why not use that definition and move on?
I don’t know which part of the rest of the world you’re from(I’m guessing Europe?), but please speak for it, not for everyone. I’m from India, and since we only ended a disastrous 30 year flirtation with socialism in the fag end of the XXth century, and there’s plenty of the rest of the world that still consider socialism to be ‘public ownership of production and distribution of goods to the populace’, why not use the definition that terms actually have instead of trying to guess at what history has moved it on to and for whom?
The thing is, as Rune noted in the first reply, that the OP talks about Social Democracies such as Sweden instead of actual Socialism/Communism such as the former Eastern Bloc. The thread would be clearer if everybody used the European definitions, which are much less ambiguous.
That said, trust in your government and your society is the necessary condition. Homogeneity plays a role, but it’s not the determining factor. I think Canada is quite diverse and still implements many features of Social Democracy, for example.
Well (and I’m trying to be polite here) but the reason it went away is precisely because it was a theology. Ultimately, the truly revolutionary parties failed (why that is being outside the scope of this thread) and they faded into a mild senescence. Thus, I don’t really try to distinguish Democratic-Socialism and Social Democrats. There wasn’t that much diffrence from the beginning, and they tended to merge over time.
In short, I’m just saying I’m not trying to fight some abstract battle of what’s “real” socialism. If Capitaine Zombie wants to claim he’s a Socialist, I’m all for that. But when he tries to add, “And only I and those like me are proper Socialists” I start laughing.
Since you’re so certain, I’m sure you can provide a cite.
Note, too, that Socialism is supposed to include Communism, which is, or was intended to be, a means of developing the circumstances which would get you there. Communism grew out of the practical issues of applying Socialism. Whether you like it or not is beside the point, and trying to disavow it, however noble, isn’t intellectually honest or reasonable. Marz, and for that matter Lenin, were great theorists of the Socialist movement and accepted as such in their time and after. Communism is one branch of Socialism, and no more or less “valid” than Anarchism or Democratic Socialism.
Nonresponsive; ad-hominem; and self-referential.
I use the word as it was originally, and still is, used in a variety of contexts and movements, and to indicate an entire system fo theoretical thought. You seem to use it to mean whatyever your pet political cause is, even if it has nothing to do with Socialism. Then you claim universalism, which you are most definitely not.
For one thing, it doesn’t mean that. However, do go on. I love being lectured on my narrowmindedness by someone acting so charmingly narrowminded. It’s simple: I’m using an academic, but still highly accurate definition, which would probably be considered quite acceptable in any neutral discussion. You want it to refer to your own views, and call me names for laughing at you.
H) The tax rate isn’t anywhere close to 80%, meaning that the taxation system isn’t that far removed from other Western countries and such unemployment plans don’t exist.
The Swedish reality:
Basic income tax is around 30% (it changes slightly depending on where you live). It goes up to around 50% if you earn more than about 30,000 SEK/month. VAT is 25% on some goods, 12% on some others and 6% on a select few things.
Unemployment plans are possibly better than other Western countries, but a lot of the reputation comes from A-Kassa, a service people usually pay for via their union (although it is available without a union). Think of it as unemployment insurance. Even then, it last 300 days and is capped at a rather low limit.
It’s worth noting that 15% of Sweden’s population is foreign born. Granted many of them are from neighbouring countries with similar cultures, however plenty aren’t and this figure doesn’t include their children born in Sweden. I think a lot of North American commentators on Europe don’t realise how diverse many European countries are nowadays.
True, but I’ve heard (this is secondhand, and often personal, reports) that the same new diversity has put much pressure on the state, and led to a slow decline of the very programs under discussion. I definitely don’t claim to be familiar enough with the Nordic countries to know for myself.
Nowadays, yes, but not when the present system was set up.
Anyway, if everyone gets to use their own definition of “socialism”, we’re not going to have a very productive debate. There is a continuum in the “mixed economy” systems in place in the US and Sweden, and I wouldn’t say that there is a fundamental difference between the two. Sweden has more social services than the US, but it’s just a matter of degree.
If “effective” means “thriving economy” and if “socialism” means something more than “social democracy,” the only example I can think of is the Spanish Revolution, which was really an anarcho-syndicalist system without centralized control or planning, and it was not allowed to last long enough to show whether it could thrive in the long run. And, I sometimes think Allende’s model of democratic socialism for Chile could have thrived, if he had managed to survive both the military coup and the next election, both unlikely.
I had a college history professor that was both a socialist and a Quaker. He claimed there were many examples of successful socialist societies, but they all had a strong Christian component. His proof were some of the 19’th century experiments in America.
Any successful society must have a way to motivate workers.
That depends on what you mean by “successful.” The Oneida community managed to last for over a century… but previous to that, was nothing more than a sex-slave workshop for the benefit of cult leader John Humphrey Noyes. That said, they built quite quite a village even under Noyes and eventually became the Oneida flatware company (which did eventually go broke).
Christian Communes did usually manage to get going, but they simply couldn’t compete with the outside world even for completely mundane, everyday pleasures - let alone anything socially-unacceptable to the Commune. The Shakers are pretty much the last of them. Non-Christian Communes completely crashed and burned.
What’s required to make ‘socialism’ (a la what Europe and even the US has to a lesser degree) function? Ironically you need a strong and vibrant capitalist economy and base to make those ‘socialist’ type dreams a reality, painful as that must be to some posters on this board.
(As others have said, the definition of what is or isn’t ‘socialism’ is certainly variable depending on who you ask, but what I THINK you mean is a social democracy, where you have basically some of the trappings of a socialist system riding on top of at least a quasi-capitalistic base, mixed with some sort of democracy or at least representative government in one form or another. Bake at 450 degrees for 20-30 years, or until a nice golden color, top with some rule of law and then let it set for a half an hour and you have some form of success or another. No modern successful country, afaik, actually uses a pure socialist system, since there you are talking about no private ownership and everything being state run. As appealing and desirable as that is to some folks it just doesn’t work very well in the real world, and even your most ‘socialistic’ European governments have backed off of that long ago, and have a more hybrid system…just like the US does)
I didn’t say they exist, I said it’s a possibility. I’ve seen comments on either side, saying the opposite of one another. I haven’t personally read enough to comment any more particularly than stating it as one potential of many - exactly as I did.
And while you say that 80% isn’t a realistic number, according to the Wikipedia, Sweden has up to a 59.05% tax on income, a separate 31.42% on payroll (I’m not sure what the difference is), and then something like a 15% average on purchases (i.e. on the remaining). That can easily get one into the 80% territory.
There is one (often overlooked) example of a successful socialist society: The Inca Empire, where state officials and accountants collected and distributed all produce (and even arranged marriages, when they visited the villages and found any adult unmarried, don’t gimme no alternative-lifestyles shit). It worked in the sense that nobody in the Empire went hungry or naked, and the Emperor lived in luxury not much greater than the peasant. And they managed to build this centralized* socialist multinational empire with purely stone-age technology, no system of writing (only the quipu system of knotted cords, good for accounting but not for poetry), no wheeled vehicles, and no draft animal larger than a llama.
Whether such a system could work in any post-neolithic society is another question.
Actually it was a federation of four provinces – the “Four Quarters” north, south, east and west of Cuzco – but a highly centralized system withal.