this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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The US has a bunch of socialist policies, it's just that the people who complain about socialism don't know what it means.
Those have been withering away. They're trying to get rid of the postal service, we've never had national health...I was reading about Slovenia who now has a mixed economy, with the government heavily involved in planning. The only way I see capitalism working at all is social democracy, but I'd much rather see socialism. Luxury goods for profit, necessities as service, progressive taxes with the top incomes, corporate and private, being taxed in the 90th percentile, to fund services, and heavy sanctioning of nations that hide wealth from non-citizens and lifting of sanctions on nations that do the same, as well as not trying to overthrow their governments as long as they are no threat to us. And arms de-escalation.
If you think the US has "socialist policies," I wouldn't be so sure you know what Socialism means either. It's worth reading theory IMO.
Classic example: "I don't want Big Government Socialism messing with my Medicare!"
Or farm subsidies
The US doesn't have any socialist policies.
Arguably, The US does have several socialist policies, albeit implemented very badly. For instance, public education. Does capitalism stick its grubby fingers into it from every possible angle? Yes. But at its core it has collective funding through taxes (therefore owned/controlled by the state), universal access, and the prioritization of public welfare over profit (at least on paper). Those principles are strictly socialist and not capitalist.
Socialism does not mean controlled by the state, that is just a state service, which can be capitalist.
Socialism, and I cannot stress this enough, is not when the government does stuff
Where did I say "government does stuff"? If a service is provided not for profit, funded by the community and is otherwise not privately owned, it's socialist. It needs to be for-profit and/or privately owned to be capitalist.
This may help clear up much of where you are butting heads with MLs in your comments.
No, this type of thinking is anti-dialectical. Capitalism is a system where private property and commodity production is primary, and socialism is a system where collective ownership and planning is primary. This does not mean systems are partially Socialist and partially Capitalist, but that property relations are not uniform in most systems. I think reading Marx would be helpful for you.
But when government has social programs it's socialism. It's in the name!
I don't think this needs a /s, but the world doesn't fucking make any sense.