I'd rather just jump right into it, but we need to start somewhere, so here goes.
The point of this space is to try/practice being a socialist.
I don't think most of us currently identify as socialists, so I recognize this is going to involve some adjustments and growing pains. The general idea is to consistently be making a good faith effort to post/participate/behave as a burgeoning socialist around the topics at hand. It's reasonable to presume that most people don't know what exactly that looks like, so I expect much of the early efforts to be around getting a grip of what that good faith effort looks like.
While I can see how typical news stories could have relevance at a given time, the point isn't to be a socialist parallel of the US politics thread, so we will explicitly not be making this that.
No one has to post here, but if you're going to, the expectation is that you want to engage in this experiment/effort. I'm not using this space to convince people to participate (though I suspect there will be some gray area at first). I will gladly use this space to work with people in developing our mutual understanding and practicing of socialism. We can disagree on socialism, but we need to be doing it from a good faith socialist perspective.
That said, the presumption going forward (for the purposes and within the confines of this blog) is that you've basically engaged with some form of content like below (definitely the video below), and now you're giving socialism a sincere chance. Let's do it!
I trust I will have to amend this. I'll try to stay on top of that.
For those wanting to take trying to be a socialist offline in connection with current political events, I recommend checking out https://generalstrikeus.com/
I think the hardest thing to do (especially for Americans but not exclusively) is to start thinking in terms of systems as opposed to individuals. There's an appeal to thinking in terms of individuals because it creates the possibility of a simple solution, if you replace the bad person with a good person, then you don't have to do anything else, and that's easy. If you had voted for Kamala Harris instead of Trump, problem solved, you don't have to do anything. But you didn't, Trump won, so it must be the fault of some other individuals, for example the people who didn't vote. They should be different, and you don't have to do anything. Now if instead there's a systemic issue where the country and the world are pushed to the right mechanically, there isn't going to be a button that you can push to make that change. The solution becomes unclear, and there's danger associated with it. It's a harder sell. The only thing that you have going for you when selling it is that you're telling the truth, which a lot of people don't care too much about.
The second issue is that people will try and apply morality to this, and morality is silly and kind of boring. My problem has never been with people who are evil, my problem has always been with people who are wrong. You can insist this is the case and people will generally not believe you.
With all that being said, I've never seen someone become a socialist because someone told them to do so on a forum. To some extent, this still sounds like trying to find a solution that works at the level of the individual, much like "voting" or "not voting" did. I think the majority of "liberals" lean more leftist than they do liberal, the steps missing are maybe more in analysis than they are in power of will.
On February 01 2025 05:36 Nebuchad wrote: I think the hardest thing to do (especially for Americans but not exclusively) is to start thinking in terms of systems as opposed to individuals. There's an appeal to thinking in terms of individuals because it creates the possibility of a simple solution, if you replace the bad person with a good person, then you don't have to do anything else, and that's easy. If you had voted for Kamala Harris instead of Trump, problem solved, you don't have to do anything. But you didn't, Trump won, so it must be the fault of some other individuals, for example the people who didn't vote. They should be different, and you don't have to do anything. Now if instead there's a systemic issue where the country and the world are pushed to the right mechanically, there isn't going to be a button that you can push to make that change. The solution becomes unclear, and there's danger associated with it. It's a harder sell. The only thing that you have going for you when selling it is that you're telling the truth, which a lot of people don't care too much about.
The second issue is that people will try and apply morality to this, and morality is silly and kind of boring. My problem has never been with people who are evil, my problem has always been with people who are wrong. You can insist this is the case and people will generally not believe you.
With all that being said, I've never seen someone become a socialist because someone told them to do so on a forum. To some extent, this still sounds like trying to find a solution that works at the level of the individual, much like "voting" or "not voting" did. I think the majority of "liberals" lean more leftist than they do liberal, the steps missing are maybe more in analysis than they are in power of will.
Pretty much agree with all that. That's part of why the focus of this space is for people that are at least ostensibly already socialists. It's a space for liberal/leftists and socialists to try/practice/engage in good faith with such systemic analysis instead of the typical individualistic stuff the US/capitalism has indoctrinated us with.
I used to be all about Korea because, you know, Starcraft, nowadays I've become more interested in Japan almost entirely because of Ado (lol), but I'm 100% sure China is quite interesting, as far as places go. Would probably be a cool trip, especially the south looks quite majestic. A shame that Streetview isn't working there.
On February 01 2025 07:18 Nebuchad wrote: I used to be all about Korea because, you know, Starcraft, nowadays I've become more interested in Japan almost entirely because of Ado (lol), but I'm 100% sure China is quite interesting, as far as places go. Would probably be a cool trip, especially the south looks quite majestic. A shame that Streetview isn't working there.
Honestly I'm ready to go to wherever they are purportedly genociding Uyghurs and compare it to Gaza
If the only choices on this planet are going to be which genocidal regime are you going to fall in line behind, I at least need to be able fairly compare them.
I'm being facetious (I'll chill), but I think part of the problem (and the Red Note and DeepSeek exposure demonstrated this) is that most people in the US haven't updated their understanding of China from the generic 80's propaganda that's just been on repeat since then.
I'm confident China has plenty of serious problems, I'm also confident that the last ~40 years has demonstrated how socialism with Chinese characteristics has done so much better than capitalism in India or the US at helping the least among their societies confront those problems and work on fixing them.
On February 01 2025 06:33 HornyHerring wrote: Move to China for a bit, see socialism at its finest.
Hi, American who did this, you’re a dipshit and don’t know anything lmao
To be vaguely on topic, I don’t think China is worth looking at as a socialist country (at least in the last few decades) it’s really more of an authoritarian capitalist country with a signficantly more competent and beneficial authoritarian party than a lot of people would believe emerges from places like Russia.
Anyone who spent five seconds in Shanghai and was bombarded by the sheer brand obsessed consumerism in the culture would have a hard time appreciating China as socialist lol
China is a nice place (at least where I was) and has a great cost of living and all of the modern amenities I wanted, but the CCP does suck, even though they have done a lot of things to make China as successful a country as it is, their isolationism from the western Tech industry has created a parallel Chinese tech ecosystem that’s super fascinating and made places like Shenzhen possible.
On February 01 2025 06:33 HornyHerring wrote: Move to China for a bit, see socialism at its finest.
Hi, American who did this, you’re a dipshit and don’t know anything lmao
To be vaguely on topic, I don’t think China is worth looking at as a socialist country (at least in the last few decades) it’s really more of an authoritarian capitalist country with a signficantly more competent and beneficial authoritarian party than a lot of people would believe emerges from places like Russia.
Anyone who spent five seconds in Shanghai and was bombarded by the sheer brand obsessed consumerism in the culture would have a hard time appreciating China as socialist lol
China is a nice place (at least where I was) and has a great cost of living and all of the modern amenities I wanted, but the CCP does suck, even though they have done a lot of things to make China as successful a country as it is, their isolationism from the western Tech industry has created a parallel Chinese tech ecosystem that’s super fascinating and made places like Shenzhen possible.
I appreciate you adding the rest, before you had I wrote this: + Show Spoiler +
While I can empathise with the sentiment, we all have to do better than this. Like I said, I expect some growing pains (myself included), but let's strive to do better than this generally. Sound fair?
You're also welcome to try to argue why a post like yours here is reasonably in line with the socialism you relate to if you can make it from a socialist perspective/appropriately referencing socialist thought/theory/practice/etc. Because I definitely know socialists that would say that and worse and just immediately ban someone posting like that (and it's not as if I don't see the appeal).
As for China, as far as I can tell they're doing socialism a helluva lot better than anyone in the US is. I think the relationship between China and socialism is more complicated than we're really ready for here though.
I'm thinking of us all collectively basically as a bunch of bronze league socialists and "China and Socialism" is sorta like masters league micro or something. Being able to split banes against widow mines is a good skill, but we should probably focus on making sure we're not 20 workers behind ~6 minutes in first.
China's government has some understanding that a citizenry that isn't struggling (struggling being relative to their recent past and what have you) is a citizenry that isn't going to cause their party any problems, and will generally accept concessions if it means maintaining that lack of struggle imo. They're sort of faltering in this atm though, certainly more social unrest now than when I was there, but for the most part theyre similar to the US in that way, except the US is infinitely dumber, and the people in charge have no sight beyond the next fiscal quarter and so will keep making things more expensive and QOL as low as they can get away with to wring that next dollar out. China can and will do things long and short term to keep its populace happy if it thinks its the best way to maintain power, not because the CCP cares deeply about people so much as the CCP cares deeply about power.
China is an example of a fairly capable authoritarian government with some basic understanding of how to keep its people from getting too revolutionary without needing to actually fight a revolutionary people, imo, but I can't really extend them socialist cred since corporations are either state/party owned, or are at least, in no way worker owned, theres sort of the two sides of Cigarettes Are A State Monopoly and We Have American Style Tech Megacorps Here Too!
This sort of thing is why I have a hard time wanting to label myself as something other than anticapitalist, realistically I think a lot of the systems we could theoretically transition ourselves to may work, maybe anarchism works, maybe socialism works, whatever has the people who are willing to uphold that system as a system of good for the populace at large is what I'm fine with.
I would probably say socialism as I understand it is probably what Id say I have the most faith in, but I'll take whatever provides food, housing, medical care, the general necessities of a modern life and minimizes unnecessary human suffering.
Or the notion that any country that has a significant unchallenged advantage over another would not try to impose it's own will if it thinks that's in their best interest.
Just because a person or a country calls themselves something doesn't make it so (think Democratic People's Republic of Korea).
There's a big difference between Bernie and Xi not the least of which is Bernie won't ban your business because you call him Pooh (or w/e an equivalent would be).
I think ideally we would offload as much work to machines as possible and would provide free or cheap housing, food and healthcare to everyone at a planetary sustainable level.
Co-ops, unions, helping fellow beings all are good stuff we should want and cultivate.
I think talking about specific actions and programs is the best way to go.
P.S. Zambrah I would agree with a lot of that.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I can't post another reply for some reason... So I guess I was confused by the "Anyone?" in the title.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update: thread reopened, still can't post a new comment ^_._^ I also like how the OP completely avoids addressing my legitimate concerns about what appears to be pro authoritarian China post. "Title Socialism Anyone? I ask a couple of questions, answer: "Well this thread is for socialists" and I can't post anymore besides editing my existing message. Already silencing basic opposition. Very much a Red Flag to me (pun intended).
Oh don't let the OP slide on this direct quote "purportedly genociding Uyghurs"... (genocide is wrong no matter who does it, this apparently needs to be said...) I can link to youtube channels as well. ^_._^
China's government has some understanding that a citizenry that isn't struggling (struggling being relative to their recent past and what have you) is a citizenry that isn't going to cause their party any problems, and will generally accept concessions if it means maintaining that lack of struggle imo. They're sort of faltering in this atm though, certainly more social unrest now than when I was there, but for the most part theyre similar to the US in that way, except the US is infinitely dumber, and the people in charge have no sight beyond the next fiscal quarter and so will keep making things more expensive and QOL as low as they can get away with to wring that next dollar out. China can and will do things long and short term to keep its populace happy if it thinks its the best way to maintain power, not because the CCP cares deeply about people so much as the CCP cares deeply about power.
China is an example of a fairly capable authoritarian government with some basic understanding of how to keep its people from getting too revolutionary without needing to actually fight a revolutionary people, imo, but I can't really extend them socialist cred since corporations are either state/party owned, or are at least, in no way worker owned, theres sort of the two sides of Cigarettes Are A State Monopoly and We Have American Style Tech Megacorps Here Too!
This sort of thing is why I have a hard time wanting to label myself as something other than anticapitalist, + Show Spoiler +
realistically I think a lot of the systems we could theoretically transition ourselves to may work, maybe anarchism works, maybe socialism works, whatever has the people who are willing to uphold that system as a system of good for the populace at large is what I'm fine with.
I would probably say socialism as I understand it is probably what Id say I have the most faith in, but I'll take whatever provides food, housing, medical care, the general necessities of a modern life and minimizes unnecessary human suffering.
On February 01 2025 10:31 LUCKY_NOOB wrote: I can't even with this thread...+ Show Spoiler +
Gotta love billionaire producing "socialism with Chinese characteristics"
Or the notion that any country that has a significant unchallenged advantage over another would not try to impose it's own will if it thinks that's in their best interest.
Just because a person or a country calls themselves something doesn't make it so (think Democratic People's Republic of Korea).
There's a big difference between Bernie and Xi not the least of which is Bernie won't ban your business because you call him Pooh (or w/e an equivalent would be).
I think ideally we would offload as much work to machines as possible and would provide free or cheap housing, food and healthcare to everyone at a planetary sustainable level.
Co-ops, unions, helping fellow beings all are good stuff we should want and cultivate.
I think talking about specific actions and programs is the best way to go.
P.S. Zambrah I would agree with a lot of that.
Well this thread is for socialists soo... Folks can give it a try or move along, that choice is up to them.
I watched the video in the OP. I think he does a decent job pointing out why the USA is in the situation it's in. He gives a very high-level summary of how socialism will be different, but I don't think he had enough time to really make the case that socialism is the answer.
I do think the USA needs to change so all the power isn't with the rich few who use that power to just get richer at the expense of the 99%, and especially those who are having trouble making ends meet at all. Unfortunately, a large portion of the population is voting for solutions that result in them being in that very unfavorable situation. I think part of that is because of total ignorance (myself included) on how socialism actually looks. From the video I understand a few things about socialism:
The State is responsible for providing the basics (e.g., housing, food, education, healthcare) that people should have under any system. This also makes it harder for super billionaires to exist.
Companies or organizations that produce things people need (e.g., farms for food, factories for personal items) are no longer driven by profit. This means no individual or board can hold ownership over the farm or factory (or what have you) and make a lot of money off of it.
People are still free to do whatever they want. It's not like the State just tells you "you are a farmer or I shoot you" contrary to some fearmongering claims.
Is that a fair summary of what the video said? I think it's clear to see that changes like these take the power away from the super-rich and distribute wealth back down, which needs to happen regardless of the system we use. However, it's still hard for me (and probably many people) to conceptualize how this will actually work.
I grow up with my parents receiving financial help in the form of socialized housing/food/education/etc, and now I'm an educated adult ready to become independent. I decide "I'm pretty lazy and just want to post on tl, play games, watch tv, and live off of my State-guaranteed housing/food for a while, or maybe work a small part-time gig just to cover minor expenses." It turns out most of my graduating class feels the same way. What's to stop that?
Let's say I have a different attitude and want to have a good career and contribute to society all the while. I apply for a job (I assume that still works similarly) and the company/organization decides to hire me. My colleagues show me the ropes and now I'm working. Does my pay correspond at all with how difficult/specialized my work is? If I'm a doctor, can I live a somewhat wealthy life? If I'm an entry-level clerk, do I make much less? In other words, my socialized housing is bare-minimum by default, but by tackling a more challenging job I can increase my qualify of life, such as if I want a nice house instead of a small apartment?
What is the goal of the company? Do we work in order to sell enough of our product to pay for supplies (like ingredients if we were making food products) and salaries? If so, isn't there still a motive to work harder and more efficiently so that we can increase everyone's salary without having to hire more people and spread the income across more mouths to feed? I can obviously see the benefit of not having all that profit go to some super-rich owners, but it definitely seems like it puts a lot of responsibility on the workers to make all the big decisions. It's easy to say "workers know what's" best but I honestly don't think that's always true either.
I would appreciate a few thoughts with how those types of questions are answered by Socialism 101 or 102. I can obviously read more deeply into more sources, but I think at a minimum I will need to understand those issues in order to buy into the video's claim not just that status quo doesn't work, but that socialism is the answer, and not just the flavor of the week until we actually try it and go "oh this actually sucks just as much for different reasons."
On February 01 2025 22:21 micronesia wrote: I grow up with my parents receiving financial help in the form of socialized housing/food/education/etc, and now I'm an educated adult ready to become independent. I decide "I'm pretty lazy and just want to post on tl, play games, watch tv, and live off of my State-guaranteed housing/food for a while, or maybe work a small part-time gig just to cover minor expenses." It turns out most of my graduating class feels the same way. What's to stop that?
Let's say I have a different attitude and want to have a good career and contribute to society all the while. I apply for a job (I assume that still works similarly) and the company/organization decides to hire me. My colleagues show me the ropes and now I'm working. Does my pay correspond at all with how difficult/specialized my work is? If I'm a doctor, can I live a somewhat wealthy life? If I'm an entry-level clerk, do I make much less? In other words, my socialized housing is bare-minimum by default, but by tackling a more challenging job I can increase my qualify of life, such as if I want a nice house instead of a small apartment?
This is something I'm comfortable with personally, yeah. Imo the problematic social hierarchy in capitalism revolves more around class than it does around money, it's always CEOs that are trying to make society more inequal, rather than just rich people. There are very rich singers, very rich actors, very rich athletes, and yeah I assume they vote more rightwing than the average but as a group of people they're not very likely to, like, pressure a government into crushing unions or loosening environmental regulations or something. At my main job I work about 60%, there's someone else there that works 100%, so he makes more money than me but there is no class dynamic between us just because he makes more money, it's all fine. I think we can quite easily keep that distinction so that there are still applicants for jobs that demand a lot of investment on the part of the worker, such as lawyer or doctor. I would personally tweak some things, like make garbage disposal more lucrative and banking less lucrative, but that's just me I don't necessarily want society to listen to my opinion
It's possible that if that system was implemented we would see a social hierarchy develop based on wealth in the future, but imo we can't assume that it will for sure, and if it does we can deal with it at that point, we don't have to do it from the start.
Edit: just wanted to add that this is in line with Marx as I understand it, cf To each according to his contribution, so I'm not just saying what comes in my head.
On February 01 2025 22:21 micronesia wrote: What is the goal of the company? [...] It's easy to say "workers know what's" best but I honestly don't think that's always true either.
Maybe you'll be disappointed with my answer but I think that should be up to the workers to decide. Having democratic power on their company, they should be allowed to push it in the direction they want, unless they break the law in some way. I think there's a good argument that you lose some amount of efficiency like this, similarly I'm pretty sure authoritarian regimes are more efficient than democracies, but that's a tradeoff I'm okay with based on how much better democracies are for humans than authoritarian regimes are.
Sometimes workers won't know best, you're right, but then the company will just fail, won't it? This happens in capitalism too. If the safety net of our society is strong enough, that doesn't have to be a huge issue.
I watched the video in the OP. I think he does a decent job pointing out why the USA is in the situation it's in. He gives a very high-level summary of how socialism will be different, but I don't think he had enough time to really make the case that socialism is the answer.
I do think the USA needs to change so all the power isn't with the rich few who use that power to just get richer at the expense of the 99%, and especially those who are having trouble making ends meet at all. Unfortunately, a large portion of the population is voting for solutions that result in them being in that very unfavorable situation. I think part of that is because of total ignorance (myself included) on how socialism actually looks. From the video I understand a few things about socialism:
The State is responsible for providing the basics (e.g., housing, food, education, healthcare) that people should have under any system. This also makes it harder for super billionaires to exist.
Companies or organizations that produce things people need (e.g., farms for food, factories for personal items) are no longer driven by profit. This means no individual or board can hold ownership over the farm or factory (or what have you) and make a lot of money off of it.
People are still free to do whatever they want. It's not like the State just tells you "you are a farmer or I shoot you" contrary to some fearmongering claims.
Is that a fair summary of what the video said? I think it's clear to see that changes like these take the power away from the super-rich and distribute wealth back down, which needs to happen regardless of the system we use. However, it's still hard for me (and probably many people) to conceptualize how this will actually work.
I grow up with my parents receiving financial help in the form of socialized housing/food/education/etc, and now I'm an educated adult ready to become independent. I decide "I'm pretty lazy and just want to post on tl, play games, watch tv, and live off of my State-guaranteed housing/food for a while, or maybe work a small part-time gig just to cover minor expenses." It turns out most of my graduating class feels the same way. What's to stop that?
Let's say I have a different attitude and want to have a good career and contribute to society all the while. I apply for a job (I assume that still works similarly) and the company/organization decides to hire me. My colleagues show me the ropes and now I'm working. Does my pay correspond at all with how difficult/specialized my work is? If I'm a doctor, can I live a somewhat wealthy life? If I'm an entry-level clerk, do I make much less? In other words, my socialized housing is bare-minimum by default, but by tackling a more challenging job I can increase my qualify of life, such as if I want a nice house instead of a small apartment?
What is the goal of the company? Do we work in order to sell enough of our product to pay for supplies (like ingredients if we were making food products) and salaries? If so, isn't there still a motive to work harder and more efficiently so that we can increase everyone's salary without having to hire more people and spread the income across more mouths to feed? I can obviously see the benefit of not having all that profit go to some super-rich owners, but it definitely seems like it puts a lot of responsibility on the workers to make all the big decisions. It's easy to say "workers know what's" best but I honestly don't think that's always true either.
I would appreciate a few thoughts with how those types of questions are answered by Socialism 101 or 102. I can obviously read more deeply into more sources, but
I think at a minimum I will need to understand those issues in order to buy into the video's claim not just that status quo doesn't work, but that socialism is the answer, and not just the flavor of the week until we actually try it and go "oh this actually sucks just as much for different reasons."
I just want to reiterate that the premise of my blog is that its participants have agreed to behave in good faith as if they have committed to socialism being the answer. Sorta like they have committed to the existing US system without really being able to figure out how to recapture it from the oligopoly (Democrats were bragging about their billionaire support, literally campaigning with Mark Cuban, and functionally abandoned campaign finance reform). It's the Hamster Wheel + Show Spoiler +
1. There's a problem 2. Politicians won't fix it 3. Need to replace the politicians with ones that will 4. Can't replace the politicians because of how the system works 5. Need to fix the system 6. Politicians wont fix it (because it benefits them) 7. Repeat ad nauseam.
The "You just gotta change the laws so capitalists stop exploiting people so hard" sorta stuff shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how capitalism works. The concentration of wealth isn't a bug, it's a feature. The power that concentrated wealth buys you to manipulate politics/society is also a feature of capitalism, not a bug.
I can construct posts as if I was a lib/Dem, the idea here is that everyone is making a good faith effort in constructing their posts and engaging generally as if they were socialists instead. I can't make you do that, but I would respectfully ask that you respect that premise going forward?
Doesn't mean we can't explore the kinds of questions you've expressed and will likely have. They are questions pretty much every socialist has to work through (some grow up on this stuff though lol).
I never really played, but maybe it would help some posters to imagine my blog as a sort of like a game of "mafia" and we're all in the role of socialists. We want everyone to be convincing in their portrayal because breaking immersion lessens the experience for everyone.
On February 02 2025 01:15 micronesia wrote: I guess I asked my questions in the wrong place, then. I don't belong in this discussion yet.
edit: I don't regret watching the video, though
I'm glad you watched it and like I said I don't have a problem with the questions in themselves. It's a framing/sincerity thing.
Democrats functionally supporting what they themselves identified as genocide was rationalized through framing. "The existing capitalist system is the framework we must use to stop Trump and within that system supporting genocide is the only option"
What we're doing here is changing the framing to a socialist system/worldview. Participants are engaging (they can have skepticism/questions/etc) from the premise that "A socialist system is the framework we will use to stop Trump/fascism". It's a lot easier to do if you already really believe it, but it isn't technically necessary to participate.
EPT
