When exactly does the Democrats' socialism kick in?

[TruthNotBS]

Go away commie-bot, not interested.

So what if you're not interested, I'm not writing to you anyway. Are you that stupid that you think I'm trying to convince a person like you of anything? I do this for others, not repulsive pieces of shit like you.

 

[TruthNotBS]

You will still be asking the same question when your universal basic income, your universal basic religion, your universal basic health program, the universal basic comrade security evaluation, and your universal basic schooling for your universal basic child allotment kicks in. You will be transported to your universal basic Work Center to perform your universal basic assignments. And you will be happy.

If you respond to my posts and don't mention my nickname, I won't know you answered. Anyways, we communists are against the UBI or Universal Basic Income. Universal Incomes, given to everyone without working, is a capitalist ploy to keep capitalism on life support for a few more decades, maybe even another century or two. It's a way for capitalists to remain in power.

It's another government bailout for the rich.​

Eventually, the "universal income" results in a form of modern feudalism, what I call "techno-feudalism". The big money capitalists of today, will become the democratic communists of the future, among themselves, in their well secured, gated communities and the worthless former working-class or unproductive consumer-serfs, will be consigned to the compost heap. No one will own anything but the techno-lords, and everyone else relying on a government check or "Universal Income", will be renting and purchasing everything from their techlords. Gradually the former working-class will be dispatched through street crime, drugs, incarceration, pandemics, and wars.

You're for techno-feudalism, I'm for democratic-council socialism. In democratic council socialism, worker cooperatives produce everything in collaboration with their democratic government. The working-class takes control of the means of production, so that implies, that all of the mines, factories, banks, energy sector, utilities, production robots, artificial intelligence, and supercomputers, are publicly owned and rendered the American people's commonwealth. We own it together and manage it through our democratic government.

Your personal property is secured, as in your house, plot of land, vehicles, personal computers, gun collection..etc, whereas private property (property that is used to exploit other human beings for a profit), is prohibited and made illegal. Mass production is a social endeavor, not a private one, where people are exploited in a totalitarian regime, for the profit of a small wealthy, privileged class of parasite plutocrats, who own and control everything.

In democratic, American council-socialism, the working class (94% of the population) owns the means of production with all of its resources, collectively, as a "commonwealth". Your assumption that people won't have rights, or power over the government, nor the ability to choose what type of work they're going to do, is wrong. You're conveying a false caricature of democratic council socialism. Techno-feudalism, which is what you're advocating, whether you know it or not, is much worse than what I'm proposing.

Council-socialism's objective is to eventually eliminate the state apparatus, and empower the individual consumer to produce everything they consume and use, without anyone else's assistance or input. The individual is able to produce everything without state infrastructure or any other human being, helping them. That level of freedom and power can only come about through advanced technology, which will be developed through a democratic socialist system. The main objective of socialist production is to eventually empower the individual to produce everything themselves without the state or anyone else.

"A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes,[1] and ultimately money[6] and the state (or nation state).[7][8][9]

Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a more libertarian socialist approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and a more authoritarian vanguardist or communist party-driven approach through the development of a socialist state, followed by the withering away of the state.[10] As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum, communist parties and movements have been described as radical left or far-left.[11][12][note 1]

Variants of communism have been developed throughout history, including anarchist communism, Marxist schools of thought, and religious communism, among others. Communism encompasses a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, Leninism, and libertarian communism, as well as the political ideologies grouped around those. "

Source: Communism - Wikipedia

Before you shit on socialism or communism, at least know what you're shitting on. You're shitting on yourself. That's the great irony of a working-class bereft of class consciousness, completely brainwashed by their capitalist masters. They shit on themselves and their wealthy, powerful masters, love that. You fight against your own socioeconomic class interests. You shit on yourself.

Adam Smith the father of capitalism, wrote:

"What are the common wages of labor, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labor.

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen." (The Wealth Of Nations - Book I, Chapter VIII)

Your capitalist masters own you:

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And you love it. You love being owned and shitting on yourself.

​

 

[Flopper]

Democratic socialism is much better than capitalist plutocratic oligarchy and imperialism.



So-called "free markets" only exist in your imaginary, fantasy world, along with unicorns and fairies. Markets require government authorities to regulate them, protect contractual and property rights, provide infrastructure, and most importantly, a means of exchange, i.e. money (legal tender).

Worker and consumer rights are also protected by the government, along with providing social services that the public needs to mitigate the gross inequalities endemic to capitalism. This increases stability in society, reducing social unrest, which when ignored, undermines commerce and its markets.



You may not have the means to pay your bills after that "falling out" or find another employer (master) to hire you for three or six months or even longer. You lose all of your benefits, including your healthcare. etc. and may even be forced to move to another location. All of that costs money that most working-class people don't have. This is why all workers should at least be unionized and the government should protect their rights. This increases job security, avoiding the "falling out".

In a better world, which we should all aspire to create, those who work the productive enterprise (i.e. the business), should own and operate it together, collectively, running it democratically, without unelected, unaccountable leadership, authoritarianism, or human exploitation. The US government can through the SBA provide loans to workers who desire to start worker cooperatives.

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The ideal would be to implement a non-profit, markerless rationally planned, more democratic system of production, but cooperatives are a step closer to that from where we are now, hence i support them. It further empowers workers, by having them own the business collectively and run it democratically.



There are other parasite capitalist dictators you're correct but that's beside the point. The objective should be not to need or be under the heel of capitalist exploiters and to increase one's control and power in the workplace. The aforementioned cooperatives are one way for anyone to achieve that without exploitation or becoming a capitalist parasite tyrant.

Aspiring to become a capitalist parasite living off of the people's labor, isn't the solution. Self-employment, where it's just you or you and your family running the business, that's not necessarily a problem, that's generally OK. When you become dependent upon other people's labor, to enrich and empower yourself at their expense, that's when your source of income becomes exploitative and you become a scumbag leech and little tyrant.



Under capitalism, there's definitely just one game in town in the form of the capitalist ruling class you're forced to rent yourself to for a wage unless you're lucky enough to have the capital to become a parasite leech and little tyrant yourself. Is that really something to aspire for? To become a parasite, living off of other people's labor?



That's just cheap capitalist claptrap propaganda. The "gulag" exists right now here in the US, under capitalism, and people are being sent there regularly for what are essentially non-crimes. The private prison system has lobbyists in the halls of government bribing politicians to make more things illegal, to increase your chances of being charged and convicted of a "crime" and incarcerated in an American gulag full of murderous gangs. Dblack disingenuously mentions "gulags" creating the false impression that all socialism equates to Stalin's Soviet Russia as if there's no alternative. That's like me claiming that the only form of capitalism that exists is the one found in Saudi Arabia with its many beheadings and draconian laws.

Dblack has a nonchalant, flippant view of what it means for a working-class person to lose their only source of income (their job), as if it's something trivial. Over half of the country is living paycheck to paycheck, hand to mouth. Some current estimates are as high as 70% of the American working class, is struggling to survive, due to the high cost of living.

Losing your salary can entail becoming homeless and living in an emergency shelter surrounded by crackheads and violence, HIV, TB..etc. Have you ever slept in a homeless shelter before? I work with the homeless sometimes, through my church, and believe me homelessness is death. Horrible.

I met a young man not that long ago, who got into a fistfight with someone out in the street, over a camping spot, and he got infected with hepatitis as a result of getting the other guy's blood on his face and eyes. He still doesn't know if he was infected with HIV, because he has to wait and take another HIV test in a few months. That's what happens when you lose your job and you end up homeless. Unlike you, everyone doesn't have a daddy or mommy to take care of them, they have to survive on what they earn from their job. Under capitalism, losing your job because you had a "fall out" with your employer/master can result in a life-or-death situation.



Just because capitalism is better than chattel slavery or feudalism, doesn't imply that it is good or that we should continue with it, despite its destructive outcomes. Just like under chattel slavery, there were good slave masters who treated their slaves well, even making their slaves almost part of their families. There were cases of black slave women, nursing their master's white babies. Aunt Jemima, taking care of the white kids, all of that happened under slavery. Not all slave masters were evil bastards, some of them cared for, even loved their slaves. Does that imply that the institution of slavery is good? No.

Human beings shouldn't own other human beings, under chattel slavery, feudalism, or capitalism. The capitalist employer-employee relationship is an exploitative, often dehumanizing, authoritarian relationship that needs to be reformed or even better eradicated and replaced with democratic socialism.




You're for unelected, practically unaccountable authorities over you, in government and in the place where people spend most of their waking hours, the workplace because you're supposedly rational and I'm supposedly "irrational" for wanting elected, accountable authorities. Sure.





No, it doesn't. You were telling me that if I don't like my employer-tyrant's rules, I should go to hell and find myself another employer-dictator to work for and now you're demanding that the position or person who wins the majority vote isn't legitimately in force or in power until those who lost the election accept their defeat? You're confused. You go to hell, and accept the fact that most people in society don't agree with you. Perhaps you should do a better job presenting your case and convince others to adopt your politics. The majority rules within the parameters of the law.

The law stipulates that you have basic rights that can't be violated, even if the majority decides otherwise. In society only that which is within the law, can be voted on, not that which clearly violates the law. So for example, if there's an election on whether society should hang dblack from a tree for being pro-capitalism, or farting in public, that referendum or election would never reach the voting process. Society can't legally execute you for farting in elevators. Only that which is legal can be voted on. Get it? Your human rights are always protected, regardless of whether you hold the majority position or not. That's democratic socialism.




Government is limited by law and by the citizenry being armed, ready, willing, and able to defend their rights.

Communist economic policy directly resulted in low productivity, material and technology shortages, and insufficient food production and famine. This is not theory. Communism failed in Russia and the rest of the USSR, China, and North Korea. The reason for failure is intrinsic to communism. and it should be self-evident.

Some things I considered to be self-evident are: people care about themselves, their families and friends. They work to improve the lives of this 'inner circle'. Some people might care about strangers too, but usually not at the expense of this inner circle and not when they dislike those strangers and consider them undeserving/freeloaders.

When the results of your work are not funneled to your inner circle but put into a 'common bucket' and split equally, it decreases your motivation to work, especially when you see that people who contribute the bare minimum get to take from the common bucket just as much as you. That creates the incentive to work less because your reward from the common bucket will not get smaller if instead of working hard you do the bare minimum to avoid punishment and save the energy for your family or use it in a black market.

 

[TruthNotBS]

Communist economic policy directly resulted in low productivity, material and technology shortages, and insufficient food production and famine. This is not theory. Communism failed in Russia and the rest of the USSR, China, and North Korea. The reason for failure is intrinsic to communism. and it should be self-evident.

Some things I considered to be self-evident are: people care about themselves, their families and friends. They work to improve the lives of this 'inner circle'. Some people might care about strangers too, but usually not at the expense of this inner circle and not when they dislike those strangers and consider them undeserving/freeloaders.

When the results of your work are not funneled to your inner circle but put into a 'common bucket' and split equally, it decreases your motivation to work, especially when you see that people who contribute the bare minimum get to take from the common bucket just as much as you. That creates the incentive to work less because your reward from the common bucket will not get smaller if instead of working hard you do the bare minimum to avoid punishment and save the energy for your family or use it in a black market.

Firstly, your claim that "Communism failed in Russia, China, and North Korea" fundamentally misunderstands what communism is. True communism, as theorized by Marx, is a stateless, classless society where money becomes obsolete. The USSR, China, and North Korea never claimed to have reached this stage; they were socialist states, with the USSR being a federation of socialist republics.

USSR = Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Do you see the word "communist" there anywhere? No.​

These states identified themselves as socialist because they were in the early stages of moving toward communism, not because they had fully achieved it. Socialism comes in many different forms.

Your assertion that socialism results in low productivity, material shortages, and famine is also misleading and overlooks significant context. The Soviet Union transformed a backward, agrarian society with high illiteracy rates into an industrial superpower within a few decades, all while under constant threat from hostile capitalist powers. The US with the UK, France and 10 other countries, invaded Soviet Russia in 1918, right after WW1.


The famines you reference, while tragic, were largely the result of war, foreign intervention, and deliberate sabotage by powerful, well-established capitalist nations. It's also important to note that socialist countries, including the USSR, have often faced severe economic sanctions and embargoes imposed by capitalist powers like the United States. The US came out of WW2 practically unscathed compared to Soviet Russia and turned the US dollar into the world's reserve currency, forcing banks to support its foreign policies, along with their economic embargoes. These economic sanctions are designed to cripple socialist economies, making it even more challenging for these nations to achieve their economic goals.

Let’s not forget that under Tsarist rule, famines were a regular occurrence in Russia. It was socialism that finally began to address the chronic underdevelopment that had plagued the Russian people for centuries. By the 1970s, the USSR had the second-largest economy in the world, despite enduring enormous hardships during World War II, including the loss of 14% of its population and widespread destruction of its infrastructure.

You argue that socialism diminishes motivation because people's work isn't solely for their 'inner circle.' This is a shallow understanding of human motivation and ignores the fact that many people across the world work out of a sense of duty, community, and solidarity, not just personal gain. The idea that people are only driven by self-interest is a capitalist myth that overlooks the social and moral dimensions of human behavior.

Moreover, under socialism, especially in systems that allow for democratic control and worker ownership, the incentive to work is tied to the collective success of the enterprise, directly benefiting all workers involved. The "common bucket" you criticize is actually a system where those who produce the wealth get to decide how it’s distributed, rather than having it siphoned off by a capitalist class that contributes nothing while taking everything.

You also ignore that capitalism is rife with its own inefficiencies, waste, and exploitation. Under capitalism, vast amounts of human potential are squandered in low-wage jobs, unemployment, and underemployment, while a tiny elite hoards wealth and resources. Capitalism creates inequality, environmental destruction, and social instability. The private prison system in the U.S. is a prime example of how capitalism commodifies human life, turning the suffering of others into profit.

As for your suggestion that socialism leads to black markets and decreased motivation, I remind you that black markets and inefficiencies are rampant in capitalist systems as well. They result from any system where resources are unevenly distributed, not a flaw unique to socialism. In fact, many of the shortages and inefficiencies in the USSR and other socialist countries were exacerbated by economic sanctions, embargoes, and blockades imposed by capitalist nations, particularly the United States. These sanctions were designed to isolate and weaken socialist economies, making it even more difficult for them to thrive.

Finally, your nostalgia for capitalism ignores the fact that the system is unsustainable in the long run. As technology advances, particularly with automation and AI, the need for human labor is rapidly diminishing. Capitalism, which relies on wage labor for its very existence, cannot survive in a world where human labor is no longer necessary. This is why socialism and, eventually, communism are not just preferable but inevitable as the next stage of human development.

So, Flopper, before you continue to parrot tired capitalist talking points, consider the full picture. The failures you attribute to socialism are often the result of capitalist sabotage, the challenges of transitioning from a feudal or capitalist system, and the resistance of entrenched elites. Socialist countries have shown tremendous resilience and achieved significant progress despite facing immense external pressures, including economic sanctions and embargoes. With modern technology, the potential for a more just, equitable, and sustainable society under socialism is greater than ever.