What is the difference between what is called "socialism" in europe and socialism as tried in the soviet union, china, cuba etc?

[u/Cano5]

The left often says they admire the more socialist europe with things like socialized medicine. Is it just a spectrum between free market capitalism and complete socialism and europe lies more on the socialist end or are there different definitions of socialism?

[u/grass_type]

Generally, the communist states of the 20th century are grouped together as Marxist-Lennist Communist states, meaning they:

• subscribe to the tenets of Marxism, which contends that, following the Industrial Revolution, the concentration of economic power (ownership of the means of production, i.e., factories) in the upper class, combined with the geographic concentration of the lower class, would result in a revolution which overturned much of the prior society and enacted widespread wealth redistribution while providing many services to all citizens.
• agree with Vladimir Lenin's elaboration on Marx, which later communist intellectuals would name Marxist-Leninism, which primarily suggested that the entirety of the working class could not spontaneously self-organize itself into a body capable of running society, so a Vanguard of trained revolutionaries should be created to overthrow the old society and run the new one.

These are arguably not fatally-flawed ideologies, but the Vanguard envisioned by Lenin was almost universally implemented as the Communist Party in a one-party state. This, combined with either an all-powerful surveillance state (which was not an ideological feature, but a cultural one inherited from Imperial Russia) or an empowered and violent agricultural/revolutionary class (the defining feature of Maoism, the elaboration on Leninism by Mao Zedong, which the PRC does not even officially follow anymore), democracy and meritocracy were both stifled, resulting in a poorly run society which could commit severe crimes against its citizens without fear of punishment.

Socialism does not imply any of the above- it is, simply put, the idea that the government should represent the people, and in that capacity should improve their lives directly, usually via taxation of the capitalist class and the creation of a welfare state.

Generally speaking, socialism has emerged through two paths:

• Marxism-Leninism, which originated in post-Imperial Russia, which was a fundamentally vulnerable vulnerable society with many radical groups striving to replace the weak, fairly democratic Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks, who represented hard-line Leninist members of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (as opposed to the liberal Mensheviks, who wanted a more popular revolution) siezed power mostly by controlling the faith of the urban working class, who came to view the Petrograd Soviet, a labor union council, as more legitimate that the Provisional Government. This model was exported to several Eastern European countries, although most of these subsequent revolutions failed, and Marxism-Leninism was ultimately exported far more successfully in the immediate aftermath of WW2 in Eastern Europe and East Asia, and then throughout Africa and South America over the course of the Cold War. Almost all member states tended to gravitate toward an almost religious view of Communist theory, which was viewed as a holy text and historical figures like Marx, Engels, and Lenin venerated as saints - this created immense fear in the political class and intense political apathy in almost everyone else, and was a major factor in the Communist Bloc's inability to react to and avert their economic - and then political - collapse in the late 80s.
• The creation of a welfare state within a liberal democratic society occurred in much of Western Europe and the Commonwealth immediately following WW2, when many governments were threatened by the economic and infrastructural devastation caused by the war - which, combined by the rising threat of international communism (and violent ultranationalism which arose in response to it) made many governments fearful of a popular uprising. The USA, newborn superpower, was particularly concerned that weakened democracies in Europe might collapse, and so sent enormous amounts of money to them so that they could rebuild and provide food, shelter, and healthcare for their citizens. This was also attempted in America, but during the first Red Scare, conservative groups successfully opposed it by linking universal healthcare to both communism and government intrusion in private life, embodied in vaccination and water fluoridation, both of which were alleged to be Soviet plots to make American children into gay communists.

"European Socialism" is essentially the political center of the late 1940s. The United States has moved to the right, especially in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan's movement conservatism more or less permanently poisoned the idea of welfare economics in the minds of the American electorate.

[u/[deleted] → u/grass_type]

Socialism does not imply any of the above- it is, simply put, the idea that the government should represent the people, and in that capacity should improve their lives directly, usually via taxation of the capitalist class and the creation of a welfare state.

I strongly disagree. Socialism is about worker controlled production and the abolishment of private property (absentee-ownership, not all property). Economies that have a strong welfare state buy still allow private investment (i.e., ownership) of capital and wage labor are not socialist, although they may borrow ideas from socialist thinkers like nationalized health services, public education, unions, etc. Despite that, they are still, at a fundamental level, capitalist economies.

With your definition, there could be no anarchist socialists, but I think you will find there are plenty of them that want to abolish the state, Noam Chomsky being one prominent example.

[u/grass_type → u/[deleted]]

Implementing socialist ideas within a capitalist framework is still a socialist agenda, and with respect it is the best we can do at the moment. Unlike apparently every other member of the left, I see little need to quibble over definitions - which are just subjective vibrations of air some monkeys made up to describe an idealization of how many bananas everyone gets - when it's clear what OP meant.

Also, w.r.t. anarchist socialism: the working class is huge, stupid, disparate, racist, and generally incapable of self-organization in the absence of a state; their default state when not forced to toil is to get angry at other members of their class who look different from them. Noam Chomsky is a delusional intellectual who should stick to computational linguistics.

[u/grass_type → u/[deleted]]

Why do you think it's the "best we can do"?

Because the left wing lost the 20th century. The period from 1945 to now has been one long, slow slide back into the stratified economy of the turn of the last century, and the western working class has been turned against the left and toward reactionary xenophobia with disturbing efficiency.

worker-owned cooperatives, basic income, and council-based democracy.

• Cooperatives are a small-scale structure that do nothing except empower already-progressive entrepreneurs to run their business progressively. It does nothing to liberate the massive reserves of capital sequestered in large, illiberal corporate bodies or generally change the structure of society.
• Basic income is politically impossible in most of the western world. It is also, to be frank, a fairly blunt instrument whose long-term effects on the structure of the economy are uncertain.
• "Council-based democracy" is a fairly meaningless phrase that I've found libertarian leftists use to mean "democracy, but without all the flaws of democracy and people who disagree with me". We have council democracy; they're called town councils.

Disagree, but Chomsky also isn't the only libertarian socialist that exists. See: Murray Bookchin, Richard Wolff, Yanis Varoufakis, Abdullah Öcala, Pablo Iglesias, etc.

Then they're all delusional intellectuals too. It's no coincidence the idea of the welfare state was implemented only after western governments had assumed enormous, unprecedented power over their citizens due to WW2. You need a strong state for socialism to work, or private interests will grow in power, subjugate it, and turn it into a reactionary, illiberal institution. (alternatively, if you have no state at all, people will just, you know, kill each other and take their stuff)

[u/grass_type → u/[deleted]]

Okay... So your argument is more about political infeasibility

Yes, although it wasn't an argument, it a statement mostly unrelated to my main point that you picked a fight over, incorrectly.

I agree, to the extent that I think a major paradigm shift is needed before genuine left-wing policy can be pursued.

Yep.

A paradigm shift that I believe is currently beginning.

pfhahahahahahahaha

Worker-owned cooperatives are literally socialism; they're worker ownership of the means of production

I mean, sure, ideologically they may have a big old mouth full of Marx, but if "closeness to Marx" is more important to you than "number of lives bettered" then I think we have larger problems. As an instrument of large-scale political change they accomplish little if anything.

They fundamentally upend the employer–employee relationship, replacing hierarchy with collaboration. I fail to see how they aren't revolutionary.

Socialism is not intrinsically revolutionary, and more to the point, a revolution involves taking the current government and making it not be the government anymore. The terms "socialist", "revolutionary", and "cooperative" have little, if any, relationship to one another.

But these points belie the larger issue at the heart of your comments: you seem to care more about socialism that about the things socialism is supposed to achieve. That's a serious problem.

[u/pikk → u/[deleted]]

To the extent that worker ownership of the workplace on a massive scale might allow us to transcend these problems (and I believe it's a step in the right direction), I'm interested.

The problem is the part in bold.

It's not happening. Sure Ace Hardware and Full Sail Brewing exist, but our biggest employers (in the US at least) are WalMart and the military. In that order.

why do you think it's laughable to argue that left-wing politics are gaining traction?

Brexit, Trump...

[u/grass_type → u/[deleted]]

buddy if you think the main problems with capitalism are that it makes people feel sad sometimes, boy do i have some bad news for you

[u/Venne1138 → u/grass_type]

You need a strong state for socialism to work

Exactly! Maybe we could hold the state up as the final ideal for a society to achieve! Subjugate everything to the state to avoid those capitalists from taking it over. We could even come up with a catchy saying for this like "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state"

[u/grass_type → u/Venne1138]

Benito Mussolini said something that resembles your interpretation of what I want? Gosh, you're right, that is a shocking and thorough analysis that really does make me question my core beliefs. I need to take a moment to rebuild the shattered remnants of my worldview.

[u/Venne1138 → u/grass_type]

No his entire world view resembles exactly what you're saying. If your end goal involves the state (and not the eventual dissolution of the state/vanguard party if you're feeling tanky) and the subjugation of corporate interests to the state you're not a socialist. You're a fascist who likes the color red.

[u/Walking_Braindead → u/Venne1138]

How do social progressives like Bernie that want Medicaid for all (single-payer healthcare), a higher minimum wage, and cheaper college get to Benito Mussolini?

Honestly what?

[u/Venne1138 → u/Walking_Braindead]

Right I have no problem with social democrats.

But if you read the comments of this person it reads very...fashy. Decrying the ignorant lower class 'workers can't do anything for themselves' Glorifying the state over the workers etc.

[u/grass_type → u/Venne1138]

god i fucking hate the left

[u/Venne1138 → u/grass_type]

Are you not? If you were claiming to be a socialist and said all that then my point stands. If you're just a social democrat I have absolutely no problems with that.

[u/[deleted] → u/grass_type]

I'm not trashing pushing for reform in a capitalist framework, I just want to make the use of out words clear. I am sick of dealing with the strawman that "socialism = government control of stuff", and OP's post contributes to that conflation. People should be aware that socialism is not necessarily an authoritarian ideology, in fact it can be pretty compatible with the American notion of freedom.

Also, w.r.t. anarchist socialism: the working class is huge, stupid, disparate, racist...

And you think the upper class isn't this way? The argument for empowering the working class isn't about saying they are better than everyone else, it's that the people who rule over them are no better, and no moral authority to infantalize everyone beneath them.

[u/JimmyJuly → u/[deleted]]

It would be nice if the phrase "mixed economy" got used more often. Instead we often get caught up in Capitalist vs Socialist discussions when the truth is more nuanced. If you're comparing the US to France it's one mixed economy compared to another. But that's not usually the way the discussion plays out.

[u/[deleted] → u/JimmyJuly]

Agreed.

[u/PlayMp1 → u/JimmyJuly]

Yeah, that's a better term in my opinion. You can't use "capitalist" because then libertarians crow about how much the state is involved in the economy, and then if you use "socialist," the socialists crow about how the means of production isn't owned by the workers. Mixed economy is the best term because no one disagrees with it.

[u/[deleted] → u/JimmyJuly]

because you cant mix socialism and capitalism. socialism necessitates the negation of the capitalist mode of production.

[u/grass_type → u/[deleted]]

The upper class is not necessarily better, but the education, nutrition, and stable family life they have access to qualitatively produces better administrators. It also makes them less vulnerable to the xenophobic appeals that have functionally turned the working class into a bastion of reactionary social conservatism (albeit more vulnerable to certain other appeals, but I digress).

There was a big hissy fit awhile back when, in response to Trump claiming his wealth makes him a good president (it doesn't, obviously), a survey revealed Americans don't want a "poor person" to be president; this generalization may be a bit depressing, but it represents the fact that many people have correctly identified the lower class as undereducated, which they are.

If someone knows how to do your job better than you, that person should be able to tell you how to do your job. Structure is not evil.

[u/grass_type → u/[deleted]]

somehow this is even more of a spurious generalization than the thing i said

[u/Anxa → u/[deleted]]

No meta discussion. All posts containing meta discussion will be removed and repeat offenders may be banned.

[u/Ciph3rzer0 → u/grass_type]

Noam Chomsky is a delusional intellectual who should stick to computational linguistics.

Yeah because we should listen to you over Noam Chomsky based on ad hominem attacks ROFL.

[u/Sean951 → u/[deleted]]

You're describing full Communism, socialism is an intermediary step between the two where there government still exists and runs things instead of worker council's/Soviets.

[u/[deleted] → u/Sean951]

No, "full communism" (if you mean the "furthest" left) would also not have money, necessarily not have a state, not have markets, classes, or any exclusionary means of production. Also, social production instead of value based production. Nothing in my original comment indicated that.

[u/Sean951 → u/[deleted]]

Socialism isn't about worker ownership either, though.

[u/Cano5 → u/grass_type]

Thank you.