Why I'm Not a Socialist
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- Опубликовано: 19 окт 2024
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--David explains why he isn't a socialist, but rather a social democrat, including a brief history of modern socialism, Marxism, Leninism, and more
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Broadcast on July 16, 2018
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Capitalism for things that people want and socialism for things that people need.
Everything is stuff people need. Communism just means there's no bosses. The idea isn't "equalizing" money, the idea is getting rid of wage labor and boss/worker exploitative relationship
I believe a drawing made with your own feces would have made more sense.
Huzaifa Ahmed how would that look practically speaking. How would the businesses look how would the communities work in relation to immigration and globalization and international businesses
When exactly did socialism get anyone what they need? Anyone except those in power.
please have a conversation one on one with someone from the old USSR and see how life really was, no hope, no future, no quality of life, despair...while you are at it have a talk with someone from Venezuala or Cuba
I live in Norway and we have a well functioning social democracy.
The state provides for basic needs of people like education and healthcare.
There is definitely a free market economy but it has to play by rules laid down by the people.
Workers rights are important and most workers are protected by rules and strong unions from being exploited by companies operating in the free market.
Norway is a class act
Same goes for Finland, Denmark and Sweden. But we need to watch out for the far right that wants to destroy it to keep all the money.
Now why can’t we just do that in America? Seems like common sense to me.
Actually, Norway and all Scandinavian countries are Capitalist Democracies. Democracy offers social protection because the people vote for it. Social Security is hated by the 1% and corporate bribers, but FDR knew he had to save capitalists from themselves or accept that America is a
F eudalist
A merican
R epublic of
C orporate
E ntities or F.A.R.C.E. Only American media monopolies call Europeans socialist because they hate democracy.
And (this is VERY important), prisons and the prison system should not have any profit motive. It boggles my mind that we have a for-profit prison anywhere in the USA. Is that not absurd?!
Yes you are certainly correct.
Well said. It’s insane that the USA can call itself a first-world country while making a profit off of locking up our citizens
This but with literally everything
@@b.o.b.2000
First world country literally means America and the american sphere, russia/china and their spheres are the second world and the rest such as sweden and Switzerland are the third world
@@supereero9 if u Google second world countries the US pop up
I would love to see a debate between David and Richard Wolff on socialism vs social democracy
You are a really sadistic guy to wish such a beating upon David.
Kevin Michael i see what you did there
Pakman would get his ass kicked within two minutes.
John, if he's debating economics he would.
David can’t win that debate because he doesn’t know enough about the subject but would enjoy to see him speak to Michael Hudson too.
Venezuela is a poor example of why socialism leads to authoritarianism, because Venezuela was an authoritarian, illiberal democracy before it was socialist. Chavez and Maduro never overturned Venezuela's corrupt and illiberal political institutions; they wielded them themselves.
It's not even socialist. Workers don't own the means of production.
There's actually no good example of large-scale socialism.
Artful Dodger what about everything else.. his arguement didn't hinge only on Venezuela
+You Don't Say Having study these in this case is the problem. He is too hung up on the labels when it's the details in implementation that matters. Who the fuck cares whether someone call you marxist, socialist or commie. What matters is the specific details of implementation, what is involve, such as universal healthcare etc. Those label are use whenever someone wants to dismiss a discussion without ever going into details.
Bill
His critiques on state socialism are correct, but he fails to consider the various shades of socialism, such as anarcho-syndicalism, council communism, etc. I can't be fucked to go back and rewatch the video to address each point he makes, but he seems to believe democracy can exist in a capitalist system. Mind you, capitalism is a system of winners and losers (ie. a hierarchy.) It's quite obvious that this leads to class divisions, an uneven playing field in which those at the top become the architects of society. The result is a passive democracy, in which we participate as consumers, choosing option A or option B. A true democracy would be the people crafting those legislations in the first place. It becomes clear that true democracy cannot exist within a capitalist system.
This alone should set the record straight, but I'm horrible at explaining things. Do read into these schools of thought. You might disagree with them, but they make excellent critiques on capitalism.
""Contrary to the claims on all sides, it (Venezuela) was not a socialist government. The rich were left free to enrich themselves, capital was free, and wage labour continued. There were reform measures, but nothing like socialism"" - Noam Chomsky on Venezuela, May 2019.
To make the argument that socialism is inherently authoritarian, you are assuming that socialism can only be enforced from the top down but actually, according to Marx, it follows capitalism as the workers inevitably become disenfranchised by having no democracy at the workplace while the the profits of their labour go to the owner class (economic exploitation): so it is rather from the ground up. What socialism means is worker control over the means of the production, not equality of outcomes. That's why the Mondrogon Corporation in Spain caps pay differences between executives and workers at 8:1, which allows for wealth differences capped at a reasonable level. And when the workers have a democratic say in the decision making process in the workplace, that doesn't have have to be enforced from the top down because it is in the worker's interests to push for a system where they have a democratic say at work and are payed much closer to their economic output.
Lenin, a political pragmatist, deviated from traditional Marxists in that he wanted to lead the ""revolution"" in Russia, when most Marxists believed it would happen at the end stage of industrial capitalism, Germany. So using authoritarian Leninism as an example of how socialism is inherently authoritarian is absurd because anyone who knows anything about Marxism or the history of the Russian revolution knows that Lenin didn't get along with the Mensheviks, didn't follow Marx in terms of the timeline, actively destroyed peasant coops after seizing power (the opposite of socialism), and even introduced a mixed market economy at one point. Basically Lenin cloaked himself in the popularity of socialism to capitalise in mass worker discontent and parlayed that into seizing power in Russia. So you use the term Leninist and Socialist interchangeably because you don't really know much about the history and have bought into the propaganda of the US framing the Soviets as socialist and the Soviets framing themselves as socialist, but for different reasons. So both Venezuela and SU were not socialist.
I always wondered why Banon calls himself a leninist if he is against socialism
Colin Murphy You beat me to it. I guess if he thinks that nationwide regulations capping CEO profits are enough to qualify a country as authoritarian, he’d be logically consistent. But then he’d have to argue that virtually any top down federal law is authoritarian, right? I wish he would define what he means by “authoritarian”.
IT WAS NOT TRUE SOCIALISM, GUYS!!!
THIS TIME IT WILL WORK, PROMISE!!
Bravo! Well said!
Agree
I just left a comment saying pretty much the same thing
tRump did one good thing. He has upset me soooo much that I have been forced to learn more about government than I ever thought I would. Thx David for the education.
Same here!
I’m sure trumps term accidentally pushed a ton of people leftwards, even radicalizing people
yes, same here, learning lots from David about American politics as a result of rump, I am Canadian, but don’t really have any interest in our politics 🤔
more like uneducation
@@sometimesicuss6696 Sweden is not a socialist country But Valdimar Lenin was a social Democrat All socialist countries became a disaster
"The top response I got from people in the audience, except from trolling"
Say the names and I'll send them to gulag
Hi Daddy
David Ilea also criminals, gulags were regular prisons
David Ilea And Jews, Intellectuals, political opponents etc...
David Ilea--Joe murdered millions of people. And you are defending him because....?
Fleur Bandito Joe KILLED millions for being bourgeois counter revolutionary
I love your show David, however “socialism is authoritarian”, but then you go on to mention anarchism/libertarian socialism...there are several types of socialism, some authoritarian and some libertarian, you should know that since that is what you are discussing here and avoid painting with such a large brush.
And the reasons why modern ”libertarians” had a similar starting place in relation to anti-government, with anarchism is because the term “libertarian” was co-opted by the right. Libertarian was a left wing term, referring to libertarian socialism (such as anarchism). Not unlike countless other left wing terminology that’s been hijacked and co-opted by right wing forces.
The whole "authoritarian/libertarian" divide isn't even a valid distinction to me. All systems that exist in reality will be at least somewhat authoritarian. The extent to which they are is generally determined by material conditions. For example, if your nation is in a civil war, you'll be much more authoritarian than you would be during a peacetime, or dealing with a population that generally doesn't oppose your rule. You can see this divide in capitalism. Fascism is when capitalism is in crisis and so it becomes authoritarian to maintain itself. Liberal social democracy is the opposite end. It still maintains the ruling class using force, but because of the passivity of the population, and military domination of potential enemies, it's possible ot be more libertarian. Both ideologies represent the same class and the same system, but its tactics are adjusted for the material conditions. The same goes for socialism. Early stage socialism which is under siege, will be authoritarian no matter how "libertarian" the ideology says it is.
But David's whole argument is completley ridiculous. His argument is basically that any form of socialism will be maintaining the rule of the working class, keeping the capitalist class in check, and therefore it's authoritarian. Of course the same is true of capitalism. How does he think property rights are maintained in capitalism? Police, military, prisons, laws, that's the only way that such a small minority of people can rule over the majority. Capitalism is necessarily more authoritarian than all forms of socialism.
@@AllHaiLKINGTIsHeRe3 I dont agree. First all government needs some level of authority, true. Authoritarian System means a country is organized top down, the government thinks it knows best and people have to follow. A democratic system is organized from bottom to top, when the people are not happy with the government, they will change it to another one.
Fascisms is when somebody defines an enemy of the people, be it inside or outside of the nation - it needs a we and a them and then a crisis is there or made up. The ressources are short, we don't like to do it but we need that land in the north f.e.. Of course it is authoritarian. The crisis do not need to touch the economic system, it can be anything that endangers "us".
Social democracy is a capitalist economy with some social welfare. On the other end we see the so called "Manchester capitalism". In a social democracy how much of social welfare is constantly haggled out between all parts of the society and the elections give the direction. Of course that is easier, when you have a proportional representation with a couple of parties with different directions.
Socialism means the state controls all production no production in the hands of private people except a garden, a restaurant or a salon about. Communism you get when it is authoritarian and totalitarian. Where the government controls everything, does not trust the own people and spies on everybody. There is no real difference between the both it goes automatically to the second stage.
Nope, in a real socialist system you dont have capitalists only managers with the ok of the political system.
You might also have an authoritarian system that controls the people but lets capitalists work as long as they dont interfere with politics so as in china and russia this time. They are both not socialists or communists now but strictly authoritarian.
Ah, no. In the US capitalism there are laws, there is division of power. So to some extent it is equal rights for all and control of the power by the people. I must admit that i have some doubts about the today US system. The elections seem strange, candidates are mostly chosen by the biggest donor of money aka the one with the most money in the back wins. 95 to 99% of the people dont seem to be represented in congress. To me it seems to be more a representation of capital. The voting system only allows de facto two parties that can not represent the whole spectrum of opinions of the people. Of course what the elected representatives decide has to be put in action and therefore you need authority - as any government.
So, yes, i see room for improvement in the USA. That there is some kind of discomfort in the US society i can see for some years already but the best way out of it i can not tell.
@@mweskamppp First of all, no offense, but Wikipedia is not a good source for the definition of ideologies. Almost all ideologies use some kind of us vs. them propaganda, not just fascism. There's a lot more to fascism than authoritarianism and us vs. them. It's anti-communist first and foremost. It's nationalistic, racist, anti-democratic, pro-capitalist, etc. And communism is not when the state spies on people or whatever.
But more importantly, I think you're missing my entire point. I'm not saying there are no differences in these systems. What I'm saying is that they all share one commonality between them, which is that they're all class systems. Liberal democracy, social democracy, and fascism, are systems with the capitalist class in charge. And each of those systems is capitalism adjusted for different material conditions. The scale of authoritarianism or libertarianism changes according to what is necessary for the capitalists to stay in power.
Socialism doesn't have as diverse a record in the real world, but just like capitalism, it would become more or less authoritarian according to what needed to be done. Look at how authoritarian the Soviet Union was during the civil war, and then they became more liberal as time went on, even though they were always under siege. Look at Cuba in the 50s vs. Cuba today. Clearly they've become more libertarian, because material conditions have changed somewhat, and the ruling class (the working class) is able to relax its tactics.
@@AllHaiLKINGTIsHeRe3 I tried to get the core of the things, there is always more to the picture. No, fascism does not need to be antikommunist and pro-kapitalist although the nazis were antibolshewik. The nazis were also sceptic towards the US way of capitalism. Mr Goebbels f.e. was a socialist and fan of russia, only the personality of Mr Hitler made him follow that direction. Yes the fascists need necessarily the division between us and them, a clear enemy and a crisis being real or made up with propaganda. That can be race, political system whatever. There is no clear definition of fascism but try the 14 points that define fascism by Umberto Eco.
There is the communist ideal of a paradise with flying unicorns that fart rainbows that never existed and never will. What the USA called communism was always what i described, a socialist country with totalitarian government that spied on its own people. The today russian and chinese systems kept the spying on the own people thing. I dont know about cuba.
Oh, i know that definition from some social models and in the UK society for example social science defines 7 classes. It is not that clear in other countries. All those systems define a set of rules for keeping itself stable and the rules are flexible. In some countries the upper class has an overproportional influence on the lawmakers in others not. In some countries you have the majority of lawmakers from the upper class or payed by the upper class in others not. (i define the upper class as the top 1% of wealth) In my country we have an overproportional amount of lawmakers with academic education but parties that are company friendly and parties that are more worker friendly and some nationalists some greens some liberals. None of them have the absolute majority in the parliament, they need to find a coalition to have a majority and then elect a government on that basis. Yes its changing and companies try with more or less success to take the rudder. The partys have a program and for the coalition they have to find out what points they want to keep at all cost and what they can live without. Of course the poeple have extra influence over their local representative in parliament, by demonstration or petitions by ngos like churches, Unions, Companies. Sometimes the influence of companies are regarded as too big. We have limits for how much is spent for election campaigns and funding but we also know the revolving door between parliament and companies. There is some measures to put a brake on, like one year pause between political office and job in a corporate but its difficult. The argument is that the ex-lawmakers get a nice pension anyway.
The soviet and cuba system reacted on the pressure from outside same as the USA but also from inside, its a flexible system in all worlds. Stalin was as totalitarian as Hitler, probably more crazy. It might surprise you that stalin is seen in russia relatively positiv as the one who brought industrialization and education. When your information system penetrates all society you have the control and don't need much force. Except some gulags for unruly people and for some others just out of spite to keep the others in fear to be the next.
For "socialist" companies look for Mondragon, the seventh biggest spanish corporation. 80000 employees. Most own a minimum of 15000Euro share of the company many have a bigger share. They elect their own bosses, even the CEO. The CEO has only 8 times the salary of a worker. It is a quite successful company the workers are interested that the company flourishes. It acts on the markets as any other company. There are others so as the swiss Coop that is slightly different organized.
@@AllHaiLKINGTIsHeRe3 I agree with you here, I think that social democracy is still enslaving the working class to the upper class because it's still capitalist. The better alternative is to give the means of production to the workers and democratize the workplace for equality. Socialism inherently is more free and less authoritarian than capitalism because of this.
"Social ownership is any of various forms of ownership for the means of production in socialist economic systems, encompassing public ownership, employee ownership, cooperative ownership, citizen ownership of equity, common ownership and collective ownership."
- This isn't inherently authoritarian
@Leonard Weisfeld Says who? Even right now there are worker co-ops in whatever society you live in. Are they controlled by the government? Nope. Is it necessarily the case that if worker coops were more common they'd be government owned? Not unless the government decides to nationalize everything, which is completely unrelated from the discussion of worker co-ops.
History shows the vanguard party after communist revolutions usurp power of the working class into state power. So anarcho-communism and even communism in general hasn't been achieved, but rather a command economy.
I am not either David. I am, however, a Social Democrat :) Long live Bernie Sanders and the Nordic model!
Zachary Xavier Long live Donald Trump
Ben Mangrum Booo.
Ben Mangrum with that shitty tv I'd be mad too
I’m very attracted to social democracy but I can’t get past the mostly homogenous constituency in the nordic states as well as population size
the nordic model needs slavery to survive
David I know you will probably never read this seeing I am late to this video but I wanted to write this anyway.
I am a libertarian socialist or anarchist.
Regarding anarchism you say that you see no evidence of eliminating government being the solution. But anarchism is NOT about eliminating government, it is about demanding that systems of power justify themselves. If they can't Anarchism demands they should be replaced by something more just and democratic.
You also say Venezuela is an authoritarian state and from authoritarian system no egalitarian self determining society will emerge and this is true. You also use this point to justify one reason why you are not a socialist. But this is confusing authoritarian socialism with libertarian socialism. Each has distinct theoretical roots emerging out of the workers movement in the 19th century culminating in the split between Bakunin on the libertarian side and Marx and Engels on the authoritarian side. This division broke up the 1st international of the 1860's.
By the 20th century this division was physical, the Spanish revolution on the libertarian side and any number of state socialist regimes on the other, Soviet, Chinese, or Venezuelan. It is worth noting that Marx probably would have been horrified by the physical creation of his ideas but that is an aside.
My point is that you must test your insinuation that socialism always leads to authoritarianism against the libertarian wing of socialism, that means the Spanish revolution. This revolution entirely re-organised agricultural and factory life along egalitarian lines, in rural and urban areas across much of Spain, all done by ordinary people. This happened WHILE fighting a war against the Spanish fascists, Nazis and other external forces seeking to undermine these normal peasants and workers who successfully took and held the means of productions, on mass, for nearly a year before being defeated by force.
There was nothing Utopian about revolutionary Spain, as Chomsky points out, quoting those who witnessed it, it was a 'sharing of poverty' not wealth.
You're right that the political right hates looking at Sweden, but have you ever heard the left talk much about Revolutionary Spain. If there is anything most 'respectable' people can agree on, its that ordinary people are a 'mindless mob', 'always at our throats'. Therefore, such people tend to agree its best to bury any example in history of them successfully organising on a mass scale regardless of what political spectrum you come from.
And anarchism has to be countered on more than just the Spanish example because Anarchism, being a moral ideal is not just about outcomes but also methods. It is any movement that is decentralised, autonomous, spontaneous, based on mutual aid, mutual defence and co-operation. It can therefore be said to embody much of the labour movement, environmental movement, LGBTQ, black and indigenous rights, feminism and so on. These are things I know you support, any decent and sane person does.
I haven't seen real evidence that these movements are achieved because of social democratic governments. When I read history I am constantly reminded that they are achieved in spite of them. The 5 principles from the Swedish Social Democratic party embody the classical liberal ideals of equality and democracy which as Rocker points out are 'wrecked upon the realities of capitalist economic forms'.
An anarchist society in the US is not guaranteed but NOT impossible, and given the literal existential threats we are sailing into full speed ahead because of capitalism, it is desperately needed now more than ever before.
That is why I am a libertarian socialist.
Excellent response comrade. I've enjoyed David for quite some time but this video is full of Liberal Capitalist Propaganda. Its a shane, too, as David strikes me as very intelligent.
drives me nuts when folks think "socialism" = massive, violent state. Libertarian Socialism describes the most democratic processes we're capable of.
@@restarthistory Yeah I couldn't agree more
Cam I have been thinking along these lines as well. And I am in fear of authoritarian socialism. Take Hillary Clinton for example she serves capitalist authoritarian interests and had some progressive platforms and some social justice rhetoric. A whole segment of the Democratic Party were blind to her authoritarianism. If we get more Bernie Sanders we will likely get more Clinton's who will try to compete with Sanders ideas by advocating a tiny bit of economic social solutions and some authoritarian social justice.
If Kamala Harris becomes the democratic candidate she would resemble this very well. People will blindly vote for and bring authoritarian social justice.
However if we look at Thomas Jefferson's ideas of how we should interpret "promote the general welfare" without government overreach and greater self rule, you get closer to something which would be social libertarian.
For example Jefferson outlined what a public education system should look like. The federal government can supply the funds through taxation for the creation of schools, but the communities themselves should have all the power providing the education. He promoted rational guidelines of how to educate but people did not need to follow those guidelines.
He even said families have the right not to be educated.
While Kamala Harris set up a system that fined and imprisoned truant children and their families. Which was grotesque government overreach and authoritarian. Harris also is a big advocate of implicit bias which is a very dystopian perspective.
The point is libertarian principles that protect individual liberty combined with socialist ideas that help reduce social inequalities is for me the only direction to go.
Nice to find this here
Capitalism: Pakman owns the channel, Pat gets fired if he asks for a raise.
Social Democracy: Pakman gives Pat a little more money, tells him the government should pay for his dental insurance.
Socialism: Pakman and Pat are co-owners of the channel, and do major changes to it by mutual agreement.
philpott kentucky yeah he really needs to dive into the democratic underpinnings of socialism
Except that in scenario two he would also pay more taxes so that the government can ensure that everyone has proper insurance including dental care, not just the ones who happen to be lucky enough to be in a job.
Honestly, Social Democracy has so far been the most successful model of them all. Not just in terms of stability but above all in terms of living standards and health of the population. And if the whole world would implement the system, it would be even better, because than there wouldn't be any tax havens.
Also with no currency most likely if we did have it, it would be labor vouchers. in a statless society everyone would work for each other, thus abolishing the need of currency.
In your "capitalist" example Pakman and Pat could still be co-owners. But if they are not, what process would make Pat a co-owner of the channel under "socialism" that would be just?
LSD-25 That is a pipe dream in the U.S. My local anarchist chapter(like minded people) can't agree on small issues like wether to kick out sexual harassers or to shield them. A stateless U.S. would be an absolute disaster.
Socialism doesn't necessitate authoritarianism, and it doesn't necessitate absolute equality regardless of competence. Those seem to be your two main arguments against socialism, and I think many socialists disagree with both. The old Marx quote "to each according to their ability" kind of shreds this false notion that socialists desire absolute equality of outcomes regardless of competence or effort.
Simon Jon you’re exactly right. Socialism can exist without intervention of the state
No only capitalism exists without state intervention, and it does take quite a bit of authority to tax people higher than what they want to be taxed
Ryan Bolin socialism isn’t inherently taxation. And without intervention capitalism collapses because greed runs freely
@@treyblakeandrew True, the only other way to spread the wealth around is to actually seize the means of production and seize control of businesses.
Ryan Bolin which doesn’t have to be done by the government. Co-ops can also run a business democratically
Tell me you don't know what socialism is without saying you don't know what socialism is
You like Bernie sanders? You do realize socialism never worked.
“you like bernie sanders”
lmaoooooo TELL ME YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT SOCIALISM IS WITHOUT SAYING IT
Considering every socialist experiment in history have turned into authoritarian shitstates he’s 100% on-point. It doesnt matter what socialism is ”supposed” to be in theory if it just goes to shit in reality.
Tell me you're ignoring your ideology is a failed ideology without saying it.
@@Ggaia-d9zdescribe the meaning of “failed” in this context lmao because I can guarantee under your logic capitalism is a much worse failure
Why does Parkman continue to ignore the worker cooperative model? We do not have to hand all power to the state. Cooperatives are privately and collectively owned and run by the workers of the cooperative. I like Pakman but he has to do a deeper dive on the topic.
Because he is Petite Bourgeoisie. David wants nothing more than to be the Next Ted Turner.
He's surface level, if you wanna hear people talk about that you gotta go to people like Professor Richard Wolff. David has had him on the show before but there was never any discussion of Marxism.
Honestly can't believe people still think capitalism can be regulated, as if we haven't already done that before with the predicted results as the capitalists still had control of the economy. Trying to put a band-aid on a system driven to endless growth and expect the capitalist class to make concessions isn't good enough. The point isn't to ask the king to be more benevolent, it's to get rid of him.
How's that worked for Venezuela?
Stop with the Venezuela strawmans, they're the laziest right wing non-arguments out there. How did capitalism work for India in the 50's? Or how about Chile? Or how about Russia in the 90s when it was largely driven back into the third world during the period of the capitalist reforms?
See, what I like about David is that he talks about this stuff in a really... peaceful way. He doesn't inflame passions unnecessarily.
feelings ai... ya you lot LOVE yourt feelings, unfortuantely the facts dont care about your feels homie!
Cause he is a soft soy boy.
One major problem with Social democracy, ignoring the injustices of capitalism, is that even if an excellent fair soceity is implemented, it can always be reversed. The reversal from socialism to Capitalism is much harder because they are fundamentally different economic systems so its much harder to slide backwards.
Socdem is not socialism. We want a mixed market economy and a democratic government which put emphasis on social services and welfare programs. It is still fundamentally capitalist. Just in a way, regulated
Surprise, it's called democracy. Sorry, but no dictatorships. Where is the Soviet Union today again? Meanwhile Sweden is still standing. And Canada and the UK still have universal healthcare after conservatives took power there. Social democratic policies are popular, unlike your violent Marxist-Leninist revolutions.
@@llllllllllllllIIIIIIIIIIIIII you are litteraly stupid. Sweden is still standing because It is not a threat to global capitalism like the Soviet union was. And also, "Scandinavian social democracy" has the basis of its wealth in imperialism and exploitation of the global south. Healthcare is not socialism and doesn't make capitalism less of a bad system, we have healthcare in Italy, UK and many other capitalist countries but the living conditions of the working class are still shit
@@atharvanargund Capitalist Democracies are what all of the top-scoring countries on the Democracy Index are. They also score tops on the Press Freedom Index vs USA's 55th place.
Libertarian Socialism isn't authoritarian
business and the private sector run amuck isn't authoritarian?????? no regulations and no cop on the beat to watch the vulture capitalist is ok then????
Dragon Monkey D. Nor is Anarchism.
@@MichaelAU-AG Libertarian socialism is not libertarianism, it's instead similar to anarcho-communism.
Michael You confused anarcho-capitalism with left libertarianism. Right wingers hijacked the term libertarian from us and now it means anarcho-capitalist instead of anarcho-communist.
@@MichaelAU-AG Not "Libertarianism," that right-wing dreck. We're talking about Libertarian Socialism, which is Left-Libertarian. They have no capitalists at all where the economy is planned democratically. It's actually something that can be done quite effectively with a digital democracy, as individual needs can be sent in on an app, and the logistical economy can be set to plan itself based on a map of the economic infrastructure and its capabilities. In such a way, we can plan our economy far more efficiently than ever before, and private-sector beaurocracy will no longer interfere.
ive never heard of a country talk more about socialism more than americans do
Jason Fisher you make it sound like people die because the healthcare is universal in Canada. Sounds like a non sequitur.
Cold War
@Jason Fisher
According to Harvard, 45,000 people die per year from preventable causes due to lack of insurance in the USA.
We pay considerably more per person than Canadians for healthcare, half of all bankruptcies are from medical bills.
So we let people die and go bankrupt. Spiffy.
@Jason Fisher Millions of Americans die every day because they can't afford the overly expensive and downright shitty American healthcare.
Because there are a lot of idiots in this country who act like they know what socialism is, but actually have no idea
I agree that an authoritarian society is always bad, but I don’t think democratic socialism has to be authoritarian
How do you get there without oppressing people?
@@peoples2296 How do you get capitalism without oppressing people? There is a difference between authoritarianism and "no opression". You always have to surpress the freedoms of some for the freedom of others. Easiest example: The state doesn`t grant you the freedom to murder people, so technically, you are being oppressed. But that ain`t authoritarianism, is it? So tl;dr: you don`t, because that`s what a government does.
@@ohnen6426 explain how capitalism oppresses people. The best places to live have always been capitalist. The countries that try to turn socialist end up as shitholes.
The best countries have been mixed capitalist economies with welfare.
@@peoples2296 The question has nothing to do with quality of live, so cut the second part. To explain my point: capitalism works by protecting peoples private property. If i steal from you, the state is going to exert power over me. Thereby, thiefs are, under capitalism, oppressed. Is that a bad thing? No, being stolen from limits my right to personal property. Is it authoritarianism? Most certainly not. To sum up(again): Opression of certain people, however minor, is part of any political system, that doesn`t mean any politic system is authoritarian. Just from a theoretical perspective. Wasn`t supposed to argue for either economic system to be more or less oppressive. Maybe we just use different definitions of oppression, so i`ll give you mine: Oppression is(imo) the limitation of someones freedom. So basically, anyone is oppressed, just more or less, and sometimes justified. I know that the official definition involves that the limitation has to be unfair to count as oppression, but really, "unfair" is subjective, and while you may think that certain punishments are justified, if enough people disagree, then to them it is oppression. And the other way around: If someone decided that the means to reaching, in this example, democratic socialism are justified, then it wouldn`t be oppression to them. And since democratic socialism is usually a reformist position, they would necessarily have the majority agree that it`s not oppression. That`s why i dislike that definition. Edit: So, what i was dressing wasn`t capitalism opressing people, though that point can be and has been made, but rather that the government needs to oppress people to maintain capitalism, or rather any system really.
@@ohnen6426 your description of oppression is ludicrous.
I'm a Social Democrat of the mind "capitalism for luxury, socialism for utility". We've seen that capitalism can be good for motivating people, and for drawing energy to fashion products and industries that don't provide immediate *need*, but provide tremendous individual happiness/fulfillment -- see sports, video games etc.
I also I think we've seen over-centralization via nationalization of industry creates market bottlenecks, reducing market responsiveness, and opens the door for corruption of industry by the State.
I am open to a syndicalist conception of worker co-ops & "means of production" ownership, whereby there's board leadership with representation from all the workers that have majority stake in decision-making, e.g. excess profits more likely go toward better wages and benefits or company reinvestment, vs. stock buy-backs and shareholder profit taking.
I do have some questions though about this model:
1. Are there multiple firms/syndicates within one industry that are "competing" with one another, e.g. worker-owned Nike, Reebok and Adidas competing with one another on price/product quality?
2. What’s the maximum tax-rate Govt should be allowed to charge these worker co-ops, if Gov't isn't already a separate investor/lender to the organization
3. If Gov't *is* a separate investor of sorts, what’s the maximum level of ownership Govt should be allowed in relation to the worker ownership?
What are your thoughts today?
Young people like David Pakman give me hope for the future.
Really ? Not me, THEY are only useful idiots until the propaganda machine steers the public over the target, then by by Yahoo useful idiots and breed in the slave class that had no knowledge of truths, rights and freedoms !
aunt jenifer Go bake a pie or something, Aunt Jen. Blow me.
aunt jenifer you do realize that the majority of the working class or as you call it the “slave” class currently uses their misunderstanding of the ideologies and doctrines of economics against their own interests? This has lead to the US being pulled further and further right over the years instead of towards an uncompromising standard of living that democratic socialism has earnestly provided towards non-authoritarian governments. You’re pretty much saying that the working class is going trip on it’s own ignorance while it has long since tripped and fallen into the pile of shit that is modern US politics.
how you feeling now?
Why I am confused, distraught, and inordinately depressed at this current moment, is your capacity to not explain your point. If, in any capacity, you did, I would have a better understanding of your ridiculous claim(which you should know it is), and for which I think is retarded on many levels. If you want your viewpoints to be heard not as a joke, then please explain your claims in detail.
"I'm not socialist because an egalitarian self-determining free society is not an authoritarian apparatus" is a complex way of saying "I don't like apples because blue is not yellow". Talking about totally different things but treat them as if it's implicated.
"I'm not a socialist because I don't believe an egalitarian self-determining free society can develop from an authoritarian apparatus" - this is what was actually said or closer to what was said. Saying an egalitarian self-determining free society isn't an authoritarian apparatus, wasn't David's reasoning.
While I understand what David was trying to get at, his syntax (wording) was imprecise and awkward.
I can think of far more clear and accessible ways of communicating what David was trying to say.
All systemic ideas that descended directly or indirectly from Marxism are illiberal, in the classical liberal sense, and MUST extensively restrict or eliminate personal rights and freedoms to be able to function.
Yes, it's true!
Why? Because most people want to have control over their own lives.
But because the Marxist descendants arguably over prioritize social rights (social justice), when push comes to shove, any individual rights and civil liberties must be sacrificed and treated as deadly threats to the collective society.
For the same reason why religions are so harmful, despite aspiring to teach high moral standards and lofty ideals, Marxists derived ideologies and systems despise freedom, choice, and control over one's own life.
There is, however, a legitimate role/place for carefully undertaken, classically liberal, moderate progressive-liberal social programs. Care needs to be taken in the way these programs are structured so that they don't inadvertently reward over dependence on the government or discourage people's personal efforts to succeed and thrive.
Even then, progressivism has the potential to run off the tracks and become increasingly burdensome, especially to small business owners and some others.
I realize that my argument may be too nuanced for some people and make them feel uncomfortable. Hopefully, however, readers will consider what I have said and learn from it.
Cheers! 🤗
Socialism doesn´t necessarily lead to authoritarian government, there have been plenty of capitalist dictatorships, particularly in Latin-America, like the Pinochet regime in Chile during the 70´s, yet, you can rarely hear someone argue that capitalism leads inevitably to an authoritarian form of government, what does that tell you? Ideas are not always discussed in the most honest way, but according to the interest of those in power, in the same way, history is written by the victors. How a government acts or governs not necessarily has to do with the economic theory that it supposedly implements, there have been authoritarian governments from so-called capitalist and socialist governments. What leads to an authoritarian government is the concentration of power, in the hands of the state, or private sector like today´s oligarchy. The point of socialism one could argue is to prevent concentration of power by having a system in which the economy is run democratically, or at least a substantial part of the economy, and therefore a society doesn´t end up with massive economic inequality that most certainly will produce political inequality via the manipulation of the democratic process, especially in a representative democracy like the US who´s politicians are brought by the campaign donors and lobbyist. Whether the so-called socialist governments implemented absolute socialist theory is for debate and depends on how you define socialism or by which theory you abide, but whatever authoritarian practices those so-called socialist governments performed was not because of socialism, it was simply because they could, they had the power to do so, like today´s corporations have the power to do what they want. Also, we would have to analyze the particular circumstances and historical context in which those authoritarian actions took place. One can´t simply generalize about a social theory, socialism is not like gravity in which the same principles always apply everywhere, at least in our world, maybe not so in other unknown parts of the Universe, Lol. The basic principle of socialism is that the economy should be organized and planned democratically, that could be done in various ways, but in my view what is important is that it should be well thought and debated by the people. You could have a socialist government formed by representatives like the US, or you could have a liquid or hybrid democracy, in which substantial decisions would be subject to popular vote, take California ballot initiative for example, and other not so important decisions that could be delegated to representatives. In the same matter, what in a socialist society or political and economic order would be considered the ´´means of production´´, and therefore what is to be administered democratically in the economy, must be decided by the people with thoughtful debate and deliberation. The ´´means of production´´ is not a rigid concept, it could have variations which allow the free market to take place in some services or the production of products, like China for example, which has a lot of public industries along with private industries which are also supervise and regulated by the government, in politics and economics there is not one size fits all, because context changes and people are unpredictable in some ways. You could have a market of industries that compete with each other in some ways and cooperate in other ways but belong to their workers, and like government, some decisions in those industries could be delegated to management positions and other decisions could be decided democratically by all of the owners who are their workers, that is socialism (Worker Coop), and that is quite the opposite of authoritarian government. Besides that structural debate of our political and economic order, there is the question of who benefits from the fruits of labor? Why in capitalism should a CEO make hundreds of times more money than the employee, is the CEO hundreds of times more productive? If we don´t agree with that level of inequality, the question is, can we reform capitalism? But more importantly from a pragmatic point of view, will the people who have the power (1%), who have gained their massive amount of wealth not merely because of hard work but because the system allows it, allow the reforms to take place? Especially in the US with the rigged democratic system we have. I think the devil is in the details and is more productive to discuss the rules we want for our political and economic order and their implementation in our society within today´s context and particularities, and any other nation or society for that matter, rather than talk about abstract ideas. To generalize is a mistake and to fall for the propaganda that favors the powerful. Lastly, we must think not only of what should be ideal for us but of what we need to survive as a species, climate change is already causing grave impact, I don´t think minor reforms will be enough to guarantee our survival because whatever name our economic system may have the reality is that if we don´t organize the global economy in a sustainable way we are headed towards extinction. Another possible problem in the not so distant future is automation and AI, what political and economic rules we will need to deal with automation and the rise of Super Artificial Intelligence? Besides all the discussion of what we want or what is best for our needs, there is the question of how to go forward? Can we the regular people really make meaningful changes? The changes that we need or want?
In Chile capitalism did not lead into dictatorship. One can argue that it lead to democracy.
Okaro X www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14584095 My argument is that there is inconsistency, double standard and dishonesty in arguing that socialism inevitably leads to authoritarian government.
The socialist president Allende, the one Pinochet made a coup on, was building a free socialist country, the media which was free, used this along with US backed money to overthrow allende, so it's a bit of an irony, capitalism will try to make free socialist country fail by all means.
More paragraph breaks, plz.
> "What leads to an authoritarian government is the concentration of power, in the hands of the state, or private sector like today´s oligarchy. The point of socialism one could argue is to prevent concentration of power by having a system in which the economy is run democratically, or at least a substantial part of the economy"
The point is that attempts to "have a system in which the economy is run democratically" end up with implanting a system which appears to be run democratically, but does concentrate so much power in the state, and has so little safeguards, that it slowly turns less and less democratically and concentrates more and more power in the hands of the state
The hypothesis is that there is no way to attempt "a socialist system in which the economy is run democratically" without it evolving in to "an authoritarian government with concentration of power in the hands of the state". All the large scale experiments of socialism so far show this hypothesis holds
One big problem: capitalism, in the words of Chomsky, IS authoritarian. It's private, unaccountable power where decisions are made from the top down.
Bringing in state regulation certainly helps, and as long as capitalism exists it's vitally necessary, but it's only a band-aid and ignores the root cause of the problem.
We've already learned this lesson from the last 100 years of American history, yet the propaganda pushed by capitalist ideology since the end of WWII persists to the point that well-meaning individuals such as yourself think capitalism provides freedom as long as its nastier tendencies are kept at bay. If there's no democracy in the workplace, then democracy and freedom are ultimately illusions.
I love how he kept saying that Socialism and Communism are inherently authoritarian but never explained how.
Also, I'm almost positive that Venezuela isn't a socialist country even though it is used in propaganda as an example of one. I was sure that the Wikipedia page said so, and that 70% of industry is privately owned, but when I skimmed it now I couldn't find it. It's kind of telling though that it also doesn't say that it is a socialist country. Seems like lying by omission to me.
I guess in our mutual hate of Trump, I was blind to the fact that almost everyone has an agenda and almost everyone distorts the truth for their own benefit, Pakman included.
Ok ok so..... I know this vid is like a year old, but I just want to point out a pretty big misconception. When most socialists talk about "socialism", it really is just any economic system where the means of production are controlled directly or indirectly by the workers. There is nothing inherent to socialism regarding authoritarianism, completely equal outcomes, or planned economies, and even more to the point, there isn't even anything in socialism that disallows a market economy. All that matters is that the workers control the labor and not some rich millionaire with stocks in a company.
In fact, I'd actually turn your criticisms back on you. I would actually argue that Social Democracy is pretty unstable as a system. Even if you provide a large number of reforms to shrink the gap between the rich and poor and increase opportunities, if you allow individual entities to own companies and private property instead of the workers and those in need, then you will have a system that naturally leads to the rich gaining more wealth an influence over time. And in such a system, you will naturally see the government start to roll back those reforms as those with wealth gain more money and power. Heck, this effectively happened in the *US* after the fifties as the reforms of the New Deal slowly eroded over time.
Of course, I don't really blame you for that sentiment, but I implore you to maybe consider some softer forms of socialism like workplace democracy or market socialism before completely dismissing it outright.
nice one
Actually actual socialism's core principal is prohibition of private enterprise and private industry. *Every socialist country* in history applies. None of the Scandinavian or European countries have it, as evident by the existence of private enterprise and private industry within those places. The name should be different to avoid further confusion, but "social democracy" is just If the U.S. had and expanded social safety net and social policies with far more regulated capitalism.
You guys are too focused on the outcome, and missing the big picture! You guys are imagining a say a large tech company like to be run by workers in a social cooperative union sort of thing with no Billionaire creator/investor. But do u think a such a company will happen in the first place in such a this setup? Why would any XYX work hard to create a piece of software and convince u guys to buy it, or create a Zphone and market and convince you to voluntarily buy it, ultimately making companies with hundreds of thousands workers, in the first place? Why would anyone work harder than the rest if there is no incentive at all to work hard and innovate (high taxes, demonized by people for making money)? Since the core principles of anything Social is equal outcome in the first place? All big companies are a product of free market. No government or co-operative society can create say a for-profit money minting business enterprise ! Money which is ultimately needed to be taxed upon and used in a social welfare scheme. Its just against the basic human nature , ....every early man be like one who hunts, claims the kill, thats it!
Social democracy is still a socialist movement though. A reformist socialist movement, one that some other socialists like to call not real socialism, but it grew out of the First International.
@MajorLeague traditional social democratic uphold Keynesianisn as it's core ideology as opposed to Marxism to socialism...even the Nordic module were derived from Keynesian theory of mixed economy.,..In other word social democracy will give you what both capitalism and socialism couldn't..I am a supporter of social democratic party and my country us currently under social democratic coalition and believe or not? Our capitalist ranking keep on improving despite the increase in social welfare program in the same time...now this is what you call social democratic...a political system where the best of capitalism and socialism work together
Just saw a great response to this video from Hakim, David should have him in the show.
To understand why David Pakman fundamentally has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to anarchism, please watch any Zoe Baker video, but especially this one: ruclips.net/video/PjQO1W96udI/видео.html
(He's wrong about Leninism too)
Another good video to watch is Hakim's critique on this video: ruclips.net/video/mCZCFkdzzzE/видео.html
@@Ryan_hey I thought this is what OP was going to link at first. So happy to see we're able to post them! Hakim's work is 👨🍳😘
@@JaseekaRawr I specifically was linking to something that would critique his view of anarchism. Hakim didn't mention Pakman's analysis of anarchism in his video, except to agree with something Pakman said, so it was useless to me lol
@@otherperson Ohh, I didn't notice that! But the more resources, the better! 😄
Has he read Rosa Luxemburg?
Matthew Inard nope
silvester, your unsolicited sexism is appreciated
rosa a cute
silvester
Fuck of; she is clearly an 8.
sylvester she is a 112 compared to Huckabee Sanders.
The problem with social democracy is that it still keeps capitalists in power. It sounds great, but so long as capitalists control the media, and as long as the people are kept PASSIVE in their participation in politics by merely voting for who will make the decisions for them (that's what social democracy is. It's republican government, capitalist economy, but heavy regulations to make capitalism work better for everyone), you will always see happen what happens every time such a system crops up: the capitalists will eventually point to the collapsing of capitalism and say "look. See how bad is? We should cut back on social spending and privatize even more. Privatize education and healthcare, too." Essentially, they'll drag it all back to standard capitalism with few regulations protecting people. Because we need a "strong" economy. Every time the economy hurts, capitalists and right wingers use it as proof that the only way to fix it (even though it's generally caused by capitalism) is with less regulation on capitalism. And, as happens everywhere, including the Nordic countries, the people start drifting that way.
There are a lot of problems with the things David says. Generally I agree with his positions, but there's far too much in this that's just flat out wrong.
U r wrong, we have free marked i norway, but oh still free healcare...so u do not know what u r talking abt. We r not passive, and we r werry political here but we hate right wing nutts...so maby u r it
@@snaddermat And yet Norway is privatizing and deregulating. Is that because you wanted it? Do you understand why that movement is succeeding, or who is behind it? Do you have any idea where it will inevitably lead? How much have you paid attention to other countries that you have a clue about how this process plays out, even considering what the people fight for?
Free healthcare IS NOT the one true indicator of anything but whether or not you have it. We're very political in the US as well, but that doesn't mean that people are ACTIVELY ENGAGED in governing, or even regularly contacting their representatives. If you don't understand the difference between being political and being actively engaged in running the system, then you shouldn't be telling people they have no idea what they're talking about when they say that republics (including social democracies) make the citizens passive observers by removing them from the decision-making process. You have the illusion of participation by occasional elections.
I'm no expert on Norwegian politics and economics, but I don't need to be to understand how "representative" governments operating in capitalist economies function. Calling me a right wing nut so that you can feel better about not liking what I wrote doesn't change that I'm right.
@@snaddermat Yet all of their wealth is built on oil, a very unsustainable natural resource that is currently destroying our planet. None of these wealthy countries' wealth come from actual economic output and value production but through unfair exchange and exploitation of the global south or their natural resources. The press is still heavily limited by revenue and funding, which necessitates advertisements, which requires a passivity towards advertisers. NO capitalist economy is exempt from the criticisms he expressed.
Can you debunk some things that are wrong with time stamps? It would help to know what in the video is presumably wrong.
@@olivers.7821 I guess the best way to do it is to go point-by-point about what he gets right and wring, rather than just wrong.
0:20 DP is correctish: Democratic socialism and social democracy are identical except in the end goal to be achieved. Use the state to regulate capitalism so that the greatest benefit is given to the most people. DS intends to transition to socialism after so much state control, SD intends to keep capitalism. There is no "originally" about it. That's what the terms mean. People who claim to be DS but don't have that end-goal are SD who have no idea what the difference is.
1:30 "I'm not a socialist because I want a fundamentally free, self-determining society, and that society will not emerge from an authoritarian apparatus." He is correct. That's why both DS and SD are doomed to fail. Both systems rely on a top-down organization of the state to regulate a top-down organization of the economy, while convincing people that it's really democratic because people vote for the people making the decisions for them. SD/DS are nothing more than republics, which are best described as "elective authoritarianism." You can't have a fundamentally free, self-determining society when the people themselves are not the ones making the decisions that affect the people themselves, nor can you have one when there is enough wealth disparity that there can be a relatively small group of people who have more influence in the system than the whole mass of the rest of the people; both of those are the case in SD/DS, as in standard capitalism, feudalism, etc.
Capitalists and other elites have convinced a lot of people that actual democracy is "evil" and impractical, but when there are actual examples to disprove it, they propagandize hardcore to make people believe that they were right, and when they can't get away with it because of how "in your face" it is, they claim that it couldn't work "here" or in an "advanced society" or in a large country because of X, Y and Z...which they can't actually prove, yet people still believe.
1:45 "At the national level, socialist and communist structures are fundamentally authoritarian." Except they're not. DP does not understand what socialism/communism are. I'm sure he's been challenged on it before, but his response would be something along the lines of "yeah, in theory, but in practice I'm right." And that's where he's wrong. Socialism, by definition, requires that the people themselves are the rulers of the state, as well as the ones to do the state business. It doesn't mean that there are top-down organizations that the people live under. Countries like the USSR, China, Cuba and others are/were called "socialist" because of what they intended to achieve, not because of what they actually had, and the truth of that lies with what the movement organizers themselves said about it. Lenin very clearly described the transition between what existed in Russia and socialism, including "state capitalism" as the step below socialism. Mao likewise described the transition. So did others, and they all pretty much agreed that socialism required "democracy from below" (a phrase Lenin used a lot), a worker state where the people doing all administrative/state work were pulled from the working populace rather than a professional or elite caste, and various other things. The economy would be "planned" in accordance with what the people themselves decided they needed. The "in practice" stuff that people regularly point to was none of those things, even mostly, and the "even mostly" exposes the "in practice" lie for what it is.
Capitalists talk about capitalism as not having ever been tried because of one or two details like "true competition" and "equal bargaining power (between worker/employer)" never being attempted, but true competition is an impossibility, as is equal bargaining power. All else about how capitalism was BEFORE those fantasies were pushed as "real capitalism" by Mises and Bohm-Bawerk had been true and practiced, yet the impossible details are what capitalists point to as why it has never been tried. Socialists, on the other hand, don't have that historic "socialism was common (in the same historic period, since almost all human history was primitive communistic) before the theory was developed" position to attack. They can truly say "socialism/communism has never been tried" because no society that claimed to be socialist/communist met, and this is really important, EVEN MOST of the criteria to claim that the system had been EVEN MOSTLY achieved. In fact, the only reason people point to countries as socialist is because of the eventual goal of socialism, which the people understand as "not what we have right now." The USSR was more appropriately called "state capitalist," since the state took the role of the capitalist in controlling the means of production, yet it wasn't part of the transition to socialism, as the vital component of the state was not socialist: it was not a revolutionary democracy. The same can be said of China. However, since socialism was the EVENTUAL goal, they are called socialist/communist.
Countries are differentiated between "socialist" and "communist" by how authoritarian they are based on a reference to Stalin: socialism is when the state does stuff, and the more stuff it does, the more socialister it is, but when the state does all the things it is communist. That, of course, is nonsense. Stalin did proclaim that socialism had been achieved, but it was for political purposes. Imagine telling people who suffered more than anyone in the United States can fathom about the Great Depression (from the white Christian hetero/etc perspective, of course) to bring about socialism that they had only actually achieved a degenerate form of state capitalism. How long do you think Stalin would have retained power? The same applied to Mao, who did a very similar thing when things didn't go so well in China. However, if you read what Mao wrote, you recognize that he was lying for political purposes. Same with Lenin/Stalin. In both cases, there were a LOT of people who recognized it for what it was, leading to a LOT of people being exiled/imprisoned/assassinated. So "in practice" is a bunk argument that plays to propaganda, both made up by "Western" propagandists and those of the countries in question. (If you want to know some of what I mean by the propaganda, I can provide links later. They don't always post, and this was a lot of writing already.)
Back to the point, there is a living example of socialism "in practice" that throws the narrative of "fundamentally authoritarian" out. Look into the Zapatistas. While many socialists will say "that's not socialism," it's not because they don't recognize it as following the core of socialist thought, but because it's not international and a threat to capitalism as it stands. Everything else about it, though, is accepted as socialism.
To be continued, as this is a long post already...
David, I agree with you, I think the Nordic model is by far the best. I've lived in Sweden for 8 years now and i've never been happier since i stopped worrying about the future of my healthcare
terrible liberal take. to say 'socialism requires authoritarian means' ignores the impossibility of a capitalist society without authoritarian relations. A strong government and police force are REQUIRED to sustain private property, so having a socialist government that has to sustain socialism, really isn't some fucking dystopian hellhole imagining
Socialism is the workers owning the production, not the country as a whole. A great example would be The Mondragon Corporation in Spain. They are a company that has the production, or ownership of the company, is given to the workers. Socialism can have market economies as well, just as a capitalist country can have a market economy. Both can be a command economy, it’s just who owns the production.
This is gold thanks, Mr. Pakman. It's to know there are people who recognize the massive learning curve on this topic and actually want to help mitigate the massive disparity between perception and reality.
I believe in Social Democracy because "the market" is great for laptops but terrible for getting health needs to not die.
Socialism and "the market" are not mutually exclusive. "Capitalism" is not a synonym for "free market". You can abolish capitalism and still have a market economy.
So how do you put reforms or regulations in place that can't be simply rolled back at the stroke of a pen by the next right wing administration?
Make it popular enough so that the right wing can't get rid of it without pissing off voters. See social security. Minimum wage increases. They still can't figure out how to get rid of Obamacare. If we get a public option or m4a and it is highly popular, the right wing won't be able get rid of it either.
By staying in power?
@@geolibertarian74 Yeah, that would fix itl. But the temptation to "stay in power by all means" because "we are so wonderful" and "they are so terrible" is also the reason why Marxists became authoritarian
Also, it is healthy for everybody that a party sometimes is in power and sometimes is in opposition...
Of course, the AMERICAN problem is the TWO PARTY SYSTEM that causes a "back and forth" dynamic. PARLIAMENTARISM causes a more STABLE development between the parties!
@@busylivingnotdying You're ABSOLUTELY right
@@peoples2296 - doesn't work that way
The NHS is the crown jewel of the UK
It's still being sold
No one - literally no voter - wants it sold
It's being sold anyway
It's literally written into law and funded by personal insurance from each voter
It's being sold anyway
Hint: the people IN POWER are the ones WITH POWER. Once you vote them in, they get to more or less do what they want
As long as making a profit, the maximum amount of profit possible it's not Socialism. Socialism is the only cure to what capitalism has plagued us with. Social democracy is literally just capitalism with a speed limit. 🤦
When did pakman start working for Prager U?
David I like your stance on this issue...I suspect it aligns pretty closely with mine.
Given that my knowledge of sociology is fairly limited, I found this very informative and helpful, crystallising much of my own take on this. Thanks.
Actually regarding health care and education, that's basically how it works here in Australia (and New Zealand, and the UK, and....) and it works fine, so OF COURSE it would work in the US!
Australia's being rapidly eroded and undermined by the Lib/Nats though, bulk-billing is a memory in a a lot of places and universities are being dragged and gutted.
Socialism is not inherently authoritarian. The idea is supposed to be common ownership, if the government is not held accountable then it is not socialism. It's state capitalism. I'm not a socialist or Communist, I know someone will call me one though.
Excuses, excuses. Socialism has been tried several times and somehow always incorrectly. Just if we tried it again we got it right.
All the countries that you disavow (China, Kampuchea, Soviet Union, Venezuela) the academic community was perfectly happy to call socialist when they were new.
Loved your video David, it is great that somebody is addressing these issues properly. As a Norwegian living in a social democracy, I find it rather frustrating most of the time to discuss socialist ideas with Americans. We are on different planets. Hope you don't mind some constructive criticism though:
1) I don't think the distinction between democratic socialism and social democracy can easily be made. Looking at the history of my own country Norway, what was described as social democracy when the labour party started gaining power in the 30s is very similar to what people talk about as democratic socialism today. The labour party was originally marxist but rejected the idea after spending more time in the Soviet Union and realizing how oppressive the regime was. Norwegian socialists strongly believed in democracy and could thus not accept the Russian model. Their idea was to reach the economic model of the Soviet Union through the democratic system through gradual reforms, hence social democrats. We had extensive government control of the economy in Norway until the late 70s, the difference between Norway and the Soviet system was that they never tried to outright take property from the capitalist class. Instead the preferred high taxes and gradually nationalizing industry and building up parallel socialist systems. Here are some examples:
- A government bank was created to fund house building for the working class. It had a socialist profile in that it gave loans for moderate houses. So it was not a question of whether you could afford a loan for a bigger house or not, they would simply not give loans to houses deemed extravagant.
- Housing cooperatives were created. A large portion of the Norwegian population lived in these apartment complexes, which were not bought and sold at market prices but at government regulated prices.
- Important industry like hydro electric power was nationalized and government took large ownership in banks. Banks were heavily regulated to not be speculative. They could not lend out huge amounts of money to people speculatively.
- You had to apply to buy what was deemed luxury products such as telephones and cars. That was because Norway after the war was run in 5 year plan style, where one tried like the Soviet Union to channel most of the savings of the country into the building of factories to rapidly industrialize the country.
- A sort of socialist style grocery store chain "samvirklaget" was created, which was not profit driven. It was sort of collectively owned by all the consumers. When I was a child in the 80s it was pretty much the only grocery store chain I knew of.
What you or many Americans today seem to describe as social democracy today, is really the system that emerged in the late 80s. Just like in the US, where there was a market liberal wind blowing, this also happened in Norway. Conservatives gained power across Scandinavian countries and they started deregulating the economy. Just as when the same happened in Iceland later it caused the whole economy to come crashing down as the banks utilized their new freedoms to lend out crazy amounts of money. Yet there was no turning back after this. The labour party abandoned most of their ideas about controlling the economy in a socialist fashion. They embraced privatization and changed focus primarily towards welfare services such as free education, maternity leave, cheap child care for all, generous unemployment benefits, job retraining for the unemployed, socialized medicine etc. So today the Norwegian economy is more capitalist than ever but the welfare programs are more extensive than before. This has become what people call social democracy today. Yet as I've illustrated it was not how it started out.
2) I don't think it is correct to say socialism unlike social democracy is about equality of outcome. In communism they famously say "Each according to need, contribute according to ability." I don't think anything in that sentence suggests income and outcomes need to be the same. The main difference I think is that social democrats today primarily use the market economy to generate wealth which is then redistributed, while classic socialists advocate state control of the economy as well.
3) Not criticism, but I think it would be nice if you talked about the Israeli Kibbutz system at some point. My understanding is that this represent perhaps the only actually working communist system. As you said communism never scaled to state level. But the Kibbutz model of having communities of people of a few hundred operating internally along communist lines seems to have worked. The difference between that an the Soviet Union is that each Kibbutz would buy and sell their products at market prices. So they existed as little islands within a free market economy. These seems to have been surprisingly successful. Despite making up just 2% of the Israeli population today, they produce 40% of the agricultural output of Israel.
Great example with the Kibbutzim! But today, they're more diverse than they used to be and than you're describing them. Originally they were leftist communes as you mentioned but today a good chunk are simply communities with varying economic practices (some bring all the money from outside and distribute it equally, some have a more private business model, some are quite conservative, some are very left wing, etc.)
Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production.
So how can you say Capitalism is good in some part and Socialism is bad because it turns Authoritarian when Capitalism is Authoritarian by nature?
Actual Socialism bestows power onto the populous rather than a central authority.
How?
&one “workers control over the means of production”
@@scratchfg212 In practical terms, probably through a federation of devolved local communities based on direct democracy.
The ideals of socialism and communism are NOT authoritarian, but the practice usually does end up that way. Socialism formed in the ideals of Marx for example would not be authoritarian. One big thing gets messed up every single time, guns. Every single time they disarm the populace at or near the start. Marx knew that to keep it from going bad, going authoritarian, an armed proletariat is absolutely necessary. If you dont keep the 2nd amendment, and apply the rest of socialism, you did not do socialism, you left out a key feature and FAILED at doing socialism.
We are now more than capable of setting up checks and balances, both on a government level and an individual level, to keep the system clean and fair. Our communications systems have improved to allow national voting on nearly everything, and real time communication coast to coast, which means accountability if you set it up properly.
I suggest spending 10 good years setting up socialism the best we can for fairness and to prevent corruption, running every possible simulation with every possible expert, and then apply it.
As for Venezuela, you seem to have bought in to the American propaganda machine. I've seen interviews with actual Venezuelans in country, and even spoken to some, and Maduro is LOVED, Guaido HATED, and they feel that if the US hadnt sanctioned them so hard and England hadnt screwed them over with regard to their gold they would have been FINE.
Sorry David, but you're wrong to equate socialism with authoritarianism. The two are not intrinsically linked. The aim of Socialism in the economy is to give the labor force the means of production -- a seat at the table, a say in the business meetings, a vote in the assembly. It is very democratic in principle, whereas Capitalism is more akin to an oligarchy, where the business executives and corporate shareholders/owners are the ones in control of the means of productions and therefore the ones determining both the pay of the workers and the value of the products/services they provide. That is what created and perpetuates the financial gap between the many numerous poor labor workers and the exceedingly rich executives and investors.
Capitalism is the reason why systemic poverty is extant in modern society: capitalism exploited the labor force and economy for decades in addition to being bailed out by the government, undermining the democratic principle that government is a social contract between the governed and those governing. So, in essence, Socialism is the economic counterpart of a democratic state and Capitalism has become the economic counterpart of an authoritarian state. Socialism does not remove liberty or the freedom of choice, rather it encourages and enables the workers to have a productive and beneficial role in that freedom.
No need to apologize, you're absolutely correct. Socialism and communism are always linked to authoritarianism and people always point to the USSR, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, etc., and while those countries are/were in bad shape as far as human rights and freedoms go, many details are exaggerated and others omitted to paint socialism as an intrinsically evil ideology. They always conveniently leave out all the authoritarian and totalitarian regimes and empires who were as bad, if not far worse than these state socialist regimes.
We must evolve past capitalism
Aaron T That is wherr AGI steps in. Until then Capitalism is useful.
Aaron T thats impossible.
"Impossible". That's what people said while they were tilling the land of feudal lords.
michael they're is no other physical way to economize besides totalitarianism, as we must economize to survive
There never has. Name one or ask me anything
An economy is a system of allocating resources which have alternative uses.
Communism and capitalism are different ways of doing the same thing.
We'd do just fine without shareholders, board of directors and CEOs making 300x times the employees. Capitalism isn't a meritocracy. If it were, people like Trump would be selling turnips. People are far more cooperative than you give them credit. We'd do just fine. Capitalism was originally supposed to have co-operative companies, but it went another way then we gave corporations liberal human rights as though it were a human being.
I don't buy that this is the very best we can do. And thank goodness people understood that they can do better than slavery and feudalism.
You should do a mini-series on all the different schools of thought and the pros and cons, and examples that worked and failed.
I think you can really clear some things up for people who don’t know the nuances of these different styles of government
I'm kind of confused about what you mean by socialism not working on the large scale, you didn't really elaborate. You said that socializing some parts of society (education, co-ops) would be good, but socializing everything wouldn't. If one co-op is good because it gives workers a more democratic workplace, why would every business/service being a co-op be a bad thing? A market still exists when every business is owned by the workers collectively, there is still entrepreneurship (anyone can start their own co-op), people still earn money, etc. The biggest difference is that there isn't a profit motive for a co-op, their motive is supplying a good or service to people and society, and there isn't an owner who benefits from simply owning the business while not actually working there. This is more of an anarchist view of socialism I guess, as there doesn't need to be an massive authoritarian state that dictates everything. It's decentralized. Of course, there still would need to be a state to enforce a few things like environmental regulations, maybe plan or regulate the economy to some extent, and protect our rights, but it would ideally be truly democratic state because there would not be extremely rich capitalists that have so much power that they can bribe (lobby) the government, like what happens in a lot of capitalist countries today. You seem to be only looking at the extremes of socialism (i.e. extreme authoritarian or fully anarchist), which of course won't work well.
I am sorry David, I live in italy with my US citizen wife and my country is socialist and we have more freedom than in your country, my wife can confirm this to you.
Can you please give an example how you have “more freedom” than in the US?
@The Flash I don't know if "safety" constitutes "freedom" necessarily.
Well, I'd not call a guy like Berlisconi, or some of your political parties, socialist. But you probably have many socialist structures anchored in your system, like most European countries.
As for freedom, one needs just to search for "Freedom Index", for example, to see several informed rankings, where the United States ranks lower than many comparable nations.
Except Italy isn’t a socialist country. Has a strong safety net, but you’re still a capitalist system
There arent any socialist countries but yeah I'm not surprised
This is just an awesome video. Explaining the difference between social democrats and socialists is something I needed to sharpen up on myself. Having to explain this to my conservative friends.
I disagree with a lot of the things he said as a socialist. I dont think there is a real difference between equality of outcome and equality of opertunity. I also think it is dishonest to classify socialism as inherently authoritarian and not go into further detail.
Imagine me saying capitalism is authoritarian, pointing to Saudi Arabia, and saying that my ideology wins.
@@ianwells5414 Of course there is a difference between equality of outcome and equality of opportunity, left to their own devices different categories of people tend to choose different things based on cultural differences and based on biological differences. When there has to be a representation of population is the only place where equality of outcome should be the rule. in all other areas equality of opportunity should be the rule.
@W Shiflet Yet some people argue as if they believe it. Some people believe things without understanding them, unfortunately.
@W Shiflet Sure, it's all that, and it's also the problem with both left and right, which is that we consume ideas without thinking about them, holding beliefs without reason and thought. Ultimately leading us to believe in the irrational.
Too bad hes wrong. Social Democracy is a capitalist compatible version of socialism. Its called revisionism. Just because some don't consider it socialism doesn't mean the history of those involved did the same. Social Democracy has always been considered by social democrats to be a form socialism.
“I think it’s important to preserve economic and, by extension, political power imbalances by mostly arbitrary conceptions of entitlement to capital”
The assumption that socialism must become authoritarian, while ignoring that capitalism always becomes authoritarian ius dishonest.
US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and many more capitalist countries are not authoritarian... say what you will about corporate influence and corruption which is certainly a HUGE problem in many capitalist democracies, threre are simply more individual, political and economic freedoms in these countries as opposed to actual socialist and/ore communist countries - Venezuela, Cuba, China, former USSR, etc.
@@tomerdruker1138 france is a neoliberal hellhole, the scandinavians are privatizing more and more of their economy each year, germany is basically to blame for thebalkanization of exyugoslavia and for the horrid working conditions in eastern germany and workers and getting worse and worse treatment all over the west. This isnt good by any definition. Every system that props one class over the other is authoritarian in its own regard.
" if capitalism worked , we wouldn't be talking about socialism"
Democrats when they don’t get to steal wealth from productive people so they can sit inside and smoke weed all day😡😡😡
I may be wrong, but don't nordic countries employ a more pure market economy that employs a large social safety net to account for those left behind
Overall, great analysis though!!!
Scandinavian social democracies are overestimated college isn't free, healthcare is shit its been defunded by the government, the child poverty tripled since the last decade, many workers are laid off, our homeless stats only get better beacause homeless people die in the cold, we have 500,000 slaves who work for free and are told they might get paid in the next year. Free market captilism fucked and I despise stop spreading the message that social democracy is good it is unsustainable and does the bare minimum. The social net is a farce
Social Democracy all the way
I agree with David in supporting a Social Democracy vs. Socialism. I think we should have a Capitalist country with Healthcare and Education for all like Sweden and many other Socially Democratic countries. I also think we should have a system that brings the top and bottom closer together by having a living minimum wage and higher taxes for the Ultra wealthy. Also, getting rid of corporate power in government by making political donations limited to curb government corruption.
Socialism without Authoritarianism is possible, American Socialism shouldnt be compared to awful regimes, its possible we can create an actual socialist utopia or as close as we can get, it's way less dangerous than capitalism which requires people to opress and to profit from to function.
Didn’t you debunk this same argument in your “Debunked: Socialism has never worked” video?
past vs present/future
That video was one of the most logically flawed videos I've ever seen
Really late to this party but i think fundamentally the problem with rejecting Socialism in your analysis is that why we are Socialists is because we see the current relationship to be exploitative and do not want to see that relationship continue. The problem with socdem countries like the Nordic countries is they still, nonetheless, rely heavily on imperialism and essentially slave labor in the 3rd world. What happens when the whole world is social democracies? how will the never-ending need for increasing profits and increasing capital on a finite planet work?
To me Socialism is about 2 things. Getting rid of the exploitive relationship in the workplace, basically try and bring some democracy into the workplace which i fundamentally don't think is possible in a capitalist structured world. and 2. Fundamentally change our values. Capital and profit is no longer the most important goal. Instead its about increasing human happiness and furthering our intellectual discoveries. When a new cool technology is created its to help humanity, not make a profit.
Social democracy is the better way.
You are misleading people so badly because you haven’t done the required reading. Sad.
(Long comment, but hey, you asked for our opinions, and this is mine... would love to discuss it. Heck, always open to refining my point of view.)
Personally, I’m a Socialist, a democratic socialist, that is. I appreciate the analyses that Marx made, but I also think the way to reach socialism is through slow reform. And I also think there should be a balance of power, because otherwise it will likely reach a point of authoritarianism. And it NEEDS to go through a stable, reliable social democracy FIRST. A point where the people support the government, and the government serves the people. Only then move to true socialism, where the government won’t be authoritarian, because it will truly represent the people, limited by the people themselves. In this way, a self-determining people wouldn’t have to develop OUT OF socialism, but IN TO socialism. The idea is a progression: capitalist democracy (current)-social democracy (Nordic countries)-democratic socialism-maybe something else, better (who knows, the world keeps moving forward)
Now, this is a long way away, but I’m fine with a slow progress, instead of a sudden change that would likely fail quite miserably.
Personally, the sort of general aspect of Socialism I believe in is that as shown in the Star Trek tv series. I’m not quite sure who it is that originally postulated that general aspect, but it is one I find quite ideal: you don’t have money, and therefore no poverty, and you have no discrimination, no misery, with menial jobs performed by machines (which means people don’t have to). People can then find that which they love to do, and do it because they love to do it. And people no longer obsess over material gain, but strive for personal and social betterment.
But the thing is, that’s not possible yet. Education, worldwide, needs to improve vastly. Several social and technological advances are still required. Many problems need to be solved. The very way people change, and the type of people who are in power, needs to change. Scarcity needs to be effectively remedied.
In other words, I am a Socialist. But we need to WORK TOWARDS it, and will likely not see it in our lifetimes. So, for now, we need to get to the next step, and as that’s social democracy, to get to that point, make it stable, make it efficient and reliable. To a point where people start noticing problems. Then they will be fixed. And so on. So I’m also a social-democrat, just as I’d support whatever better thing would come after socialism if I could possibly know what it would be.
You are believing in a paradise where it's an utopia
Why is it about reducing the gap between low and bottom instead of just increasing the bottom? The goal should be for everyone that doesn't have a good life to have it, regardless of how everyone else is doing.
This is my favorite David Packman video of all time.
Certainly one of his most important videos. Thumbs up.
Anarchists aren't against the government in that simplified manner. This is a time when the government was defined by the owner class, they ruled society. Even if it was in the shadow of a king or something like that. Getting rid of the government meant to get rid of the owner class so that the workers could take over the means of production and form communes. That is what anarchism is, but back then it was mostly called communism and not anarchism.
You do not understand Marxism that much either. I mean his economic theories, but not his political ones. He did not invent communism, he just wrote a manifesto for it that got very popular.
Karl Marx saw that for society to turn communist communist revolutions have to happen all over the world as close to at the same time as possible. But communism also required industrialization, which Russia didn't have. So Lenin's idea was to under a one party rule industrialize Russia (the great leap forward) and later split the country in to several autonomous communes as well as the dismantling of the current government. This was of course very naive and lead to what we ended up with.
Yeah David dosnt understand theory as well as he thinks he does. Pretty bad video
Why Socialism in not the Enemy of Capitalism.
Example 1: Public Libraries. These have not hurt capitalism at all. Book stores like Barnes and Noble and various other book stores are still in business. Also Kindle and Nook E-Readers are still selling strong. My public library even has a pretty decent selection of DVDs, but that hasn't put NetFlix out of business either.
Example 2: Public schools. These haven't hurt capitalism either. Can you name a single Private School that had to close it's doors when a public school put it out of business? I didn't think so!
Example 3: Public transportation. Clearly, this hasn't hurt capitalism either. Has a city bus system put a taxi service out of business in your community? Or cost a local car dealership any significant sales? I think you know the answer to both of these questions is a definitely NOT!
Example 4: Free clinics. Some communities have free clinics, but this hasn't hurt capitalism even slightly. Not a single hospital has had to close it's doors when a free clinic opened in their community.
Example 5: The Post Office. Also hasn't hurt capitalism in the least. UPS and FedEx are both still thriving businesses. Plus, almost every business sends and receives mail every day. So this example of socialism actually helps businesses.
Example 6: Public streets and highways. This one is a huge help to businesses because they get their products to market on public streets and highways. Also, their employees commute to and from work on public streets and highways. And their customers visit their place of business on public streets and highways.
In summary, there are probably many more examples, but it's pretty obvious that socialism and capitalism can easily co-exist.
Interesting
Man, everyday I am more convinced that IDEOLOGY....is just SMOKE and mirrors. No one can give definitions that are worth something.
What do you need to know ?
Honestly it's harder to to pin down the different form that occurred in capitalism.
It's fairly simple how we want things to work. You cover the basics. You make sure your people are healthy by letting them have access to healthcare without worrying about the cost. You make sure your people are protected by laws and by affordable housing. You make sure your people have the opportunity to contribute to society by providing education without the worry of payment. With all of that covered, people are free to do as they please and will have an easier/ better time achieving it.
Marx idea of revolution is a democratic concept, the many control the means of production. Marx did not advocate the abolition of the market economy
I assume you all recognize Me by My picture and by the capitalized pronouns.
Yes, I am your Lord.
Exactly which part of My Socialistic teachings are you having trouble understanding?
Why do you hate the rich and heal the poor you are engaging in class war against the rich reeeee
I think a better name for Social Democracy is “Cooperative Capitalism”. The adjective would be a “Cooperatist”. It avoids the confusion with Democratic Socialism.
Bullshit. I live in the kingdoms of northern Europe and there are no kingdoms which are communistic, socialistic or marxistic. That would be a paradox.
social democracy is not confusing, "cooperative capitalism" is confusing and have you ever heard about state capitalism
I want Medicare for All. I want to be able to see a doctor maybe once a year and get some assessment and advice and be able to follow through. Like may veterans, the last time I saw a doctor was when I got discharged from the Army in 1992. We can discuss Socialism and Democracy and Capitalism and all kinds of labels, and that has been discussed for years, but the fact is if I were living in Europe or Canada or Australia, I would have some basic medical care and maybe more if I needed it without freaking about $$$$. I keep on hearing about "the most powerful country in the world, the biggest economy in the world, etc, etc" and the evidence is we have a large number of people afraid of a very uncertain future, homeless, sick, demotivated, and we are worse off than a whole lot of other nations of more modest means. We have been brainwashed ever since World War II into passing laws that favor inequality and misery. That is why we need free education, a large number of Americans have no idea what is going on around the world and have no critical thinking skills. Let's elect Bernie Sanders while we can, let's get some decent social safety net, some advanced education, and then we can spend our time accusing each other of whatever labels we can invent. Right now, all those labels are just FUD (something used to create Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). Just listen to Joe Biden and Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, all of them are FUD mongers. And then listen to Bernie, and there is reason and evidence in Bernie's policies.
this is a good video and I appreciate your through analysis. However, you tend to conflate Venezuela with socialism a bit too much. their authoritarian dictator runs under the socialist party and the country is largely socialist, but it still has a mixed economy and a free market, two things that don’t exist under true socialism. also marxism and leninism are two very different things and you seemed to conflate the two a lot in this video. I would consider myself to be a socialist in principle, however I agree that a social democracy and mixed market economy would be most ideal in the US, at least for the majority of the 21st century. the future is obviously impossible to predict, but collectivism governments on a global scare could be inevitable as climate change, overpopulation, etc. become more complex.
great video and I enjoy your work!
Wille Johnson this comment is everything ❤️❤️
Great discussion, David. Even the Constitution says that one of the purposes of our government is to provide ”for the general welfare of the people.” Healthcare and education fit that provision.
In fact, a key part of the definition of a republic (derived from "res public" or "public affairs") in the Revolutionary era was a government constructed to provide for the common good.
Marx focused on production, not distribution
yeah it becomes autoritharian because that is the only way to preserve it from constant capitalistic forces attacking to destroy it ... you my friend, don't know what you are talking about
hystorically, without socialism there wouldn't be this 'ok lets give them some' compromise, social democracy wouldn't exist!
"To each according to their need, from each according to their ability."
That’s communism. In socialism you distribute accoding go their actual contribution. (Unlike in capitalism.)
No. Socialism only means workers control the mop. Its JUST that. Just like capitalism only means corporations controls the mop. Marxism believes in the statement you said
Communism is from socialism and Marxism. And it believes in a classless and moneyless society (never done yet)
Then would you say that Bernie Sanders is NOT in fact a democratic socialist as he says, but rather for social democracy?
I'm happy to hear David is in favor of cooperatives. I only wish he and other American progressives would take more of an interest in social economy and related initiatives. Social economy initiatives are essential to many social democracies and platforms of social democratic parties around the world, and the co-op movement alone involves one *billion* users and members worldwide, yet for some reason American progressives haven't caught on.
Thank you David, this video was very informative, and you clearly know your stuff
You are confusing socialism with state capitalism. Capitalism is by definition, authoritarian.
"State capitalism" is basically a nonsense term, capitalism is not authoritarian "by definition" but trend towards it in practice.
@@kyle1235a capitalist state can still be authoritarian
How are ou going to fix inherent contradictions of capitalism? Problems with this system will never go away, constantly mitigating effects of a broken model is just not very smart.
Mat J Mitigating the effects of a flawed model is significantly smarter than throwing it away and replacing it with a far worse one.
nobody is trying to replace it with a "worst one"...
Mat J then what exactly are you proposing? because capitalism in the for
of social democracy is the best system to date. got a better one? cos if not then the alternative is a worse system.
SuperSupermaX Capitalism is not really an economic system based on strict science it's more of a political ideology based on a dogmatic, pseudo-religious belief in market forces. So you want to have a flawed system, based in magical thinking, promoting lowest human urges and you say we can't have a better one? So you just are not educated on economic systems, or you are educated on the systems and you will prove to me how it "best system to date"? Because it works for you ? Tell me do ou think slavery was the" best system to date"? Was feudalism" best system to date"? If the therapy has killed millions of patients, first thing to do is stop it. Start with scientific methods to understand issues and how to fix them. Stop constantly applying painkillers and placebos because old therapy was the best thing we had so far...
I feel like the conflation of socialism and authoritarianism at the end is the main problem here, isn't it kinda ignoring non Marxist-Leninist traditions?
!!!
Do we have any non-authoritarian examples of socialism (as defined here -- public control of the means of production) being successfully implemented in any significantly large state? I think his point is that we don't. He's not ignoring the tradition, he's stating that it's not feasible.
I’m throwing my vote out there for Pakman and Hakim to have a Democratic Socialist ML debate
I would love to see you talk to Zero Books or Non-Compete about some of this.
I got an anti socialism ad while watching this lmaooo
Why would socialism be imposible in the US?
Social Democracy = New Deal & Great Society.
FDR wasn't someone who is gonna save you he was a smart asshole rich dude that knew if he didn't make concessions to the communist and socialist party of USA in the 1930's America would be called the "people's republic of America".
I usually find your analysis impressive - but this odd American obsession with Venezuela always ignores the fact that a fundamental problem with the Venezuelan economy, which led to its current situation, was nothing to do with its political system per se. It was much more simple: they built an economy on oil.
I've no doubt in my mind that Chavez meant well - during his initial years he massively increased literacy rates and healthcare for millions of impoverished Venezuela. That's an indisputable fact.
Maduro I'm less convinced by. But let's assume he has good intentions but his somewhat understandable paranoia has led to some poor choices.
But this is all irrelevant. By relying on oil their plans were always going to be a massive gamble.
That being said, an economy reliant on an unregulated financial sector which trades in dodgy sub prime mortgages can come back to bite big style. So glass houses and all that.
tl;dr - Venezuela's reliance on oil was key to its problem.
If anyone talks about communism in terms of 'leveling the playing field' or 'making things more equal', it's not an accurate critique of communism. Communism is about ensuring that people do not have to work to live (making sure all of the basic needs are covered, like food, housing, healthcare, etc.) and then about ensuring that laborers (people producing the surplus value) do not have that value ripped off by capitalist overlords who do not create or add that value.
Couldn’t they come up with different names? How hard is it NOT to use the word “social” in your political discourse?
Tom Sawyer I think a better name for Social Democracy is “Cooperative Capitalism”. The adjective would be a “Cooperatist”. It avoids the confusion with Democratic Socialism.
This makes me like this guys even more😊Perfect short analysis👍
I have to say I agree with totally.
I grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of refugees from the Eastern Bloc. They would occasionally tell us stories about their former lives there.
I became an ardent capitalist. I even read Ayn Rand.
But then I went to work for a living.
Now, over the years, I have found out what a capitalist dystopia looks like--especially during the last two decades.
Really hope you can read all the comments and reflect back on your thoughts. Dav
Lol you sound like right wingers when you talk about Chavez. BUT VUVUZELA
ippos_khloros I think you missed a joke there
@@saphira8080 I think you quite missed an honest point there pal
Part 2:
Another mistaken notion is that Marxian socialism is about equalizing the outcome, which we see often in the right-wing with their false dichotomy of "equality of opportunity vs outcome." Aside from that it's fallacious to peg a natural distribution of talents, abilities, etc. to the distribution of the means of substance as if changing that would be contrary to "human nature." The economy is socially and historically developed not a feature of human nature per se. Indeed to echo a point made by John Ralws. There was a famous exchange with Milton Friedman. In the 80's I believe, Milton published a bestselling book called Free to Choose. It was a spirited, unapologetic defense of the free market economy, and it became a textbook-even an anthem-for the Reagan years. In defending laissez-faire principles against egalitarian objections, Friedman made a surprising concession. He acknowledged that those who grow up in wealthy families and attend elite schools have an unfair advantage over those from less privileged backgrounds. He also conceded that those who, through no doing of their own, inherit talents and gifts have an unfair advantage over others. Unlike Rawls, however, Friedman insisted that we should not try to remedy this unfairness, I quote:
"Life is not fair. It is tempting to believe that government can rectify what nature has spawned. But it is also important to recognize how much we benefit from the very unfairness we deplore. There’s nothing fair . . . about Muhammad Ali’s having been born with the skill that made him a great fighter . . . It is certainly not fair that Muhammad Ali should be able to earn millions of dollars in one night. But wouldn’t it have been even more unfair to the people who enjoyed watching him if, in the pursuit of some abstract ideal of equality, Muhammad Ali had not been permitted to earn more for one night’s fight than the lowest man on the totem pole could get for a day’s unskilled work on the docks?"
Rawls response to this is a truth that we often forget: The way things are does not determine the way they ought to be. We should reject the contention that the ordering of institutions is always defective because the distribution of natural talents and the contingencies of social circumstance are unjust, and this injustice must inevitably carry over to human arrangements. Occasionally this refection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if the refusal to acquiesce in injustice is on a par with being unable to accept death. To quote:
"The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts."* Rawls proposes that we deal with these facts by agreeing “to share one another’s fate,” and “to avail [ourselves] of the accidents of nature and social circumstance only when doing so is for the common benefit. Indeed, Rawls undermines the meritocratic view by calling into question its basic premise, namely, that once we remove social and economic barriers to success, people can not be said to deserve the rewards their talents bring: We do not deserve our place in the distribution of native endowments, any more than we deserve our initial starting point in society. That we deserve the superior character that enables us to make the effort to cultivate our abilities is also problematic--for such character depends in good part upon fortunate family and social circumstances in early life for which can claim no credit. Distributive justice is not about rewarding based on moral desert, no one deserves to be rich per se, although they could be lucky and deserve it according to the rules of the game, but that is a different sense not to confused with moral desert.
Does this mean that people who work hard and play by the rules have no claim whatsoever on the rewards they get for their efforts? No, not exactly. Here Rawls makes an important but subtle distinction-between moral desert and what he calls “entitlements to legitimate expectations.”The difference is this: Unlike a desert claim, an entitlement can arise only once certain rules of the game are in place. It can’t tell us what those rules should be in the first place. Just like transactions between property based on titles does not itself create those titles (original acquisition) in the first place, which if we examine them certainly violate the the non-agression principle, since taking those lands historically was done through the initiation of aggression, force, violence. (On a side point, the right-wing libertarianism (should be called propertarians) is completely different than the libertarian anarchists of the left, who fall under the larger umbrella of Socialists.)
Kenneth Galbraith (Money: Whence it came, where it went - 1975, p29, p15) makes a similar point: "System design affects user behaviour but user behaviour does not affect system design unless it expressly acts to alter or replace it. Thus and just as in the game of musical chairs, the design of the game itself can be the cause of the inequity rather than the nature of the players, so too the design of our currency system can be the cause of similar undesired outcomes independently of the behaviour of individual players. In this light, trying to manipulate the behaviour of players to resolve a system design problem is as absurd as expecting that in musical chairs, the missing chair will magically appear on the basis of the way players dance about while the music is still playing! This is where the political class is entirely irrelevant as none of the proposals within the left/right spectrum are willing to address the system design issue. The political class without exception, confuses reform of the implementation of the design with reform of the design itself."
Society guides the market economy. For who? Which class? it is always guided. There is a fundamental assumption in all free-market arguments that the distribution of wealth is essentially meritocratic, a reflection on each individual's previous contribution to society expressed in terms of the value that contribution has commanded on the market. Continuing in part 3...
Thank you for this video. I suspect any system is abusable. But the system you describe seems less so then our current system in the US.