6 ms·

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." John Steinbe

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." John Steinbeck

gadders 9y ago
People repeatedly post this [1] as they think it shows how stupid Americans are. I read this and I think it shows how exceptional and amazing America is (and I'm not American). In Venezuela they are currently telling people to eat rabbits as Socialism is working out so well for them. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Socialism%20never%20took%20root%20in%20America%20because&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Socialism%20never%20took%20roo...
- santaragolabs 9y ago
  It's not about how stupid Americans are but the insane vilification of anything that reeks like socialism. You (*see edit below) live in the richest country on the planet which is incapable of providing clean drinking water to all of its citizens. That's unfathomable to me. Some context; I know the USA better than most Europeans, having lived and paid taxes there for three years, whilst working and traveling all over the USA. I would never call Americans stupid. I've met some stupid ones though obviously. But Americans as a whole are as interesting and diverse and awesome and loathsome and everything in between as any other countries' citizens. The collective results of the media, political developments of the past few decades, the countries' legal makeup (local, state and federal law) and what not more together result in stupid situations. One of them being that the USA is incapable of providing clean and affordable drinking water to all of its citizens. And if you have to resort to compare yourself to Venezuela you're losing anyway. It's a bit like the: "hey, at least we're not THAT bad". But you STILL cannot provide clean drinking water to your citizens. What's that saying again? Never be the smartest guy in the room? Maybe compare yourself with countries doing better than the USA and then try to improve things? And no, not everything is that bad and there are tons of things I like way better in the USA than in Europe. Things are hardly ever that black and white. But comparing yourself to Venezuela is one of the weaker arguments here. EDIT: just realized that parent comment stated he's not American; doesn't take away from any of my points regarding the Steinbeck quote and the Venezuela comparison.
- orf 9y ago
  The deep rooted fear of 'socialism' in the US, as a response to the 'red scare', doesn't show how amazing America is, merely how the population was manipulated to shore up support against a perceived enemy.
  - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    ...Which is the calculated and deliberate result of a long-standing social engineering project. Or "propaganda" as it's more usually known.
- pavlov 9y ago
  And in Sweden they're enjoying both record economic growth and free education and healthcare. I guess socialism is not a monolithic bogeyman after all.
  - colejohnson66 9y ago
    Sweden also isn’t as big as America
    - ATsch 9y ago
      I constantly see this used as a reasoning, but I don't get why country size changes anything. Could anyone explain?
      - philh 9y ago
        Do you understand why large companies can't do the same things that small companies do? I expect that the two problems will share many of the same structures.
        orf 9y ago
        The USA is 52 small companies though, and if you divide the population equally it's less per state than Sweden.
        philh 9y ago
        Then the proper comparison is between Sweden and a state, not Sweden and the US as a whole. But I think the federal government exerts more control over US states than anyone exerts over Sweden. (Maybe the EU? I'm certainly no expert.)
- ue_ 9y ago
  >In Venezuela they are currently telling people to eat rabbits as Socialism is working out so well for them. I don't mean to sound like the stereotypical "leftist" by saying that Venezuela isn't a Socialist country, but I'll have to in order to get the simple point accross that Venezuela operates a capitalist economy, protects private property, and the working class as a whole is not in power of any branch of the government; if Socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, it simply does not exist in Venezuela. It's very simple when I say that there is no such thing as wage labour within a Socialist economy. Socialism isn't just when the government does stuff; that idea is a false one, so much that it would be wise to call it "vulgar Socialism". The idea also that Socialism requires the implementation of policies that Venezuela has implemented is farcical, too. By "Socialism" Steinbeck, nor any other Socialist author is referring to price centrols; Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, Steinbeck, Marx, Engels, Chomsky, Bookchin, Bakunin etc. had a very specific idea in mind; there's no need to be intellectually dishonest to advance the idea that Socialism makes you eat rabbits. It doesn't. They didn't eat rabbits in the Paris Commune nor in revolutionary Catalonia, nor to my knowledge Burkina Faso under Sankara. If you want to read up on the modern advances in Socialist economy, I'd recommend looking at Paul W. Cockshott's Towards a New Socialism; to dismiss it without doing this research reeks of laziness or worse dishonesty. But please don't make assumptions about what Socialism is about while you have clearly failed to do the required research. Perhaps because the quote by Steinbeck likely wasn't said, have one by Vonnegut instead: "Socialism is no more an evil word than Christianity. Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, and children are created equal and shall not starve."
  - gadders 9y ago
    >>If you want to read up on the modern advances in Socialist economy, I'd recommend looking at Paul W. Cockshott's Towards a New Socialism; to dismiss it without doing this research reeks of laziness or worse dishonesty. Not really. I'm sure Socialism looks great in book form, but the implementation has never worked. I'm more interested in the reality than the theory.
- perl4ever 9y ago
  Raising rabbits for food was a thing in my grandparents' time (Depression era farmers in rural NY).

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." John Steinbeck

gadders 9y ago

People repeatedly post this [1] as they think it shows how stupid Americans are. I read this and I think it shows how exceptional and amazing America is (and I'm not American). In Venezuela they are currently telling people to eat rabbits as Socialism is working out so well for them. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Socialism%20never%20took%20root%20in%20America%20because&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Socialism%20never%20took%20roo...

santaragolabs 9y ago
It's not about how stupid Americans are but the insane vilification of anything that reeks like socialism. You (*see edit below) live in the richest country on the planet which is incapable of providing clean drinking water to all of its citizens. That's unfathomable to me. Some context; I know the USA better than most Europeans, having lived and paid taxes there for three years, whilst working and traveling all over the USA. I would never call Americans stupid. I've met some stupid ones though obviously. But Americans as a whole are as interesting and diverse and awesome and loathsome and everything in between as any other countries' citizens. The collective results of the media, political developments of the past few decades, the countries' legal makeup (local, state and federal law) and what not more together result in stupid situations. One of them being that the USA is incapable of providing clean and affordable drinking water to all of its citizens. And if you have to resort to compare yourself to Venezuela you're losing anyway. It's a bit like the: "hey, at least we're not THAT bad". But you STILL cannot provide clean drinking water to your citizens. What's that saying again? Never be the smartest guy in the room? Maybe compare yourself with countries doing better than the USA and then try to improve things? And no, not everything is that bad and there are tons of things I like way better in the USA than in Europe. Things are hardly ever that black and white. But comparing yourself to Venezuela is one of the weaker arguments here. EDIT: just realized that parent comment stated he's not American; doesn't take away from any of my points regarding the Steinbeck quote and the Venezuela comparison.
orf 9y ago
The deep rooted fear of 'socialism' in the US, as a response to the 'red scare', doesn't show how amazing America is, merely how the population was manipulated to shore up support against a perceived enemy.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  ...Which is the calculated and deliberate result of a long-standing social engineering project. Or "propaganda" as it's more usually known.
pavlov 9y ago
And in Sweden they're enjoying both record economic growth and free education and healthcare. I guess socialism is not a monolithic bogeyman after all.
- colejohnson66 9y ago
  Sweden also isn’t as big as America
  - ATsch 9y ago
    I constantly see this used as a reasoning, but I don't get why country size changes anything. Could anyone explain?
    - philh 9y ago
      Do you understand why large companies can't do the same things that small companies do? I expect that the two problems will share many of the same structures.
      - orf 9y ago
        The USA is 52 small companies though, and if you divide the population equally it's less per state than Sweden.
        philh 9y ago
        Then the proper comparison is between Sweden and a state, not Sweden and the US as a whole. But I think the federal government exerts more control over US states than anyone exerts over Sweden. (Maybe the EU? I'm certainly no expert.)
ue_ 9y ago
>In Venezuela they are currently telling people to eat rabbits as Socialism is working out so well for them. I don't mean to sound like the stereotypical "leftist" by saying that Venezuela isn't a Socialist country, but I'll have to in order to get the simple point accross that Venezuela operates a capitalist economy, protects private property, and the working class as a whole is not in power of any branch of the government; if Socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, it simply does not exist in Venezuela. It's very simple when I say that there is no such thing as wage labour within a Socialist economy. Socialism isn't just when the government does stuff; that idea is a false one, so much that it would be wise to call it "vulgar Socialism". The idea also that Socialism requires the implementation of policies that Venezuela has implemented is farcical, too. By "Socialism" Steinbeck, nor any other Socialist author is referring to price centrols; Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, Steinbeck, Marx, Engels, Chomsky, Bookchin, Bakunin etc. had a very specific idea in mind; there's no need to be intellectually dishonest to advance the idea that Socialism makes you eat rabbits. It doesn't. They didn't eat rabbits in the Paris Commune nor in revolutionary Catalonia, nor to my knowledge Burkina Faso under Sankara. If you want to read up on the modern advances in Socialist economy, I'd recommend looking at Paul W. Cockshott's Towards a New Socialism; to dismiss it without doing this research reeks of laziness or worse dishonesty. But please don't make assumptions about what Socialism is about while you have clearly failed to do the required research. Perhaps because the quote by Steinbeck likely wasn't said, have one by Vonnegut instead: "Socialism is no more an evil word than Christianity. Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, and children are created equal and shall not starve."
- gadders 9y ago
  >>If you want to read up on the modern advances in Socialist economy, I'd recommend looking at Paul W. Cockshott's Towards a New Socialism; to dismiss it without doing this research reeks of laziness or worse dishonesty. Not really. I'm sure Socialism looks great in book form, but the implementation has never worked. I'm more interested in the reality than the theory.
perl4ever 9y ago
Raising rabbits for food was a thing in my grandparents' time (Depression era farmers in rural NY).