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Heroes sold as socialist in the US are typically communist: Marx, Stalin, Lennin, Mao, Pol pot, ... The new wave of socialism in the US cherry picks instances

Heroes sold as socialist in the US are typically communist: Marx, Stalin, Lennin, Mao, Pol pot, ... The new wave of socialism in the US cherry picks instances of the ideology that is somewhat palatable with the West's notion of individual freedom. Denmark and Norway are sold as socialist meccas, but equally socialist China, Russia and Venezuela are conveniently ignored. The truth is that communism is a superset of socialism, and socialism in general tends to put the collective above the individual, often time at the cost of civil liberties.

mcv 7y ago
China is communist in name only. Maybe it's a kind of collectivist capitalism, but there's little socialist about it. I wasn't aware that Marx, Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot were seen as heroes in the US. I thought they're generally seen as villains. They certainly are in Europe. During the Cold War, there has been some sympathy in western socialist circles for Stalin and Mao, but primarily because people didn't realise, or didn't want to know, how terrible they were. Different branches of socialism have grown far apart over the past century. Were Marxism, social democracy and anarchism used fairly interchangeably a century ago, they have grown into almost complete opposites in some cases. Marx certainly wouldn't agree with modern China in any way: there's no power at all for workers, state and corporations hold all the power, which is exactly the situation that both Marxists and other kinds of socialists argued against.
- tssva 7y ago
  > I wasn't aware that Marx, Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot were seen as heroes in the US. I thought they're generally seen as villains. They are generally seen as villains which is why those on the political right try to associate socialism with them and then try to label anything to the left of their politics as socialism even though it almost never is.

mcv 7y ago

China is communist in name only. Maybe it's a kind of collectivist capitalism, but there's little socialist about it. I wasn't aware that Marx, Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot were seen as heroes in the US. I thought they're generally seen as villains. They certainly are in Europe. During the Cold War, there has been some sympathy in western socialist circles for Stalin and Mao, but primarily because people didn't realise, or didn't want to know, how terrible they were. Different branches of socialism have grown far apart over the past century. Were Marxism, social democracy and anarchism used fairly interchangeably a century ago, they have grown into almost complete opposites in some cases. Marx certainly wouldn't agree with modern China in any way: there's no power at all for workers, state and corporations hold all the power, which is exactly the situation that both Marxists and other kinds of socialists argued against.

tssva 7y ago
> I wasn't aware that Marx, Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot were seen as heroes in the US. I thought they're generally seen as villains. They are generally seen as villains which is why those on the political right try to associate socialism with them and then try to label anything to the left of their politics as socialism even though it almost never is.