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Democratic socialism isn't based on "free lunch", that's neither the argument forwarded nor a good argument against it. To take the example I'm most familiar wi
by beaconstudios 5y ago
Democratic socialism isn't based on "free lunch", that's neither the argument forwarded nor a good argument against it. To take the example I'm most familiar with (Allende's Chile), the point was to put the value produced by the economy in the hands of the workers and to run the economy democratically. If anybody's trying to get a free lunch, it's rentiers who extract profit from other people's labour.
The reason Allende's Chile collapsed was due to US intervention - first, putting them under economic sanction, then funding far-right resistance groups and protests, then eventually just saying "fuck it" and backing a military coup. Nothing to do with free lunches or inflation.
- int_19h 5y agoDemocratic socialism of statist variety inevitably needs to centralize economic decision making, since otherwise the market "interferes". I can't think of any country that has ever tried it with good results. (Democratic socialism doesn't have to be of the statist variety, of course, but that's a whole separate conversation that has little to do with Allende.)
- beaconstudios 5y agoI can think of two examples that worked fairly well: Allende and Morales. It's debatable to what degree they were democratic socialism or social democracy (given they both exist on a fairly ambiguous spectrum) but both nationalised various industries and promoted social justice and growth of cooperatives. I suppose you could say there's central economic decision making in the form of regulation and nationalisation, but this contrasts with the kind of economic planning that's been proven to be disastrous in Marxist-Leninist countries. Hopefully Gabriel Boric will prove to be another successful example.