4 ms·

When you claim something like "real democracy" leads to better freedoms and the expansion of liberty, how can someone come along and claim "real socialism" lead

When you claim something like "real democracy" leads to better freedoms and the expansion of liberty, how can someone come along and claim "real socialism" leads to better freedoms and the expansion of liberty, and one is immediately rejected while the other is expected to just be accepted as true?

mym1990 4y ago
Is it me or are democracy and socialism not opposites? They are two different philosophies that can and usually do co-exist. Socialism is based around means of production, while a democracy is a system of government which dictates how that government is run.
- wbsss4412 4y ago
  They’re somewhat orthogonal to each other, but they aren’t opposites. In practice, relatively few socialist/communist regimes had what could be charitably described as democracy (with the exception of the Nordic countries), but when the political philosophy really gained steam in the early 20th century, many of the branches of socialist philosophy were rooted in democratic control, of all society. Even during the Russian revolution, socialist takeover mean democracy within the government, the factories, and the military. It was only later once the Bolsheviks consolidated power that reality shifted away from that, under the shadow power structure of the party.
  - snapplebobapple 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - wbsss4412 4y ago
      Most revolutions end in authoritarian states, frankly. When a group is biased towards a will to power, that tends to give them a leg up when there’s a power vacuum. As I alluded to previously, though, the Nordic countries were largely governed by socialist parties for much of the 20th century. They didn’t devolve into dictatorships.
      - snapplebobapple 4y ago
        They didn't start with a revolution either, and they moved away from much of that socialism stuff towards a strong market economy with lots of social services within a few decades of moving towards socialist ideas.
pessimizer 4y ago
Socialism is democratic, generally. People vote under any type of socialism I've heard of, maybe too much.

mym1990 4y ago

Is it me or are democracy and socialism not opposites? They are two different philosophies that can and usually do co-exist. Socialism is based around means of production, while a democracy is a system of government which dictates how that government is run.

wbsss4412 4y ago
They’re somewhat orthogonal to each other, but they aren’t opposites. In practice, relatively few socialist/communist regimes had what could be charitably described as democracy (with the exception of the Nordic countries), but when the political philosophy really gained steam in the early 20th century, many of the branches of socialist philosophy were rooted in democratic control, of all society. Even during the Russian revolution, socialist takeover mean democracy within the government, the factories, and the military. It was only later once the Bolsheviks consolidated power that reality shifted away from that, under the shadow power structure of the party.
- snapplebobapple 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - wbsss4412 4y ago
    Most revolutions end in authoritarian states, frankly. When a group is biased towards a will to power, that tends to give them a leg up when there’s a power vacuum. As I alluded to previously, though, the Nordic countries were largely governed by socialist parties for much of the 20th century. They didn’t devolve into dictatorships.
    - snapplebobapple 4y ago
      They didn't start with a revolution either, and they moved away from much of that socialism stuff towards a strong market economy with lots of social services within a few decades of moving towards socialist ideas.

pessimizer 4y ago

Socialism is democratic, generally. People vote under any type of socialism I've heard of, maybe too much.