4 ms·

Socialism When I got out of my middle class bubble, made friends with people working multiple jobs and struggling to make ends meet, and experienced a period o

Socialism When I got out of my middle class bubble, made friends with people working multiple jobs and struggling to make ends meet, and experienced a period of financial instability; I began to realize that something wasn't working in our current system. Then I started struggling with burnout and other issues and found that corporations were happy to just replace me. I also found that management wanted programmers to be replaceable cogs instead of professionals. At that point I started to suspect that the idea of a dignified professional lifestyle may not be true. I observed that technology and products were getting worse over time. For example, Google search has become mostly useless and it's hard to find products that are made to be repaired. I concluded that the invisible hand and/or the price theory of value were not true. Then I saw Republicans gain power and run up the national debt. I also observed that when wages actually started increasing the economy fell apart and the Fed started taking steps to prevent wage increases. I concluded that "free market" rhetoric was a lie. At that point I looked for alternatives and found socialism. In particular the "social democracy" strains of socialism as opposed to those advocating central planning or anarchist organization.

rramadass 4y ago
>In particular the "social democracy" strains of socialism as opposed to those advocating central planning or anarchist organization. Yes; Most people get hung up on terminology and/or specific interpretations but i am convinced this is the natural order of things for the Human species. The balance without going to extremes is what is important.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > Most people get hung up on terminology and/or specific interpretations Because terminology matters, and some terms are quite misleading. What some people tend to miss about the "Socialism with Scandinavian Characteristics" that folks claim to like these days is that Scandinavian countries are actually near the very top rankings by economic freedom and lack of excess regulatory burden. I.e. they're actually some of the most free market and capitalist, while applying effective redistribution after the fact (leading to moderately high tax rates). So I don't get why people decry capitalism and free enterprise while praising Scandinavia as "successful" socialism? It makes no sense.
  - api 4y ago
    I’ve thought for years that the ideal would be a very free market with very little regulation combined with a basic income and a strong social safety net. Let people go wild and try stuff and do whatever but raise the floor up to the point where people can recover from failure and where the less fortunate are not suffering. This kind of “social capitalism” could be freer and less regulated than what we have now.
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      Sure, but the whole issue is how to get from here to there given the current regulatory environment. Adding even more red tape and wasteful government spending as in the orthodox "socialist"/"anti-capitalist" approach is unlikely to be helpful.
pintxo 4y ago
Observing the debate in the US from the outside, I believe the term "socialism" has to die. It's carrying so much baggage it's a major reasons the US cannot have a sensible debate over what alternatives there are to full-blown free-market capitalism. While also somewhat contested in Germany, and not free of (some) valid criticism, I would advocate to try and use the term "Social market economy" [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy
- mike_hock 4y ago
  > full-blown free-market capitalism Well, full-blown free-market capitalism would be one alternative to the current US system, albeit probably not the best.
xigoi 4y ago
Interesting. Here in Czechia, “socialism” and “social democracy” are two very different things — one is the oppressive regime we had decades ago, the other is the current system that works reasonably well.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  Czechia is still undergoing catch-up growth, much like Germany during the Wirtschaftswunder (that made their "social market economy" widely popular) and emerging countries today. When people say "social democracy" doesn't work all that well compared to leaner approaches, they mean countries where that growth process has concluded. With an overregulated economy and a high burden of all sorts of excess red tape, they tend to get stuck in a middle-income trap that leads to widespread unhappiness.
api 4y ago
A big one for me not necessarily for “socialism” but for questioning the bog standard capitalist narrative was seeing how the quality of content often goes down when creator monetization is added on a platform. That’s not supposed to happen. Adding a way for people to make income is supposed to incentivize better content and allow people to invest in that content. Instead what you get is a flood of addictive and sensational / tabloid trash. … or another way of looking at it is that you do get “better” content but better is not defined in a way that truly benefits anyone. YouTube is the most dramatic example. The quality of the whole platform tanked hard when monetization was added. After seeing this a few times I have started noticing it everywhere. The profit motive just doesn’t incentivize quality the way we are taught that it should. It can when the incentives align but they often do not. Another common example is actual reductions in quality to drive more spending like engineered obsolescence or “nerfing” software to drive lock in. The incentive is to produce an inferior product since that is most profitable. This doesn’t mean I think the answer is a government bureaucracy running everything like a single monopoly. That leads to a whole other set of perverse incentives and an inability to go elsewhere.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > ... Adding a way for people to make income is supposed to incentivize better content and allow people to invest in that content. ... What it does is incentivise more content. More is not always better for everyone, and is even less likely to be better for those who were early adopters to the platform - but what it is usually is more popular. It's just democracy in action: the largest numbers decide, and sometimes privileged minorities lose out.
  - api 4y ago
    It’s not quantity. It’s a change in the nature of the content. People start chasing the algorithm and trying to amp up the addictiveness of content. You end up with a cross between a casino slot machine and a supermarket tabloid.
timnetworks 4y ago
This is not an attack on you, you are free to your opinion and to voice any or all of it to whom you choose, largely because you don't live on a socialist society. My opinion, however, is that my parents did the right thing to drag me out of such a system and into a capitalistic one. I am watching my peers suffer.

rramadass 4y ago

>In particular the "social democracy" strains of socialism as opposed to those advocating central planning or anarchist organization. Yes; Most people get hung up on terminology and/or specific interpretations but i am convinced this is the natural order of things for the Human species. The balance without going to extremes is what is important.

zozbot234 4y ago
> Most people get hung up on terminology and/or specific interpretations Because terminology matters, and some terms are quite misleading. What some people tend to miss about the "Socialism with Scandinavian Characteristics" that folks claim to like these days is that Scandinavian countries are actually near the very top rankings by economic freedom and lack of excess regulatory burden. I.e. they're actually some of the most free market and capitalist, while applying effective redistribution after the fact (leading to moderately high tax rates). So I don't get why people decry capitalism and free enterprise while praising Scandinavia as "successful" socialism? It makes no sense.
- api 4y ago
  I’ve thought for years that the ideal would be a very free market with very little regulation combined with a basic income and a strong social safety net. Let people go wild and try stuff and do whatever but raise the floor up to the point where people can recover from failure and where the less fortunate are not suffering. This kind of “social capitalism” could be freer and less regulated than what we have now.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    Sure, but the whole issue is how to get from here to there given the current regulatory environment. Adding even more red tape and wasteful government spending as in the orthodox "socialist"/"anti-capitalist" approach is unlikely to be helpful.

pintxo 4y ago

Observing the debate in the US from the outside, I believe the term "socialism" has to die. It's carrying so much baggage it's a major reasons the US cannot have a sensible debate over what alternatives there are to full-blown free-market capitalism. While also somewhat contested in Germany, and not free of (some) valid criticism, I would advocate to try and use the term "Social market economy" [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy

mike_hock 4y ago
> full-blown free-market capitalism Well, full-blown free-market capitalism would be one alternative to the current US system, albeit probably not the best.

xigoi 4y ago

Interesting. Here in Czechia, “socialism” and “social democracy” are two very different things — one is the oppressive regime we had decades ago, the other is the current system that works reasonably well.

zozbot234 4y ago
Czechia is still undergoing catch-up growth, much like Germany during the Wirtschaftswunder (that made their "social market economy" widely popular) and emerging countries today. When people say "social democracy" doesn't work all that well compared to leaner approaches, they mean countries where that growth process has concluded. With an overregulated economy and a high burden of all sorts of excess red tape, they tend to get stuck in a middle-income trap that leads to widespread unhappiness.

api 4y ago

A big one for me not necessarily for “socialism” but for questioning the bog standard capitalist narrative was seeing how the quality of content often goes down when creator monetization is added on a platform. That’s not supposed to happen. Adding a way for people to make income is supposed to incentivize better content and allow people to invest in that content. Instead what you get is a flood of addictive and sensational / tabloid trash. … or another way of looking at it is that you do get “better” content but better is not defined in a way that truly benefits anyone. YouTube is the most dramatic example. The quality of the whole platform tanked hard when monetization was added. After seeing this a few times I have started noticing it everywhere. The profit motive just doesn’t incentivize quality the way we are taught that it should. It can when the incentives align but they often do not. Another common example is actual reductions in quality to drive more spending like engineered obsolescence or “nerfing” software to drive lock in. The incentive is to produce an inferior product since that is most profitable. This doesn’t mean I think the answer is a government bureaucracy running everything like a single monopoly. That leads to a whole other set of perverse incentives and an inability to go elsewhere.

zozbot234 4y ago
> ... Adding a way for people to make income is supposed to incentivize better content and allow people to invest in that content. ... What it does is incentivise more content. More is not always better for everyone, and is even less likely to be better for those who were early adopters to the platform - but what it is usually is more popular. It's just democracy in action: the largest numbers decide, and sometimes privileged minorities lose out.
- api 4y ago
  It’s not quantity. It’s a change in the nature of the content. People start chasing the algorithm and trying to amp up the addictiveness of content. You end up with a cross between a casino slot machine and a supermarket tabloid.

timnetworks 4y ago

This is not an attack on you, you are free to your opinion and to voice any or all of it to whom you choose, largely because you don't live on a socialist society. My opinion, however, is that my parents did the right thing to drag me out of such a system and into a capitalistic one. I am watching my peers suffer.