Okay, so I watched the latest Yang Speaks, which didn't actually have Yang speaking, and they discussed socialism. It was cringey. I swear, no one in America seems to know what socialism actually is. They seemed to be conflating social democracy a la Europe with socialism, then conflating that with Cuba, then pointing out that the word means different things for different people and some people freak out and think you're talking Cuba when you're really discussing say, Denmark. And yeah. It's cringe. Not to mention, the whole thing seemed to be a circlejerk of right wing talking points against socialism and even social democracy, at times, and ugh, it was just cringe. But I digress, I wanna focus on socialism, since when I use the term I have a more narrow, specific meaning.
When I talk about socialism, I'm talking about some sort of system where workers own the means of production. I also, presumably, talk about systems with command economies in them since many socialist systems end up being command economies, but I recognize there is some middle ground. More on that later.
Most socialist countries will have the government controlling the economy in some ways, like you see in the USSR, Cuba, etc. I would call this more the pure forms in practice. They seek to abolish all forms of market economies.
However, there are forms of socialism that are more moderate. Some are more democratic, and support the government being managed democratically. Some are market socialists and want worker owned coops within a market economy. Some want mixed economies. There isn't even a really solid delineation between capitalism and socialism in this sense, and as you enter social democracy and to the left of that, the line can often be blurred. I would largely say social democracy is a capitalist ideology, as in workers own the means of production but theres generous social services and a large welfare state. but they still have a privately owned market economy. Democratic socialists on the other hand end up supporting almost the exact same policies as social democrats, but long term they would like to transition to socialism via more reformist means. Bernie Sanders may or may not be that. Socialist at heart, but social democrat in mind. Hard to read that man sometimes.
This is why I myself have flirted with "socialism" before. I certainly oppose the more extreme versions, but market socialism vs worker coops or democratic socialism I could be more amenable though. Still, despite having anti capitalist vibes at times, I really dont have any desire to push "socialism" on people, and am quite agnostic to the distinction. My ideas could work within social democracy, they could work within market or democratic socialism. It doesn't matter. As I said, I view socialism as highly overrated and believe more can be done with more social democratic measures or a UBI or something, than socialism itself.
Honestly, I could see us shifting toward socialism long term if we get a UBI. It depends though. If things keep going as they are we can theoretically maintain capitalism forever, if job opportunities remain common. But if only a small proportion of people work as more jobs are automated, what is the point in having private ownership of companies, especially if they evade taxes? This is why I've flirted with socialism in the past, but I admit that I'm probably thinking 50-100 years in the future, well beyond my life span here.
The fact is, for now, I really don't see a need for socialism, and don't see any specific benefits of going socialist over another system like social democracy or human centered capitalism. I like social democracy, I like Europe, but I despise communism as its practiced throughout the world. And I know socialists will point out these Zapatistas living in southern Mexico as socialist and how wonderful that is, but yeah no...I'm just not that interested. Like really, left, right, same crap overall.
If it's more politically advantageous, and I believe it is, I could be fine with maintaining capitalism if UBI works. We don't need socialism. And while I could see my ideas working with moderate socialists like demsocs, and I could consider them political allies on paper (hence why I can support Bernie or the greens), I'm not really hard line on it.
The truth is, I just want UBI and medicare for all, and believe those goals are agnostic to the whole divide. I'm probably closer to social democracy than socialism overall. I've flirted with market/democratic socialism but other than that, eh.
I bring this up in part too because I take pot shots at socialists on here and wanna say what I mean. I have no problem with social democrats, other than their paternalism and bureaucratic welfarist solutions. When I bash "socialists", i mean people who literally want workers to own the means of production and take pot shots at my own ideology for not putting that front and center. You know, the people who scream yang is a right libertarian trojan horse and blah blah blah. To be honest I dont feel like this podcast helped that impression, although yang himself didn't discuss anything. It was his cohosts. But yeah. Just reinforcing that divide.
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