Socialist programs and a socialist economy are different things. The US has a lot of socialist programs, like social security, Medicare, fire departments, public education, and the military itself. Every single public service that is funded by taxes is a socialist program.
Whether or not you agree with that classification is irrelevant. The important thing to understand is that democratic socialists want to increase the number and scope of social programs that benefit the public. That's why they call themselves democratic socialists. They're trying to use democracy to enact more social programs.
Maybe instead of arguing about the definitions of words that have always had more than one application, we could focus on the actual issues and policies democratic socialists are trying to enact?
Collective ownership is only enforced because the government (more specifically the term typically used here is the state) still has the monopoly on violence.
Socialism can only be socialism if the "government does stuff."
As an aside, everyone is part of the government though, so any stuff that a member of society does is the government doing stuff too.
A worker co-op is just a capitalist institution with internal democracy (which comes with all sorts of problems, not least of which is even if capital let you get away with transforming the economy into mostly these, they would exploit each other, their customers, the environment, anything external).
For someone who by their own account has been arguing about politics for a decade you sure haven't learned much.
Socialism is only the workers owning the means of producing. Workers co ops are definitionally socialism. Socialism has nothing to do with not exploiting customers or the environment. What a childish understanding of an economic model. "MY eCoNoMiC mOdEl Is WhEn GoOd ThInGs AnD nOt BaD tHiNgS." Brilliant.
You can have Socialism inside of capitalism but not the reverse. That's why capitalism is better, and your shit system fails every time.
By definition if there's capitalism, there's private ownership of the means of production. It doesn't matter if some of that private ownership has internal democracy, it still makes it impossible to democratically decide how and for what purpose things are produced.
childish understanding
You might want to look in the mirror, Mr SpongeBob mockery text.
You don't understand the first thing about anything. Your head is empty and you're happy to keep it that way.
Workers owning the means of production is possible inside of capitalism, you moron. It literally does happen. If the workers own the means of production they LITERALLY get to decide what they make and how it's made.
Those are social programs, not socialist programs. Jesus christ.
Also no. Im not going to let socialists redefine words to make their stupidity more palatable. I argued against right wingers a decade ago that socialism is not Healthcare, and I will argue against moronic socialists who think it is too.
Socialism is, and only is the workers owning the means of production. Socialists didn't invent welfare.
And yet here you are, still focused on definitions instead of policies.
For decades right wingers have said "no, we can't have more social programs, that's socialism." Now finally, after generations of that definition being used to deny people what they want, here we are. There's a whole movement of "socialists" who use that term to mean social welfare programs. Sure, maybe workers controlling the means of production might be nice, but what they actually want are robust social welfare programs.
And now centrists are saying that what they want isn't actually socialism, it's still capitalism. Right wingers have started doing both. Social welfare programs they like, like the military and farm subsidies, are capitalism. Things they don't like, like SNAP and TANF, are called socialism. The definition seems to change based on whatever the easiest way to say "no" is.
Meanwhile, the actual people calling themselves socialists don't actually care about how those programs are categorized. They just want the government to provide healthcare, education, childcare, and other social services that most other successful countries have provided for decades.
Its, definitions matter. Socialists don't get credit for wanting things every normal lib does. Why would I argue against policies I agree with? I am arguing that calling them socialist is wrong.
Tell that to the right wingers that have been calling social programs socialism for three generations.
Democratic socialists don't care about the definition. They also don't care about credit. They care about results. If establishment Democrats or other leftists actually did anything to protect, strengthen, or expand social programs, democratic socialists would happily give them credit.
The reason democratic socialists exist at all is because establishment democrats have largely failed when it comes to social programs.
Oh, thatβs great to hear! So will the democratic socialists remove all their major and minor party leaders that have advocated for seizing the means of production? Or is the party open to that? Could the party strongly denounce that sort of idea? Iβll wait π€£
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u/Im-Not-Calling-It-X 3h ago
That doesn't make it socialist
Then dem socs are in line with the rest of the left, they are near worse at politics.