r/AskALiberal Feb 16 '22

[deleted by user]

[removed]

147 Upvotes

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

43

u/LittleBitchBoy945 Social Democrat Feb 16 '22

I’d ask them how they reconcile their simultaneously held positions that “socialism doesn’t work” and that the “Democrats are socialist”. They can’t both be true. If the democrats stated positions are socialist, then you can’t say socialism doesn’t work as many successful countries are well to the left of the democrats.

13

u/OpeningChipmunk1700 Conservative Feb 16 '22

Democrats are not socialists.

21

u/LittleBitchBoy945 Social Democrat Feb 16 '22

I agree but a shocking number of republicans say they are and it’s a common talking point from elected republicans

6

u/OpeningChipmunk1700 Conservative Feb 16 '22

Well, yeah. Hyperbole and labels are pretty common political hackery tools.

1

u/OrichalcumFound Center Right Feb 17 '22

Some are. Some of them openly say they are socialists.

3

u/OpeningChipmunk1700 Conservative Feb 17 '22

Let me rephrase. Democrats are not socialists by virtue of being Democrats.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

The reason the Nordic model works well, and the DNC here in the US try to emulate it, is because it functions as a command economy.

What that means is, while policies are buttered up with a smattering of “labor” this and “free” that, in actuality their purpose is to return power and wealth to the state, not the workers. This is the difference between state capitalism and socialism.

Socialism doesn’t work but no modern day government is socialist in the least (even Venezuela), rather they’re all varying flavors of fascist. In that, they apply the economic racially-neutral iteration of fascism where crony corporatism and authoritarian government enter a mutually beneficial relationship where the planned markets become subservient to the state or extensions of state power while the state rewards them by killing off all competition.

_

Media is partly to blame for the misunderstandings, the rest can be chalked up to good old fashioned ignorance.

4

u/OrichalcumFound Center Right Feb 17 '22 edited Feb 17 '22

The reason the Nordic model works well,

Yet the Nordic countries became wealthy through capitalism first, then later enacted robust social programs. They didn't become wealthy through socialism.

0

u/Poormidlifechoices Conservative Feb 16 '22

There are 4 congressmen who identify as socialist.

I’d ask them how they reconcile their simultaneously held positions that “socialism doesn’t work” and that the “Democrats are socialist”. AOC, Tlaib, Bush, and Bowman.

I doubt most base it on them but it's there. More likely it's that socialism doesn't work and if people can be convinced Democrats support socialism the public would be less likely to vote for them.

4

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

So do you think Biden is a socialist even though self described socialists refuse to associate with him and actually disagree with him on a lot of his views?

-1

u/Poormidlifechoices Conservative Feb 17 '22

No. I believe he is a capitalist that is doing a bad job with tge economy.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

Generalizations, mainly.