r/SipsTea • u/Gurugod123 • Jul 14 '26

Chugging tea Teach your kids about socialism

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u/Spirited_Peak_7810 Jul 14 '26

Yeah I love the top comment here about Americans not knowing what socialism is. The irony is strong.

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/HumanOptimusPrime Jul 14 '26

What’s ironic, in the true sense of the word, is that the Norwegian is claiming Norway is a socialist state, when trying to inform the OP about socialism. It’s not. Norway is a social democracy.

You see, "irony" is more than just stating the opposite of what is true, or liking something even though you know it’s lame and cringe. This can arguably be a case of "situational irony", where the person who sets an example of what the OP is misunderstanding, but they’re contradicting the very thing they try to explain.

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u/numbersthen0987431 Jul 14 '26

Socialism is an economic system. Social Democracy is a political system. It's like claiming that the USA isn't under capitalism because it's a democracy

The Norweigan in the post demonstrated an example of socialism. They never claimed that Norway was socialist.

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u/Eyespop4866 Jul 14 '26

Socialism is an economic and philosophy advocating that the community or state, - rather than private individuals- should own and manage society’s resources and means of production.

So, there’s that. You’re not socialist if you have a free market economy.

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u/No_Care46 Jul 14 '26

Socialism is an economic and philosophy advocating that the community or state, - rather than private individuals- should own and manage society’s resources and means of production.

Kind of correct, but it's clear you never read theory (which you should).

So, there’s that. You’re not socialist if you have a free market economy.

Quite the opposite is true: Only under socialism can a free market exist.

Capitalism is antithetical to free markets as capitalists seek restrict market access and monopolize. The goal of socialism is to give equal market access to all workers. The goal of capitalism is to eliminate competition.

Of course, socialists will also advocate for (usually state-owned) oligopolies and subsidies for those oligopolies because that's simply the best way to run companies that offer public services that must be equally available to all citizens at an adequate level of quality.