What is democratic socialism to you? And I don't mean social democracy.
I usually hear it as either either advocating reformism as a method to get to communism, or advocating a representative democratic state with state/worker ownership of the means of production.
A redundancy. Socialism IS extremely democratic in everything it advocates. 'Democratic' in this case means just 'reformist'.
This basically. Always hated the term.
I don't even know. I just always assume it's people mixing up social democracy. If I could guess it'd probably just be a world with just plain syndicalism with a market economy or traditional economy in which currency still exists and the government is still centralized.
socialism where you can elect representatives to parliament (parliamentary democracy), elect delegates to a congress of trade unions or soviets (anarcho-syndicalism) or vote directly on issues (direct democracy)
But in general the important thing here is to be able to remove officials who start oppressing the workers.
Oh, and by elections, I mean free elections without the ruling party being able to preemptively eject anyone not in their circlejerk. Oligarchy can be just as bad as autocracy.
Say america elected an overwhelmingly left-wing government, with the explicit intent of replacing private production
you still have a constitution, you still have civil rights, you still have balance of powers, independent courts, and officials are eventually up for reelection.
In the first year they nationalize large-scale transportation, construction, finance, energy, and key food production. All citizens have access to these goods either free at point of use, or as rationed based on need (usually flat-rates of goods/energy/housing per person)
The next year, nationalize more, increase the amount of services free at the point of use and voucher system for goods.
Repeat until private production either is eliminated or is relegated to cooperatives.
This is how I see democratic socialism realistically happening.
OR
Univesrsal recruitment to the army. people only live on bases if they sign up for it of course, so it's basically nationalization while taking advantage of military personnel structuring (people are in teams, have captains, have liutenents, generals etc) but with teams of "Soldiers" performing socially necessary labor instead of fighting. It really could be done.
except Democratic Centralism which is the opposite of democracy, and the primary reason we have to have an entire category called Democratic Socialism.. just so that that they can get away from the stain that is ML
You're all ignoring the historical reasons why we needed democratic socialism.
Never forget that the Bolsheviks forcibly disbanded the Petrograd Soviet when they failed to win a majority
When the MLs denounce the workers' councils that brought down the tsar as counterrevolutionary they arent fooling anyone
Nordic Countrys
The only true way to have democracy is to have voluntary property rights tbh fam
individual toothbrushes are grounds for gulag comrade
people get to vote, democracy says nothing about property
retarded demsoc
Stop burning crops.
"democratic republic"
what the fuck ever dude
...
indirect democracy
Utopianism and rebranded social democracy. You won't wed in socialism through bourgeois parliamentarism or "reform" yourself to it (unless your definition of socialism itself is garbage). An incredibly non-democratic proletarian violence will be aimed at the structures of bourgeois society themselves in order to actually create a space in which the proper form of socialist organisation of production can be created.
That's literally social democracy with cooperative enterprise, neither of which are socialism.
I thought it essentially referred to radical soc dems. They both want some parliament or whatever, but Democratic Socialists want a revolution to get there.
Do tankies/MLs even still buy into that "withering away of the state" or have they admitted that it's all-Red-fascism-all-the-time?
Have you stopped being a retarded anarkiddie?
Venezuela, Sweden (sort of), Vietnam, China
I'll take that as a "still pretending", then.
This but also:
The more people are involved in organizing and planning society, the better it will serve people's needs. In an idealized version of communism, everyone puts in their needs and the system meets them. For most of (recorded) history, we instead had a system of minority rule. Whether it's the land owners or the nobility, we had a few people who were in charge of their domain and they made all the decisions. Now we have capitalism, which is the complete opposite of communism in this respect - nobody is in control. Control has been ceded to "market forces". According to capitalist ideology this means that everyone is in control, but in practice it means a handful of people with the most wealth are all scheming against each other to wrangle this wild beast of a system. Nobody is actually in control in the way that the rulers were in previous class societies, but they have the illusion of control. It's going to be a long and messy process but the goal of socialism/anarchism/communism could be broadly defined as reversing the paradigm of control, taking power away from the machine so that all of the people share it instead.
i always thought it meant to differentiate itself from authoritarianism/vanguardism/centralism
so communalism would fall under demsoc
We need to call it Democratic Socialism because MLs and the like have done so much to drag the word socialism though the mud, it's not our fault.
This.
Demsoc pls
I'm Ok with a comfortable level of alienation, *sniff*
a direct democratic legislature and elected executives would be ok too
Zizek's ideal of an alienated government is a pipe dream though. Methinks he's grown to love the chains. If you don't have a say in the government how is it supposed to take care of you? How is it supposed to know what you need? It's just not pragmatic to have a society where people only go to the government when they have a problem. It's far better to be proactive and communicate needs ASAP so the process of planning the economy involves as few variables as possible. We can avoid problems of over- and underproduction by figuring out the right amount of production ahead of time.
Democracy today is primarily used to describe any society under the dictatorship of the rich. Socialists have grown to adore the democratic model, so they often describe themselves as democrats in attempt to equate their politics with Western parliamentarianism. So in effect "democratic" here is just a way to call yourself a reformist, if they were otherwise they wouldn't use the term.
Your distinction between democratic socialism and social democracy is meaningless.
...
The program of the Democratic Socialists of America is basically rebranded Titoism/market socialism.
did the 20th century not happen in your mind?
this lel
tankies have never won a free election
What intrinsic value has a democratic election to you when you know you're right?
Not surprising Anarkiddies shilling for liberal elections tho
everyone thinks this
doesn't make it true
nothing is worse than arrogance, especially when you have the power to control lives as tankies love so much
wtf i love bourgeois democracy now
So you lose an election and you are going to abandon your convictions because of some spooky shit like a parliamentarian majority? You just stop the revolution because of that?
holy shit pls tell me this is a troll. tankies=red fascists
Downvoted.
Upvoted.
not an argument though.
prs del me iz trole! is not an argument
Not an argument, answer my question. What if I democratically decide to kill your family? You'd like the police force to overrule that decision, wouldn't you?
if doesn't matter whether you "democratically" or "autocratically" decide to kill my family you dumb fuck. you want to kill my folks and because you're deluded as fuck you a.) think you ideology justifies that and b.) killing my family will solve any of your problems.
hint: abstain from killing.
This is some cutting edge revolutionary praxis.
go ahead and kill people you do not know and who most probably never hurt you just because your relig- , err ideology commands you to.
violence looks appealing to troglodytes but it never solves the root of a problem. if you want to change things on a meaningful level you have to work on your own consciousness and the consciousness of those around you.
but i understand that you shy away from this hard and tedious work that involves questioning yourself and prefer to put bullets into other people's skulls.
poor fool.
So you're agreeing with me? Earlier you were crying about overruling a bourgeois parliamentarian decision which would have caused an end to the revolution.
I think you are just flustered about muh tankies
no. i don't a agree with people who believe in killing dissenters.
reading comprehension. you need it.
try again, you'll get it after a few times.
Pacifism supports fascism.
i'm not supporting you and you are clearly a fascist waving a red flag.
your "argument" is invalid.
You didn't even get my analogy then you buffoon
wow rude
You shouldn't be into politics if it hurts your feelings this much.
Have you tried playing tennis? I did a couple of years when I was in school and I had loads of fun.
and what made you turn towards authoritarianism?
did your dad beat you too much?
did the other kids bully you?
this is getting interesting. tell me more about your childhood, there must be a reason for this tragic development of your personality.
when was the first time you felt that slaughtering other humans would make the world a better place?
Back to r/anarchism
you're have the desire to kill others for your ideological beliefs and expect your life being worth living after you've committed the murders.
you are full of hate and thoroughly deluded.
if you were as happy as you claim you'd feel love and compassion towards others, not the desire to kill them.
What's bourgeois about it? Tankies claim to have the support of the majority of the working class, let's put that to the test.
Not abandon them, but if the people don't like what you have to say, that's your problem
Find better solutions and actually listen to the people rather than lording it over them.
As the angry T34 said, you just missed the point by taking an analogy completely seriously, not even trying to build on it (which would have just been boring), but actually missed the point and got butthurt over the analogy. Go back to reddit you smallcase ranting, redditspacing pseud.
I was just shitting on the sentiment of le marketplace of ideas.
so you just pretended to be retarded?
But user, you are the retard here.
because i pointed out your pathetic damage control attempt?
and what's wrong with that?
fascists don't like it. they hate dissenters.
user, half of this conversation is you failing to understand basic analogies and getting angry at one, then ranting about how bad it would be for the analogy to be literal, then shutting up after having this pointed out to you, dropping the conversation and waiting for a more intelligent poster to find you some ammunition to reply to. You are a classic case of a retard on an imageboard.
What's good with it?
t34 guy never denied that his ideology commands him to murder those who disagree with him. i was just trying to find what went wrong in his childhood that he ended up so hateful and deluded.
why are you so mad though?
This is you getting confused over an analogy again. I'll take it that since you've now resorted to the classic "im not mad your mad" routine that you have absolutely nothing of substance to say and just like complaining when someone threatens one of your sacred cows. Stay spooked, libcuck.
nah i wasn't confused about his analogy. his analogy was complete shit in the first place ("what if i democratically decide to kill your family") and i didn't care for this stupid bait.
was intrigued me was that he showed the typical mindset of of a red fascist. authoritarian, hateful, violent, myopic.
i decided to investigate that and asked him questions about his childhood. there are usually personal reasons for people who get lost in authoritarian ideologies like naszism, stalinism, wahabi islam etc.
but unfortunately he didn't want to tell me his story. probably it made him feel uncomfortabl.
...
it's the best way for the best ideas to gain support
whines
posts reddit shit instead of replying to arguments.
stay mad
Why?
Poisoning the well is not an argument.
because people should be free to debate ideas and come to conclusions of their own will, not through party directives, but by free and unlimited debate
ok let's have a decent argument then.
i'll start:
why do stalinists prefer killing dissenters over convincing them?
is it because they know deep inside that they would lose discussions? is this the reason they have to resort to violence?
second:
please explain to me why stalinists and other authoritarians (since the expression "red fascist" seems to trigger you i won't use it this time) believe that killing other humans is a way to make the world a better and more just place?
thanks.
Then why didn't you try to debunk it? We could have had a vivid discussion about the validity of democratic decisions and it's limits. This is not even a Marxist talking point, the topic being ancient as fuck. Instead you resorted to name-calling and proven yourself unable to make or defend a point. Yet ironically tankies are the ones being blamed of shutting down discussion regularly because people read one too many letters of Trotsky and Sinowjew.
You totally got me there
t. Joe Stalin
Where are the restrictions on free and unlimited debate? Are there any at all? Are lobbying groups allowed? Are there oversight boards to make sure statistics are used correctly? How do you deal with reactionaries? Is the revolution to be disbanded if it's democratically deemed fit? How would you prevent outside interference?
Because, my liberal friend, they may have vested interests, be opportunists, racists, foreign agents or saboteurs.
Would you say the world was a better and more just place during 1945-1991 than it was in the preceding and succeeding years?
i see, my authoritarian friend.
i'll translate
now what exactly is the difference between your kind and a nazi?
his bogey man is ebil too. must kill too.
no. idiots killing each other for their "truths". as long as troglodytes like your kind (stalinists, capitalists, fascists) don't see that they're fundamentally the same, full of anger and hate, nothing will change for the better.
try loving your enemy
Authoritarians are your boogeyman, and they make up a far larger number than any of mine. You are an idealist with nothing of value to say, you will never convince anyone. Read a fucking book.
Lobbying would not be permitted. It infringes upon free debate.
Oversight boards are unnecessary and unwanted. They will just lead to bureaucratic control and power-hungry psychopaths defining what is and is not acceptable.
Reactionaries can and should be challenged. If they are as wrong as people say, then people will see that.
Ideally a revolution would not happen unless it was democratic. I see no reason to support a revolution led by a tiny elitist sect. That only leads to civil war.
Outside interference would be countered in different ways. Foreigners should not be allowed to own the media of a given country, for starters.
Democracy will not actually help you in the goal of revolution, however, Democracy can be used as one of the few platforms for *power* in the system, as well as a base to form an organization around.
This is more like it, liberals take note that this is what an opinion looks like, instead of feelings.
I don't think that democracy is going to give us what we want though, it's gerrymandered and deliberately left in an archaic FPTP system that creates two party liberal states. This is neoliberalisms greatest strength and we haven't found a way to combat it in the west yet. All successful movements as far as I know have been both violent agitators but open to democratic reform and party politics. I think if a crash bigger than 2008 happens within the next decade we could see real potential, but I don't doubt for a second that peaceful protest will turn violent due to agent provocateurs and the fact they had snipers at Wall Street during OWS. We need to be prepared to up the ante because they will not play nice or fair, and we will be forced to play dirty.
Go back to Holla Forums, Mustafa
Well in Britain the Liberal party was replaced by the Labour party when workers started asserting themselves, and they achieved a great deal within the confines of parliamentary democracy
85% of the workers voted bolsheviks. The only reason they lost was because of the peasants who voted socialist revountionary.
which shows how out of touch the bolsheviks were with most of russia
amusing the disdain bolsheviks had for peasants, no wonder they slaughtered them
And then the Labour MPs were replaced by liberals, and their reforms dismantled after the fall of the USSR. This is what I was alluding to earlier with the world being "fairer" and "more just" between 1945-1991.
Holy shit man
Read a fucking history book. You're a literal Kulak
I'm not. I'm a poor urban worker. But I'd side with a normal kulak over a tankie any day.
Most of the reforms were undone in the 1980s actually, before the USSR fell
Maybe a tankie could fill us in, but I've commonly heard the 80's assault on working people being linked to the USSR's decline. Not sure if they stopped exerting influence abroad or what. The decline in real wages is linked to it too.
Social democracy with utopian characteristics.
Get out! Leave! You are not wanted here and you will never be welcome.