Hi, I’ve been a social democrat for a long time now. But, as of late, I’ve been seeing socialist subreddits and I’ve realized that I don’t truly know what socialism is. If anyone has any good videos on the ideas, or videos that may convert me myself, that‘d be appreciated!

I asked the AI about it, and it says that it's indeed the strongest argument (a technical one rather than philosophical, such as appealing to human nature) against socialism because a planned economy cannot accurately calculate prices.

And the book The People's Republic of Walmart is not a good refutation of it because Walmart and Amazon still function within a capitalist economy.

I want to say that I am an anti-capitalist and don't like Mises and Hayek, but we need solid arguments against their ideas.

Link to twitter post

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Yes China subsidises basic staple food heavilv so that their citizens of all income level can eat properly and healthily. How I know this? I have an R&D project for rice farming in Indonesia where the entire tech stack is Chinese. The contract is with a food focused SOE and during their first presentation, they showed a revenue of 53 billion USD and a net profit of under 500M usd. So I asked whv is their net profit so low, it's under 1% and their response is their marching orders is to never have a hiqher than 3% gross margins so that Chinese people can have cheap produce and meat. This is how US corn is 4 times cheaper in China supermarket than in US supermarket.

This concept seems amazing, If anyone has recent sources regarding this I would really appreciate it.

A lot of people (maybe just MLs?) seem to dislike the reforms Khrushchev did, so I'm curious as to what Stalin and co were doing before that was different. All I've ever heard about was the collectivization and purges and nothing about other important stuff. Also if there are any good videos or shorter books about Stalin or soviet history that would be very helpful.

Like a detailed analysis why it was necessary to save Global capitalism and what are it's consequences in present time.

A video or an article would be preferable.

Me and my partner have been discussing socialism a lot recently. I’ve been a socialist for years now (though haven't read a lot of theory) whereas he’s maybe a social democrat. He’s making progress understanding my ideology and why socialism could be a positive thing as of late, but it was hard fought to get him there. He has come to agree that it's a "more moral" system compared to capitalism and that people's basic needs should be met by default

However, the issue we keep coming down to is he truly believes that capitalism is better for innovation

This is relevant because he’s in hardware tech, has made a lot of his own patents, and is trying to start his own business with a new technology. He sees innovation as strictly a positive thing, whereas I wouldn’t go that far. I think in a lot of areas we already have enough technological advancement to just kind of be done with it, and tech can actually threaten the well-being of humanity

I kind of have my doubts about his beliefs stemming from some humanitarian place, and rather just supporting what he wants to do anyway. If it really was just a net positive for humanity and he cared so much, then why not just do the same thing for your country or the world under socialism? Maybe it wouldn’t be as incentivized for you as the inventor, sure. But it’s not like people lose the ability to solve hard problems in a socialist economy. Though I do see the point that people who aren't driven by altruism may not bother if there truly is a lack of additional incentive

So the bottom line is: he thinks innovation wouldn’t be encouraged to the same extent under socialism

I’ve went about arguing against this in numerous ways:

• Attack the premise that more "innovation" is always good. A lot of innovation under capitalism is shallow, useless to the average person, actively harmful, creates more alienation, and is just meant to extract more profits
• Argue that the state could still sponsor innovations in some capacity (and does in the case of China)
• Mention that socialism generally comes after capitalism, where many advancements will have already been made
• Use the Soviet Union as an example, where they still created many new technologies and innovated at a competitive rate to the US and in a very short time period

If anyone has ideas for how I could argue this better I'd appreciate it. It's possible that we've just kind of hit a wall from a values standpoint and I will be unable to convince him on this front, as it's very wrapped up in his ego and identity

Maybe this is also the "wrong question." I realize I could just accept the premise that capitalism is inherently better for innovation, but I'm not convinced it's necessarily true

I'm aware of the western narrative, but I don't know if it is correct. The narrative I know goes like this:

After losing the cold war, there was a communist coup(?) that wanted to overthrow the current head of state. After this failed coup, the head of state was so panicked that he dissolved the union(?)

Please tell me what really happened.

does socialism support UBI? Or even robots giving people 12k a year?

Im really clueless and want someone to explain it to me. Are we really that lazy now days and can't start one or are there bigger factors that are stopping us? Like how modern propaganda has put us against each other so we dont realize the government is actually the problem? Also how many people were fighting in the French Revolution, is it possible to somewhat recreate those numbers and actually do smth for the better? Because imo we're already gonna die from climate change, so horrible impending death is coming anyways, why aren't people at least trying to do smth for the better and finally have basic human rights like no slave labor and good affordable housing

Hello, I'd like to know if anyone has any recommendations of socialist/communist/anarchist for books on Germany, would appreciate if they were about cold war Germany, but before world war 1, world war 1 and world war 2 books would be great.

This is a cross-post that's why I included the 3 ideologies.

Thank you very much

Edit: the title is not a question, it's a plea

Given the fact that they own a bunch of mines throughout Africa, and essentially build the infrastructure and then extract the raw materials.

Then use it for their own manufactured goods and sell them at a high profit (lithium batteries) whilst the African countries are coerced to be sellers of raw commodities rather than develop a manufacturing base for themselves, wouldn’t that make them imperialist?

It would be highly appreciated if someone educated me on this topic, as I’m still very confused about this.

Hey! I am looking to get more involved in the communist movement, but my biggest fear is to end up joining a party that has anti-LGBT, colonialist/racist or sexist underlining ideologies. I have been researching and it seems like most of the major communist parties, associations or leagues based in the UK have had some sort of huge scandal associated to them. Anyone happens to have UK-based alternative choices?

Not necessarily looking for perfection (super organised, hegemonic), but I would like to avoid the disappointment of joining a communist party that’s full of low-key/oblivious bigots.

Help!!

Everyone calls Trump a fascist but it was Bush who started the Guantanomo concentration camp, extraordinary rendition, justified and condoned torture, established another layer of state domestic control in DHS, establish FISA courts, literally destroyed an arguably socialist government. Called himself a war President seeking to root out the evil of Islamic terrorism. Trump on the other hand has done what in comparison? Or is it mostly his rhetoric? He seems to be more of a nationalist and isolationist than a fascist. All the mechanism of the state that he utilizes now were established by other administrations. Objectively, W engaged in more fascist behavior even if his rhetoric didn't match the behavior. Bush=fascist; Trump=national chauvanist

I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for books about Historians, and maybe the humanities more generally. From schooling to research to teaching. I’m more looking for how the system worked from and internal prospective rather then outward criticism.

Something pro or at least sympathetic to the Soviet Union would be preferred

I’m still someone who needs to read some of the foundational texts when it comes to the critique of capitalism but when I hear about people saying “Socialism would end the commodity production” I think. Would it? I mean in a Communist society everyone will have everything they need and I’m sure we will have some things like toys, games and whatnot will still be produced. Am I misunderstanding what they mean by “commodity production”? I probably am but I’d love to hear what you guys say!

Note this isn't about Actually Existing Socialist states, this is about something pettier and more personal. I'm generally a big proponent of "a system is what it does," and like, I feel like "what it does" includes the behavior of the "base," those on the ground level.

Like, to give an example of US politics, if you were to talk to William F Buckley and George Will in the 80s, and you were to talk to your average Flomaton racist, you would have been better able to predict Trump's rise from the latter, because that was what was leading them. But it seems like a lot of people don't feel that way, and I don't get it.

The example in leftism I'd give would be how people say that Adorno's theories are actually over-hated and he wasn't really trying to make thinly-veiled cringe culture into leftist sacrament, but every person I've met who's really into Adorno has been the most miserable jerks online.

Or on a larger scale, the anti-imperialistic "None of us are free unless all of us are free" crowd, while I'd say they have a point, in my experience (Note I am USAmerican) most of them have mostly engaged in shitting on policy that would make my life better as being Not Good Enough because it's Not Revolutionary while never lifting a finger in any way to help myself or anyone I care about.

So it ends up feeling less like a call for solidarity and more like someone worse off than me dragging me down and saying "We burn together," morally condemning me for wanting better because "as long as the system stands, an improvement in your life means capital will be crueler to the Global South," no matter what the theory is supposed to say/do, and negating me in any ideas for the here and now or to avoid that in the here and now.

Because that's how I experience that theory in practice, and it hasn't done much good to help . Granted, this might be be cause of my pessimism towards revolution in the US due to witnessing leftism being basically a sideshow my whole life until the DSA, but that too relates to my thesis, I have primarily seen revolutionary leftism as either impotent or actively hostile to any actually existing actions that would improve my wellbeing.

(The only exception is Cosmonaut, because they actually have a plan that engages with actually existing US politics, but they're the one exception)

Ditto with degrowth and how they say their program differs from capitalist austerity because it'd be done with care in mind, but green movements have shown how they don't give a shit if something doesn't actually work well as long as it fits their ideas (See also: Aluminium free deodorant, cloth diapers, the general low quality of vegan food), and how their ideas about Small Is Beautiful and Appropriate Technology are most similar to the Amish in practice; in a way where they conveniently ignore how oppressive the Amish cult is.

Like, I see folks in big Degrowth papers talking about how internet connectivity is one of the necessary needs for everyone, then I hear people in their base talking about how much they hate the internet and computing and how personal computing wouldn't exist in an ideal system. I see people in those papers talk about how "We aren't anti-technology, we're for appropriate technology" and then I think of someone saying to my e-face that the infrastructure for any new technology would inevitably devastate the Global South.

And in both cases I believe the latter more in terms of how degrowth would actually be executed, because that's the ground level telling me.

But like, is that valid? Like, obviously antecdotal evidence shouldn't be relied on alone, I know of the many ways that it can steer one wrong. But like, I see so much dissonance between the theory and the actual observed reality of my experiences that I don't get how it shouldn't factor in to my evaluation, at least a little.