One reason I can think is we haven’t yet seen a working socialist society, which often fail for external reasons.
For example, the socialist government in Cuba was severely undermined by the USA imposed blockade.
A more recent example is Venezuela, while you can think what you want about its current government, I don’t think USA should interfere with any sovereign nation.
There’s almost like a pattern, like someone, somewhere doesn’t like the idea of socialism to succeed.
The people who hate it are those who think themselves better than their peers. They think they deserve more than their peers, and that socialism transfers their superior effort to the benefit of their inferiors.
They see socialism not as everyone helping everyone, but as they, the successful being forced to support them, the lazy.
Yes. My one note would be that it may be more to the root of it to say that they see it as the good (anything they like) having to help the bad (anything else). These sorts almost always reduce down to good/bad, me/them, clean/dirty because they (like all of us in our own ways) simply desire understanding and the surety it provides. Framing things as 0/1 is much easier to understand than actually facing the grey of reality. It’s easy to want easy. Not often good or helpful, but just so dang easy to abide by.
People don’t really like change.
Think about free public libraries. They’re fairly popular, and not controversial outside of fringe libertarian types and assholes. People like that you can borrow books and other media for free. Usually there’s a bit of a backlash if there’s a movement to shut down libraries or limit their services.
Imagine if free public libraries didn’t exist, and someone tried to invent them today. People would be having screaming fits about communism. It’s stealing from the authors. it’s ruining publishing. We don’t need tax dollars for this when we have amazon. Blah blah blah.
It’s the same with other things we could socialize. health care is a privatized nightmare. If we somehow got a public option in, eventually people would start reflexively defending it.
So what I’m saying is many people don’t really have a set of internally consistent beliefs. They just don’t like change.
Such a good point. Every once in a while I come across a particular social policy in a European country that someone from there is astonished doesn’t exist in other countries and on paper you think this would be great but you would know it would be such a hard sell in your / other countries. I think on a city / regional level there is a lot more about looking what other places are doing well top adopt them but don’t see it as much on an international level (outside of the EU anyway)
Socialism. Production and distribution is owned by the community (government).
It has nothing to do with “Handouts”. Or helping your neighbor really.
There is no redistribution of wealth. That is communism.
Socialism with handouts is communism.
You could have a completely Socialistic society that let’s some of it’s people starve because it benefits the majority.
A great example to look at socialism is the nazi party creating Volkswagen.
People in Germany needed an affordable car. They created the production and distribution of affordable cars, owned and operated by the controlling government party.
Now, you can debate all you want on if it was a good or bad idea.
Average German looking for simple affordable car? Probably would think it was a good idea.
Rich German looking for a Duesenberg? Probably hates the idea of Volkswagen and spending their tax dollars on it.
Poor German? They aren’t getting a car anyways
A large government can easily have a monopoly on a good or service.
If that’s a good or bad thing is debatable
For example, say America was 100% Socialistic.
Government would gain access to all satalites and towers and issue the Volkstelefon. Affordable phone and internet for everyone!
Sounds great?
Imagine if tomorrow Trump issued his phone in that style.
Probably not a good idea?
So why all the hate?
ELI5: Because socialism is not always the right answer just like capitalism isn’t always the right answer.
Yeah, you show some spirit, but no, that’s not what those words mean, you even use them with different meanings - wiki/Socialism, wiki/Communism.
You misrepresented the two terms so badly I was looking for funny sarcasm/parody/trolling (eg “100% socialistic”, “hangouts/wealth redistribution is communism and socialism is communal ownership”, etc). Same with VW example.And alleging “socialism” (actually ‘communism’, the communal ownership of production factors) is less secure for your personal freedoms than private companies owning your data is just lol. The gov has the same access. Atm private companies control a lot of gov too so you just don’t really have a gov of the people anymore.
Not to mention that socialism/communism is not incompatible with democracy.
You can have 0 private (mega)corps (for simplicity sake: that just means no stock markets) and still have a perfectly normal & representative democracy.In fact, with people more engaged & putting the work into governance (not voting like a sports fan), that’s how you safeguard from fascism.
And yes, Trump can issue a phone in that style, since nobody is overthrowing him (is there even a codified procedure for that?).
You could have a completely Socialistic society that let’s some of it’s people starve because it benefits the majority.
Besides the word “socialistic” not meaning that (unless you meant that the choice was between ‘everybody starving’ and ‘a minority starving’) a majority can always outvote the minority, that is their moral prerogative. That is the opposite of a minority rule where the majority can starve (or be otherwise hindered/stolen from/enslaved/etc).
The difference is that with communal wealth the food production isn’t motivated by profit, but way more by food production quantity.
I think you might be confusing socialism and state capitalism here.
Socialism. Production and distribution is owned by the community (government).
This is a somewhat inaccurate definition. Socialism is the social ownership of means of production that does not necessarily mean the government. It comes in many forms such as democratic ownership by the employees (worker cooperatives), community ownership like utility providers being owned by the town and townsfolk, or state ownership if the state is democratically elected and accountable to the working class.
The concept of democratic and social ownership would be lost in an authoritarian state.
It has nothing to do with “Handouts”. Or helping your neighbor really.
There is no redistribution of wealth. That is communism.
Socialism with handouts is communism.
Both socialism and communism are concerned with redistribution of wealth. They just disagree on the method. Socialists believe that by eliminating capitalism and with progressive taxation wealth redistribution becomes inevitable, whole communists thinks this will only be achieved with a powerful state to oversee the redistribution process.
You could have a completely Socialistic society that let’s some of it’s people starve because it benefits the majority.
This scenario contradicts the core moral and political goal of socialism which is ensuring the wellbeing of all member of the community by ending the exploitation inherited in capitalism. A system that allows this scenario is just unethical authoritarianism regardless of what people call it or think it is.
A great example to look at socialism is the nazi party creating Volkswagen.
The nazi party was socialist in name only. It was essentially a fascist regime that crushed actual socialist and communist movements, and imprisoned and murdered labour leaders. They also didn’t nationalize the majority of industry and relied heavily on forced labour.
Again this fits state capitalism better than socialism. It’s essentially the state controlling corporates instead of the social and democratic ownership by the working class that socialism seeks.
A large government can easily have a monopoly on a good or service.
For example, say America was 100% Socialistic.
Government would gain access to all satalites and towers and issue the Volkstelefon. Affordable phone and internet for everyone!
Imagine if tomorrow Trump issued his phone in that style.
thats a valid point but primary against state control not socialism itself.
In an ideal socialist system this Volkstelefon would be owned by a democratic entity rather than an elite group of politicians in a flawed democratic government. This entity would probably consist of worker and consumer representatives with the common goal of providing affordable high quality service that’s also fair to both the workers and consumers.
Your concern here is also shared with most socialists.
While yes socialism can some time manifest itself in the form of state ownership that’s never the ideal situation since it can easily transform into state capitalism if the state decisions weren’t representative of the workers’ will (which is usually the case in non-direct democracy systems).
Propaganda.
People don’t know what socialism actually means because of propaganda…
you can ask someone who is against “socialism” whether they like it by talking about elements of it without explicitly mentioning the word “socialism” and they will probably agree with it.
You need a definition. You didn’t define it, and people who hate it rarely define it. If nobody knows what everyone is talking about, then it’s all a waste of time.
So, what do you think it means?
Socialism, as far as Marx was concerned, is a transitional stage to Communism. This is why it gets a lot of push back. Because of that connection. Worse, youve got generations of people conflating the two. And worse still, you have a few examples of people who were claiming to be socialist, who were really just using socialism for their own ends.
The reality is that Socialism is about everything being about the betterment of the people. That assets are a shared ownership, rather than privately owned. This in turn creates a fairer distribution of the wealth generated. So everyone’s lives improve.
The issue, the real issue, is that socialism needs a very large government in order to work. The fear is that this would create out of control bureaucracy. With middle mangers everywhere doing middle manger things that would create a system that was slow and worse far easier to corrupt. On top of that, you have the issue of competition not being the driving force of innovation. The government would control and mandate investment and innovation. Which again comes back to the middle mangers. There is also an issue with free speech. After all, if the government controls everything, where do you go if that government doesnt see the issues that its created? And worse still, how might it handle those dissenting voices?
The reality is that no one system is “the best” and really what would work best is a mixed system. One that builds a well regulated economy while maintaining a safety net for the people. So you would have private businesses, competition, innovation combined with free healthcare, free education, unemployment support, worker rights, high taxes, and high transparency and accountability.
ELI5
People dislike socialism because they often feel like their hard work and effort does not get fairly rewarded. Why would you work your whole life away to become a doctor and save lives when someone else wastes their time lost in vice.
Well you’re 5 you piece of shit and your efforts at not pissing the bed have been pretty minimal at best. But do you still eat? Do you have a roof and a bed to piss all over? Who cleans that mess every time? People hate socialism because it sucks to be the provider. It also sucks to suffer. And in life we often forget this. We forget it takes all of us. We forget what it is to be helpless. We forget those who provided for us. And we get angry when we have to provide for others when we feel so left out of the party.
In short dont forget. Don’t forget what you have been given and don’t forget to share. Dumb kids.
Because some of the worst dictators of all time said they were communist and socialist, despite dictatorship being fundamentally antithetical to both.
Then a bunch of idiots watched a dictatorship, the USSR, burn up their economy with a space and arms race, so now they think socialism kills economic progress. It wasn’t that the USSR didn’t invest properly in the populace, or infrastructure, or that they were fundamentally a kleptocracy with a massive military, it’s that they called themselves socialist. That’s what killed them.
Propaganda works.
Arguments I hear are usually something along the lines of “it’s going to destroy the economy”, “it destroys jobs”, “I’m rich and they’ll tax me a lot” (said by people who aren’t actually rich). Also, confusing social democracy (Germany, Nordic countries) with what the Soviet Union and China were doing.
Yeah, capitalism has conspired to make us believe, as a group, that resources are somehow incredibly limited while a small cabal of elites gobble up insane quantities of resources for themselves while depriving the majority of those same resources.
Pure altruistic socialism would evenly redivide those resources, giving to those who need what they need.
It is anathema to capitalism, but it is the only society that would actually work in a post-scarcity world, which we might actually be approaching, assuming that the capitalists don’t destroy it first.
The world has had enough resources for post-scarcity for decades, if not centuries. Before, the problem was logistics, now it’s will.
Oh it has always been will. Let‘s not pretend like capitalism has the better logistics and therefore a better world wouldn‘t have been possible sooner. That’s only romanticizing capitalism.
I think very few of the ruling elite would support a post scarcity world. Elon Musk keeps talking about it the most and he is one of the guys I trust the least to intentionally bring it about.
I think this is the biggest one. It’s the word, but it doesn’t matter which word is used. All the propaganda machines will fuck with it as quick as they can.
Also, confusing social democracy (Germany, Nordic countries) with what the Soviet Union and China were doing.
yes socialism means a lot of things to a lot of people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism#Etymology
it was invented a long time ago in association with a utopian fantasy
Every politically charged term ends up having highly disputed definitions, but I think most of those will acknowledge that the term has way more baggage than just the idea of taking care of yourselves and neighbors.
From Wikipedia:
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems[1] characterised by social ownership of the means of production,[2] as opposed to private ownership.[3][4][5] It describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems.
It represents a whole set of beliefs about how the world works, in addition to political goals. Someone might broadly agree with the idea that people should be taken care of, but have strong objections about the specifics. One of those beliefs that I’ll object to is the idea that just about everything should be understood as being about class conflict; I don’t think that’s always accurate.
IMHO remnants from the cold war indoctrination.
Probably US-Americans confusing anything that’s not predatory capitalism with Russia and China.
Confusing or deliberately conflating, depending on whether they’re the fraudster or the mark.
People often confuse socialism with communism. The confusion is deliberate by a lot of right wing propaganda. When talking about socialism with Americans, you have to explain to them that the fire department is an example of socialism. As are other public services, like roads, police, libraries, and some utilities.
Of course in America, some people think profit is more important, so they are doing everything they can to privatize services. For example, in Texas they are slowly killing public education, and toll roads have taken over normal highway construction.
As I mentioned, people are being conned and scared of the word so that they will elect people will be replacing what remains of public services with private ones.
Socialism and communism have a lot more in common than communism and what the soviets (and those they inspired) did.
“liberators”? Did you mean Libraries?
Corrected. (But libraries are liberators!)
100% true!
No that’s socialism.
There are exceptions even here in Texas. My city has no toll roads and has a publicly owned power company.
We don’t have private power companies in this county. What are they gonna compete on? Price? They would buy the power from the public company. Service? The service is honestly good.
I dream of moving to a different. State but I thank my lucky stars I grew up in this city.
Fire departments aren’t socialism, they’re social services. Socialism is when the whole economy is social services. Social-ism. A capitalist economy with lots of social services (like Norway) is called a social democracy.
:(
Asking this on Lemmy is like asking a priest “why do people hate the Church?”
Every answer is going to assume the system in question is the best and everyone is either benighted or misanthropic.
Yeah, a real failure of imagining what the socialism haters actually hate.
Points about propaganda are probably true, but none of them are very fleshed out or specific.
I think one of the reasons things are as bad as they are is almost no one engages with things with which they disagree. I’d be surprised if many folks on Lemmy had several good friends who voted (or would have) for trump.
In this case, how many folks have had a good honest conversation with someone whom they respect who also vehemently disagrees with them about socialism? Probably next to zero.
We instead substitute the worst takes from the “other” side and then generalize it about everyone with whom we disagree.
While there’s some amount of separation and avoidance, it is also interesting that we have publicly available polling (sometimes with open ended questions!) and data which is likewise ignored/not referenced. Instead we see people asking in places like this.
I think it is also worth noting that capitalism/socialism isn’t actually the biggest thing for most Trump voters. A solid portion care about very different issues, and simply do not care about the economic theory. We have a 2 party system in the US (and many places use winner-take-all elections), so any of a dozen issues could be the single issue that matters for a particular person.
capitalism/socialism isn’t actually the biggest thing for most Trump voters
Oh absolutely, especially at the Presidential level. I just meant it as a simple shorthand for folks with whom we disagree.
Though, on one that I’d argue was more a referendum on more or less socialism, I’d imagine the same was true in NYC, I’d guess the number of people who voted Mamdani and had close Cuomo voting friends would be pretty small, though I admittedly haven’t looked for much data on that.
Also, great use of polling. I just wish the Dems could take it and run on the shit with which everyone agrees instead of getting bogged down in online culture war fights.
Ah, your point is understood. Thank you. The NYC mayoral race is a good example too.
At one time I understood why no party can run on common sense in truth, though I forget the argument now. I know parties exist first to win elections, and only secondarily to change things. But I don’t see how that stops the Dems from running an extremely ‘common-sense-reform’ campaign.
