Man, c/me_irl has been on fire lately ๐ฅ
this post was submitted on 11 May 2026
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"Socialism is when the government does stuff. And if it does a whole lot of stuff, that's communism!"
Honestly, Idk why both can't exist together. Socialism for poor and needy, but if someone's pockets are full, you're welcome to spend it on anything you like. Like socialism must be absolute for necessities, like food, water. Rest the government can decide.
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Can you please explain it in detail for us?
Most people support capitalist nations with strong social programs. They generally do not support full socialism.
Most people support economic policies if they think they're getting a net-benefit from them.
If you can deliver propaganda to convince them that they are economic losers - particularly by reviling the popular figureheads of those economic policies - they'll sour on the policies quickly. You can see this in MAGA-world on a routine basis. Trumpies will quickly go out of pocket for some get rich investment scam, while foaming at the mouth against private businesses they're told are unfairly raising prices.
The issue is almost never socialism v capitalism in the abstract. It is consistently "what's in it for me?", with one's personal savviness and educational experience dictating where you break on the socialism/capitalism spectrum.
I disagree, but defitions matter and people generally don't agree on all political definitions. History has a lot of failed socialist experiments, but pretty much all of its successes were hybrids with capitalism.
History has a lot of failed socialist experiments
Every socialist experiment is the end result of a failed capitalist experiment. Often, a slew of failed capitalist experiments.
But that hardly matters in the here-and-now. We're trapped in a brutal dictatorial police state governed by heartless sociopaths and their legions of dimwitted thugs. Trying to argue with ICE Agent Jonathan Ross over the finer points of economic policy won't benefit you, because he's paid very well to not listen and just keep firing.
Similarly, the pent up public desire for liberation, for democracy, and for a bit of social justice isn't going to go away because you cooked up a spreadsheet showing the long term GDP of respective socialist and capitalist states. We're well past the point of high minded academic bullshit.
all of its successes were hybrids with capitalism
Every successful socialist state has ended up having to do business with the prevailing global hegemony. Of course, you could say the same of the feudalists. Nobody got to ignore the knock-knock-knock of Theodore Roosevelt's White Fleet a century ago and Trump's US Navy hasn't been any kinder in the modern day.
But in another hundred years? If China or India or Brazil become the prevailing global economic powerhouse, I have to wonder what hegemonic propaganda your great-grandkids are going to be regurgitating to justify their own status quo.