Remember, the social Democrats sided with the Nazis over the socialists. They’ve done it every time they’ve been given the opportunity, and will continue to do so as many times as people fall for their shtick.
“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house."
-Audre Lorde
No. Social Democrats protected democracy again both nazis and communists. Communists don’t want democracy. They want dictatorship of workers over everybody else. Nazis want the dictatorship of their people iver everybody else. Social democrats want a democracy of free and equal people.
So, what definition of Capitalism are you working with here?
If you’re basing this on the theoretical concepts of capitalism and communism, remember to also base it on the theoretical concept of democracy. It’s kind of stupid otherwise
Great idea to not align yourself with the social democrats - the closest thing we’ve ever gotten to a functional communistic society.
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Yeah, if I believe in the march of progress it seems like I would be aiming at social democracy. I feel like in europe, this is just vibes btw, they have more social governments but the people in power are sort of pissed about all of these checks and balances and protections. Like they just want to rule the way the US does and be evil and vitriolic, or maybe even worse than in the US, but they can’t. So theoretically you could have people in power who aren’t really social democrats? But OP probably knows the history better than I do.
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more like there can never be true capitalism under democracy
No True Scotsman: the thread.
What about all the non-USA countries? They are all mostly capitalist but are more regulated (like Canada in NA and most of the European Union) while also having true healthy démocraties?
You think Canada is a healthy democracy?
A lot of fucked up shit happens here. For example, did you know that almost all of America’s worst Nazis all came from Canada?
Yes, it is pretty healthy. Of course there are issues to fix such as under/overrepresentation of certain areas but otherwise it is generally considered (not just by me) to be a pretty healthy democracy
By people on the outside?
they do not have healthy democracies.
Oh, I didn’t realize it was the will of the people to fail to meet their climate commitments. I was pretty sure the majority of people thought that governments should be doing more. Was it also the will of the people to raise the pension age in France? And the people of Canada support the slow privatization of their public health system? That’s kosher to them?
You know what this means? The people don’t care. If the majority of people really cared, they would have voted for parties that put this issue front and center. But that didn’t happen because we live in democracies and the people chose another party that had a different mission
So what? You think the people are the good ones and the political class are the bad ones? Who did you think voted them into office and who’s responsible for the rise of right wing power? That just materialized itself? Get a grip of yourself and stop trying to divide the world just so you can have an easy time understanding. The world is complicated and not black and white. Stop dividing.
The general public is incredibly stupid on average. They absolutely vote for climate commitments and against change. You should have heard the whining coal mine workers on television when Germany decided to close them in a decade. The French pension system is out of balance due to longer, healthier lifes and needs a rebalance - but is not allowed to change because “it has worked so far”. There was never a winning change in policy. Trying to save money on public services by privatization is a philosophy shared by many “free market” enthousiasts and sadly always takes preference over evaluation of money streams in public funding.
If you heavily regulated companies, nationalize every major public service, place an upper cap to overall wealth for any one individual, eliminate inherited wealth and redirect all available resources to public education, health care, housing and UBI … then democracy could exist in a capitalist system.
But chances are we’ll more likely start WWIII with nuclear weapons than do any of that.
If you picture the political compass, where the y axis is how how democratic the society is(where the top is tyranny and the bottom is anarchy) and the x axis is how socialized it is (where the left is communism and the right is capitalism), OP claimed that ancap (the bottom right quadrant) doesn’t exist, and that those who claim to be ancap tend to be authoritarian right instead. You argued that democracy could exist in a socialist (leftist) society. You are not disagreeing with OP, because what you described is not a capitalist (right leaning) society.
What is true democracy anyway? The government always doing the will of the people? I don’t think that can really happen under any circumstances.
The people directly controlling the society collectively, rather than private ownership of said societies social wealth.
True democracy requires democracy at all levels of society. Workplace democracy, state democracy, community democracy, etc. Democratizing the electoral system but maintaining private ownership of production merely results in exactly the situation we are in now, with an illusion of democracy, where we choose from a pool of candidates selected by the elites in control of production in order to maintain control of their production.
There are different elites, and they have differing goals, but one thing they all have in common is they believe in the subjugation of the working class and the hoarding of the products of the labor of the working class. That’s why imperialism is non-partisan in the US. It serves capital.
That’s why there’s no meaningful changes to the status quo for the working class unless on the back of a social movement. They don’t serve us, they keep us placated while they serve the people who pay them.
But what is democracy? Is it just equality? Or having an equal say in what’s being done?
The people controlling the society collectively, rather than private individuals maintaining ownership and control of society. Production is part of society. It is one of the most important and powerful parts of society. It influences every other aspect of society, in a way no other part does. Such an integral part of our society being privately and anti-democratically controlled is how we end up where we are, where the world is literally boiling and we’re still expanding emissions, where the majority of people are living paycheck to paycheck, and not even our “pro-labor” party tries to help them…. Etc…
How equality does society need to be controlled in a ‘true democracy’? Completely equally? I’d rather have competent people controlling more of it than incompetent people.
What are you even advocating for here? You seem hung up on some weird definition you have in your brain, and ignore what I said.
If it’s controlled by a small group of people, while there is a larger group of people who a disaffected and incapable of direct participation in governance, then it’s not a Democracy, as simple as that.
I’m trying to nail down what democracy is, because you seem to be excluding ownership by your definition. If you use that definition, I can’t argue with you, since we’re talking about different democracies.
I think a democracy is a government that does the will of the people as much as practical. (No constant mind reading etc) (But we also can’t have total democracy because of the tyranny of the majority.) It seems like you’re defining it more broadly.
I think well regulated economies are an effective way of giving greater control to component people in order to effectively do what people want. I don’t think economies invariably must lead to a small group of people in control of the government to the exclusion of everyone else.
Quibble: They use a definition of democracy which isn’t all that democratic: Liberal democracy AKA dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It’s the same trick neoliberals use with freedom (when they say freedom they mean “of markets” NOT “of people”) because they know people will assume.
Which is why it’s so fucking hilarious that when they don’t use a heavily doctrinal definition of democracy the US manages to get their ass completely handed to them by the very countries that this marks as “Authoritarian regimes” because even they represent their people more.
Data says no what? That capitalism and democracy are incompatible? Or are you seriously applying the inherently flawed view that the US is a functional democracy? A country where it has been definitively been proven that the citizens support or lack of support for any policy has literally no effect on whether or not it will pass…. A country where literally 99% of our daily lives exists in dictatorships and oligarchies called corporations, who privately determine the use of all public goods and materials, and who have prioritized personal wealth generation over sustainability and the welfare of the population…
Where 70% of the population has no savings, 30% can’t read beyond a middle school level, almost a million people live on the streets… all while literally more food than is needed to feed all of Americas children every day three times a day is thrown away purely to ensure profit margins by corporations.
Anyone calling the US a Democracy is mistaken at best, deluded more likely.
@BartsBigBugBag Yeah, US is pretty fucked up. Still, all the countries which rank high in the democracy index are pretty capitalist.
I already made this point in another post, but you ever stop to think about why that might be the case? Think maybe there’s some bias?
And under which ideology was that democracy index created? Why would liberal Democratic countries have a material interest in convincing their populations that they are Democratic in nature, while functioning entirely and scientifically proven as an oligarchy?
@BartsBigBugBag Yes, people with money have a lot of influence on elections. How do you think we should fix it? Otherwise the index looks pretty accurate to me, the most democratic countries seem to be on the top, the most authoritarian countries are on the bottom.
There are examples of countries that prioritize the desires and needs of their population above the desires of capital, they’re heavily demonized in the west though. If you actually go to them, you might find out most of what you learned is literally completely bullshit, because it is.
Where?
Russia, China, Noth Korea, I bet.
