this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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[–] wurzelgummidge@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 hours ago

I can't remember where I copied this from originally but it seems pertinent here

Americans are, of course, the most thoroughly and passively indoctrinated people on earth. they know next to nothing as a rule about their own history, or the histories of other nations, or the histories of the various social movements that have risen and fallen in the past, and they certainly know nothing of the complexities and contradictions comprised within words like ‘socialism’ and ‘capitalism.’

Chiefly, what they have been trained not to know or even suspect is that, in many ways, they enjoy far fewer freedoms, and suffer under a more intrusive centralized state, than do the citizens of countries with more vigorous social-democratic institutions.

This is is at once the most comic and most tragic aspect of the excitable alarm that talk of social democracy or democratic socialism can elicit on these shores.

An enormous number of Americans have been persuaded to believe that they are freer in the abstract than, say, Germans or Danes precisely because they possess far fewer freedoms in the concrete.

They are far more vulnerable to medical and financial crisis, far more likely to receive inadequate health coverage, far more prone too irreparable insolvency, far more unprotected against predatory creditors, far more subject to income inequality, and so forth, while effectively paying more in tax (when one figures in federal, state, local and sales taxes, and then compounds those by all the expenditures that in this country, as almost nowhere else, their taxes do not cover).

One might think that a people who once rebelled against the mightiest empire on earth on the principle of no taxation without representation would not meekly accept taxation without adequate government services.

But we accept what we have become used to, I suppose. Even so, one has to ask, what state apparatus in the “free” world could be more powerful and tyrannical than the one that taxes its citizens while providing no substantial civic benefits in return, solely in order to enrich a piratically overinflated military-industrial complex and to ease the tax burdens of the immensely wealthy.

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 48 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Lisa's only mistake was saying yes.

Just do every single thing in socialism, but change every single word. Call it Americanism.

Proletariat? No, just "worker".

Bourgeoisie? No, just "elites".

Capital? "Stuff". Like how in baseball they say a pitcher's got good "stuff". Use your human stuff.

Class Consciousness - "common sense".

Dialectical Materialism - Idk I'm still trying to figure out wtf that one means.

[–] Confidant6198@lemmy.ml 12 points 9 hours ago

Dialectical materialism -> Scientific materialism to distinguish it from the common usage of the world "materialism"

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 51 points 12 hours ago

about what youd expect for a country thats been the global epicenter for anticommunist propaganda.

[–] ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 72 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

American try to care one iota for your fellow man or really anyone other than yourself challenge (impossible):

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 24 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

During covid, going to a rural area in the US really got to me. The population is so individualistic / freedom-brained / "i do whatever I want all the time", that their grandmothers all dying meant nothing to them. I got mine keeps meaning smaller and smaller groups of people.

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 9 points 10 hours ago

Which is surprising because up here in Canada, the socialism started with the farmers. And it's still going on with coop feed and grain silos and harvester sharing. Farmers don't let other farmers starve, in Canada.

[–] Confidant6198@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

I got mine keeps meaning smaller and smaller groups of people.

What does this mean?

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 17 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

USonians used to be more community-focused. In the 1950s polio was eradicated due to massive community efforts, showing that they were willing to do things to benefit their community.

Nowadays they won't even do the same to benefit their extended families.

[–] shirro@aussie.zone 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

I think all "western" countries were considerably more community focused in the past.

I am in rural Australia and as a kid our supermarket and hardware store were owned by farmer's co-ops and the hotel is still community owned and puts profits back into local sporting clubs. I have old pictures of some of the community fund raisers in the past and they looked extravagant for the time for a small population. Everyone pitched in to help building sporting clubs or other community facilities or to fight natural disasters. One old timer said they thought the US influence of entrepreneur clubs (Rotary, Lion's, Apex) was one of the first things to divide the community as the shop owners started to do their own thing separate from everyone else. We still have local community run child care, aged care and hospital. Increasingly people send their kids to the religious private school for social signalling despite the government school being well supported by parents and having excellent facilities and standards. The US funded churches are everywhere competing for customers and preaching hate and division. The disconnect between how people here naturally chose to build a community and what they are told to believe is interesting. I saw a silly old bugger wearing a MAGA hat last year. His parents probably came back from fighting fascists and helped build this community through unimaginable hard work and sacrifice.

[–] vfreire85@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 hours ago

back in the 80s my father worked for the largest state-owned bank here in brazil. apart from all benefits and a generally more laxed culture back then (goals were not that enforced, for example), the employees were more of a closely-knit community. they had clubs and were involved with it (the bank still has but not everyone care for it, the one we had in my home town was closed), organized a coop supermarket in state capitals during the inflation years, they were friends usually helped and cared for each other, the families used to visit each other, organized parties for the children, barbecues and the sort. in the 90s, there were heavy talks of privatization, people were fearful for their jobs, layoffs, and the bank generally had a lax policy on security at a time when robberies became more common. the employees slowly began to leave the bank and the few who were admitted to their places had not that culture, were more individualistic. it happened to other state owned companies, and all hell broke loose when many of them were actually privatized (state-level banks, telephone companies, electric distributors were among the most significant examples). now it seems that we're getting more and more individualistic and losing the meaning of community and society.

[–] Dhs92@programming.dev 6 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Confidant6198@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

But when he says “smaller and smaller groups of people” does he mean that this kind of mentality isolates people to increasingly smaller groups?

[–] Dhs92@programming.dev 14 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

It used to apply to different groups in the past.

Fuck you, my community got ours

Fuck you, my friend group got ours

Fuck you, my family got ours

And now we're finally at

Fuck you, I got mine

[–] match@pawb.social 7 points 9 hours ago

As the number of people who got theirs diminishes, "Fuck you I got mine" will eventually decay to just "Fuck you"

[–] Confidant6198@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 hours ago

Dont you love individualism 🥰 /s

[–] deathbird@mander.xyz 3 points 8 hours ago

"All classes working together" as a counterpoint to socialism? Where have I heard of this before.....?

[–] miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

Meanwhile, socialist Norway's wealth fund could maintain everyone's standard of living for 400 years if they stopped working right now.

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Whenever people say this they neglect to point out that all the money came from selling oil.

[–] miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 8 hours ago

They forget to point out that only dumbfuck yanks would consider Norway to be socialist, so the comment, in a meme community, is misleading from the get-go.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 28 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

norway isnt socialist. they just excel at exporting capitalism's issues to the third world.

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

In a democratic state, things like universal healthcare are also called "socialized medicine" because it is an example of the people owning the means of production in that particular industry.

That's why most countries are what we call "mixed economies", that mix elements of capitalism and socialism.

Norway mixes in a higher ratio of socialism to capitalism than most countries. But they don't export any more of capitalism's issues to the third world than other countries. It's something to emulate, not discredit.

[–] blade_barrier@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

No. "Socialized medicine" is not "people owning the means of production"

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

It is in a democratic state. Who else do you think owns it?

[–] blade_barrier@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 hours ago

How is democracy related to ownership?

[–] JacksonLamb@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Pretty sure no one with universal healthcare calls it "socialized medicine". That's just a buzzword Americans use to scare each other.

It's not a means of producing anything other than health. Health is seen as a human right and it makes sense even in most western capitalist countries for it to be extended to everyone.

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I'm Canadian. It's what the founder of our healthcare system, Tommy Douglas, called it.

And yeah, it's the people owning the means of producing health. Socialist healthcare.

Americans scare people with these references to brutal authoritarian dictatorships that call themselves "socialist" but the real cause of all these problems is that they weren't democratic, not that they socialized industries.

Anyways, maybe it's just my autism making me literal as fuck, but I think you guys need to clear that up. This is what the people owning the means of production looks like. It's always going to be adjacent to capitalism, whether it's a socialist industry in a capitalist country, or a socialist country in a capitalist world.

[–] JacksonLamb@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Interesting, thanks for the Canadian history lesson Perhaps that's where the Americans got their weird terminology from.

you guys need to clear that up

Who needs to do what? I'm not sure what I said that somehow gave you the impression I was an American.

My society pays for universal free healthcare, like everywhere in the civilized world.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

and in a demoratic world norway wouldnt be doing tax-free extrativism in my country (and others'), so that you can pay for your socialized medicine in a capitalist economy, where the money to finance it has to come from the poor. in this case we are your poor.

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago

Socialized medicine is always cheaper than capitalist medicine. It's inherently more cost effective for people to pool their money together. It isn't paid for by some rich miner buying mining rights in some other country.

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

That’s why most countries are what we call “mixed economies”, that mix elements of capitalism and socialism.

No. They are capitalist.

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

By that logic, socialism cannot exist until the entire planet is socialist.

[–] stickly@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

I'm not sure how that link is supposed to refute anything? It says basically what the comment above says without using the phrase "mixed economies".

If you meant the power structure and public/private balance is heavily capitalist for Nordic countries then you'd probably want to post something else supporting that statement.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 33 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Hmmm, interesting. But what if we gave it all to one guy?

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[–] blade_barrier@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 hours ago

"All classes working together" is called capitalism

[–] blade_barrier@lemmy.ml -2 points 5 hours ago

The mob is absolutely right

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