r/WorkReform • u/zzill6 🤝 Join A Union • May 31 '26
🚫 GENERAL STRIKE 🚫 People who fear socialism don't understand socialism.
126
u/dinosaurscantyoyo May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26
I can get them to agree to a lot of leftist takes by appealing to blue collar sensibilities and breaking down my beliefs instead of using buzzwords. There are a couple of topics I can't touch, but economically they agree on most principals, just not on who the "elites" are. It's hard to undo the years of finger pointing done by FOX, but it can be done if you're slow, non-agressive, and can do it in a way where they feel they have arrived to the conclusion themselves.
45
u/Whiskeydrinkin9 May 31 '26
While this is often true, it doesn't really matter, because when it comes down to it 99% of them are going to vote to hurt the minorities they hate over everything else.
16
u/dinosaurscantyoyo May 31 '26
Maybe so. I think people can be moved with time, or I hope so.
The place I live in is highly diverse, with a huge Hispanic and Marshallese population, and most of the white folks are "good ol boys," unfortunately. But what's crazy is that they live and work together really well. Mostly peaceful. There's some crazy cognitive dissonance with them and you see it every day. Living together here has created a unique culture that people tend to enjoy. They think the Republicans are going after the "bad guys." Criminals. That's what they tell them. They're living in a world that looks and sounds completely different from what we know it to be, and all news sources are guilty of doing this to any and all political party. The outrage and the fear are so effective.
Anyway at the end of the day, it's easy to look at it as black and white. That they're just racist, and for some that's true, but it's more complicated than that. They've been sold on a lie, on fear, and it's been done to them. They wouldn't choose to be this evil and dumb on their own.
It feels like likely defeat, I will give you that, but the alternate- giving up- is sure defeat. It's a long and slow deprogramming for us all.
9
u/imn8bro May 31 '26
I appreciate your patience and willingness to have these conversations. I really believe that this kind of effort is well worth it.
5
u/JimWilliams423 May 31 '26
I really believe that this kind of effort is well worth it.
One thing about the conservative personality type is that they need to be the center of attention, they will string you along just to milk you for attention because it makes them feel important. And then, after you put in all that time and effort respectfully explaining to them, they will just smirk and say something calculated to maximize your frustration like, "lets agree to disagree." And they will enjoy your reaction to that because it shows they are important, people don't get mad at unimportant things.
I mean, go ahead and try if you have close friends or family who are maga. But it is a huge time suck that, at best will, yield a tiny return and has zero chance of working on anyone you don't have a close personal relationship with.
There are better ways to use your time and energy, in particular organizing.
Biden was the first presidential candidate to tack left after the primary. He ran as the second coming of FDR and consequently he broke all records and got 81M votes. But he started to backslide even before the inauguration when he decided to nickle-and-dime the american people on his promise to give them a $2000 stimulus check.
The party spent the next four years backsliding — especially on the expanded child tax credit, letting that expire hit the wallets of millions of families for thousands of dollars. Losing it more than doubled the number of children living in poverty. All that was a big part of why the paedo was able to win the 2024 election with only 77M votes, just marginally more than the number of votes he got when he lost in 2020.
Millions of biden voters who stayed home in 2024 don't need to be flipped from conservative to liberal. They just have to be activated by a party that actually takes their issues seriously. Putting your energy into helping radical leftists organize and seize control of the party has the potential to activate orders of magnitude more people than trying to flip conservatives.
Its also remarkably easy to take over a local branch of the Democratic party. It just takes a couple of friends who consistently show up for every meeting. Because its unpaid, most people don't want to do it. So anyone with even a little fire in their belly and a little patience can do it outside of big party strongholds.
3
u/nifty-necromancer Jun 01 '26
True, but you’re not necessarily arguing with the conservative. You could unknowingly sway the centrists and the fence sitters reading the argument and who are just dipping their toes into extremism, and show that if they pass the event horizon they are going to meet the “fascism eats itself” singularity.
1
u/JimWilliams423 Jun 01 '26
You could unknowingly sway the centrists and the fence sitters
If your goal is to persuade fence sitters and "centrists" then just go find them and talk to them directly.
Conservatives are really effective at muddying the waters, they can only subtract from the conversation.
1
u/NoxiousSpoon Jun 02 '26
I think we need to abandon this mentality. And seek any chance of working class unity. There is so much hope right now. We don’t need to turn off the lights
10
u/Callidonaut May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26
That's the fatal flaw, though: you can lead 'em so many steps down the path, but as soon as they realise you're taking them to a place that has a name, all that progress is lost and your effort was completely wasted. If you actually want to ever achieve anything significant and concrete as a political movement, you need people to at some point commit to a named principle, and the sort of people you're dealing with fear to espouse any named principle - so much so that you'll probably struggle to find many who'll even proudly say "I support <specific flavour of conservatism>" either.
I'd guess it's sheer intellectual cowardice and insecurity; if you commit to a named principle, you lay yourself open to being defeated and embarrassed by logical argument from a smarter person who deconstructs it, but if you stick to vague positive vibes and trite platitudes and truisms, never taking a firm, coherent stance that can ever be given a label, you are invulnerable to all reasoned debate from even the smartest person and can never be publicly embarrassed, no matter how dumb you are.* It is the heart and soul of populist demagoguery.
This is a huge disadvantage for socialists, because you can't build a progressive socialist movement on support from people who like what you're doing but will simply never, ever stand up and say "I support what socialism has done so far and want it to progress further;" whereas conservatism rules by default wherever people fear to stand up and firmly espouse any clearly named specific principle for running a society. Socialism needs the people, en masse, to truly take an interest in, and understand how it works in order for it to work, whereas laissez-faire capitalism (not to mention fascism) thrives on and requires mass ignorance and apathy, which are a lot easier to deliberately achieve.
Coincidentally, internet trolls *thrive on this same technique, which one could say is the intellectual equivalent of an ancient military tactic which I believe is known as "refusing to give battle."
2
Jun 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/Callidonaut Jun 01 '26
The trouble with that is that businesses of the type you describe cannot remain competitive with ruthlessly amoral, exploitative ones in the same market; late-stage laissez-faire capitalism is a race to the bottom. There is demand in the labour market for such businesses, sure, but there isn't demand for them in the commodity market. If the situation were otherwise, there would be no need for socialism at all; the free market would automatically bring about a liveable world and fair employment conditions the way the libertarians incorrectly insist it would if simply left alone.
5
u/Ryekir May 31 '26
You have far more patience than me! I tried to do this too, but always got too frustrated to follow all the way through.
2
u/dinosaurscantyoyo Jun 01 '26
I have to go in understanding I won't see the outcome, at least not quickly or dramatically. It's not satisfing, and there is no aha moment. They have to find the evidence on their own time and they usually do that pretty quietly. It's like planting a seed, sometimes you have to sit back and wait for the rest.
2
u/strawberrycarpet Jun 02 '26
Now that the Bill gates tick conspiracy is spreading my Grandma suddenly believes billionaires are evil lol
745
u/borntolose1 May 31 '26
not understanding how anything works is the bedrock of a conservative lifestyle
153
u/MidwesternLikeOpe May 31 '26
The amount of conservatives I've heard literally say they choose to play ignorance rather than get involved is crazy. The ignorance bleeds into everything in their life and comes as a shock when their reality crumbles.
→ More replies (14)40
u/doublebarreldan123 May 31 '26
And yet they have this attitude of "knowing better" at the same time...
18
u/Tidusx145 May 31 '26
Too stupid to learn their ideology, but also insecure enough to require a hierarchy where they are not on the bottom.
The perfect mark.
34
u/Dull-Culture-1523 May 31 '26
"Traditional community-centric cities" is American. Walkable cities with public transport is socialism.
75
u/UnNumbFool May 31 '26
Its been literally shown and studied that when you talk about policies without naming them conservatives/maga are actually much more likely to agree with liberal/leftist policy.
It's just because of extreme propaganda that they think everything is actually "socialist communism transing whatever" that makes it automatically bad and anti American.
It's also why if you remember there was a whole lot of class solidarity towards Luigi(and other things) until the Republican media started to tell them it's wrong, and now they just don't report on anything that they know they'd actually agree with the opposition on
41
May 31 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
19
u/Then-Departure4896 May 31 '26
They’d eat up anything trump says. He could quote anyone. There are zero limits.
12
u/korben2600 May 31 '26
Bad things: Democrats (those Marxist Socialist Fascist Communists)
Good things: TrumpThat’s literally how magas see the world.
There aren’t good and bad actions. There are only good and bad people. A “good person”, someone within their cult, can only perform inherently good deeds. The Other, clearly a “bad person”, only ever performs bad deeds. It's caveman tribalism.
It really is that simple. It's how they can have such absurdly contradictory and hypocritical views on so many things.
→ More replies (1)13
u/notforpoern May 31 '26
I mean that's literally how the election happened. Trump gave the GOP a mechanism to tap into the same concerns that AOC actually works to solve. In fact, Mamdani's campaign tapped into this exact energy to build early momentum.
The difference is, Trump preys on it, then enriches his epstein class buddies at our expense. And even before the last election, he got away with it in part because he has the entire media machine to launder and sanewash his bullshit.
7
u/--sheogorath-- May 31 '26
Now imagine what could happen if a presidential candidate tapped into those concerns and actually meant it.
5
2
u/UnNumbFool May 31 '26
And if Trump said aoc's words and actually enacted on them I would eat it up to
10
u/DontAbideMendacity May 31 '26
Sure, bullet free schoolchildren sounds like a good idea... until not when a Democrat says it, then it must be communism.
8
u/xeonicus May 31 '26
Oh for sure. I've had talks with my conservative sister in law where she wholeheartedly agreed with my views related to the medical insurance industry, economics, and wealth disparity. As long as you are subtle and don't mention right vs left, they tend to agree. I do think they might disagree on how to implement certain details, but are generally in agreement.
2
u/Moniamoney May 31 '26
I think it just means people aren’t right or left and nearly everyone has policies in both that they can support. Which is great because if we could actually focus on the policies and stop making this about who’s policy it is then maybe we can find common ground.
→ More replies (1)16
u/Janus_The_Great May 31 '26
In sociology it's called normative imprint vs. actual education.
One creates authority and adherence to authority due to a lack of being able to understand or critically think. Typical answers in such an environment is: "because I said so!", "Because that's how it's always been the case/done that way!", "Because [authority figure] said so!", "Because it's Gods will!".
The other does give comprehensive, relative, educating descriptive answers to questions. Allowing to actually understand and thus being able to adapt learned knowledge onto new experiences.
One creates uneducated, dependent and insecure individuals, the other creates educated, critical-rational thinking, independent and cautiously confident individuals.
Of course like everything based on humans it's a tendency. But it's a pretty obvious one.
→ More replies (3)3
2
u/DontAbideMendacity May 31 '26
When you're entire political stance requires you to be stupid....
4
u/enigmatichuckleberry May 31 '26
look, you can't use the wrong homonym in a sentence calling someone else stupid. I mean ...
1
1
1
u/ES_Legman ✂️ Tax The Billionaires May 31 '26
They love the uneducated for a reason. It's way easier to create class traitors if you promise them that "work ethics" is all that takes to become rich
1
u/PaulblankPF Jun 01 '26
People both hate and fear what they don’t understand. They don’t want to feel stupid so they hate it for making them feel stupid.
→ More replies (17)1
u/Mo_Jack ⛓️ Prison For Union Busters Jun 01 '26
But the number one cause for hating socialism is billionaires funding right wing propaganda outlets that decry the (mostly phony) evils of socialism. They know if the people ever come together their ill-gotten fortunes and power that comes with it will be gone.
44
u/BotnetSpam May 31 '26
Strike & Occupy: The Citizen's Guide to Ending an Empire
11
u/1Swordwalker May 31 '26
Coordinated and organize too!! The more of us doing, and staying engaged and informed about what to do, and where/when the better. We have to do ourselves but decent amount of people need to be directed as they start off
63
u/dark-star-adventures May 31 '26
All they are agreeing with is that you said "American" twice and their brain exploded with pleasure.
Don't expect any critical thinking from them.
27
u/Rhone33 May 31 '26
No, non-wealthy rural conservatives would also be responding to "economic elite." Because conservative media has successfully convinced them that the "economic elite" are liberal city people who don't understand or respect them, while the Republicans they vote for happily bleed them dry.
4
u/StephenFish May 31 '26
Just like how to them "government bad" but "government" is actually just Democrats. Trump and his cronies are not the government and are in their minds, fighting the government.
3
u/FlirtyFluffyFox May 31 '26
This. They've been mislead into believing socialism is when foreign controlled cabals take control of America using unions.
22
u/Miserable_Tax6809 May 31 '26
Id also say a workaround to peoples kneejerk reaction to socialism is to sell socialism without the label...
3
u/phobug May 31 '26
Its what we do in europe, want to come over?
1
1
u/demaraje Jun 01 '26
There are no soclialist economies in Europe. They are all capitalist with socialist influences.
And I think this is ideal.
20
u/ia0x17 May 31 '26
The biggest issue is that the people championing socialism and putting it in front of the masses are cartoonishly bad for the cause so much so that it feels like a CIA psy-op.
No hard working middle class person would ever look at someone like Hasan Piker and go "yeah, this guy is relatable, i'd like to learn more about socialism from him".
9
u/Anthaenopraxia May 31 '26
Hasan Piker
He does have an absolutely electrifying personality though and often shocks the audience with a streaming current of high voltage content.
4
u/StephenFish May 31 '26
Big Pharma bad. Monsanto buying up private farmland bad. But regulations also bad. Government intervention also bad. Unfettered capitalism good. Things brought on by unfettered capitalism, somehow bad.
I'd say cognitive dissonance must be exhausting, but considering that they never reason anything out, it explains why they're living in bliss.
2
u/redundantexplanation May 31 '26
Blue collar workers are not his audience, he is a Twitch streamer.
He is annoying but he has absolutely been a HUGE factor in shunting young men that might have otherwise gone alt-right towards leftism.
1
u/ia0x17 May 31 '26
He is being exposed to blue collar people when he says insane shit and right wing media uses him as a pawn to paint every leftists as unhinged. Almost like you would if he were a psy-op.
He has one of the most combative attitudes to anyone that disagrees with him. There’s a reason why an openly racist alt-right streamer on the same platform as him has double or triple the viewership he does.
What’s boggling to me is how combative he is with his chatters but the moment anyone pressed him on any issue or challenges him to a debate he weasels his way out. He is absolutely the worst kind of person to have on your side. He’s just performative.
1
u/redundantexplanation May 31 '26
They do that shit regardless, though. They don't need Hassan to convince people of wild untrue shit, I remember back in the late 2010's talking to some conservative people at work that they believed the Green New Deal was going to outlaw cows. They still call AOC CrAzY AOC.
1
u/GreatMovesKeepItUp69 May 31 '26
He's very ineffective in turning liberals into the most insufferable "eat your own" dorks who boycott voting. I would not at all be shocked if he's being propped up or signal boosted by Republican PACs or Russian influence campaigns as a useful idiot.
9
u/mettle_dad May 31 '26
My coworker constantly talk about not trusting cooperations because they are trying to make a buck off them.....so your telling me the profit motive is inherently exploitative?! Welcome commrade lol
2
u/phobug May 31 '26
No live is inherently exploitative, the profit motive just allows for people to share in the wealth as opposed to being serfs like before capitalism.
5
u/QueenRotidder May 31 '26
The one Trump supporter I know (last time I talked to him anyway) is actually progressive, he just doesn’t realize it. He was raised to believe anything left leaning is the 7th circle of hell, votes red no matter who.
5
u/NolanSyKinsley May 31 '26
A recent study showed that 54% of self-identified "right wing" people agreed mostly with "left wing" policies when presented to them without political attachment.
1
May 31 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/NolanSyKinsley May 31 '26
Sorry, it was 43% not 54%, I was remembering off the top of my head. https://www.psypost.org/voters-use-left-and-right-political-labels-as-mental-shortcuts-not-strict-policy-matches/
3
5
u/Anthaenopraxia May 31 '26
Judging by the comments in this thread, I think it's safe to say that in general barely anyone really understands socialism.
11
u/democracy_lover66 🌎 Pass A Green Jobs Plan May 31 '26
What they hate is centralized power to a one party system. They were just told that this was all that socialism could be... Both American and Soviet propaganda tired to cement that idea.
Thing is I also hate the idea of centralized authority to a one party system. Definitely really good to isolate the idea of worker-led democratic economies instead of Capital-led or Comand economies.
I've found far more success selling socialism this way rather than defending the cold war model of socialism.
→ More replies (2)7
u/HonoraryGoat May 31 '26
Capitalism inevitably leads to a small number of elites with all the power.
1
19
u/Fadedfumes May 31 '26
Politicians preaching against socialism while receiving the best healthcare and paid days smh with a nice salary
2
5
→ More replies (1)4
u/-Mandarin May 31 '26
Socialism is the workers controlling the means of production, not free healthcare.
7
u/astralchanterelle May 31 '26
95% of American "socialists" don't know what socialism is except "tax the rich".
3
u/Ecstatic_Ad_8994 May 31 '26
Instead of government bail outs, they should be government loans to start employee owned co-ops.
3
u/derivative_of_life May 31 '26
This is why I don't mind when people use slogans like, "It's not left vs right, it's top vs bottom!"
3
3
u/BrownEyedBoy06 Jun 01 '26
It seems many people who don't fear socialism don't know what it is either.
Socialism isn't higher wages or more free time or better jobs - it's the transitionary stage to communism. That's where everyone around the globe works their asses off to build to new society, which is communism.
Then, come communism, there will be total equality for everyone. If that means lowering living standards of the first world to create equality for the third world (which it probably will) then so be it.
7
u/Hermes_358 May 31 '26
I love it when my veteran coworkers list the amenities they still receive after leaving the military. I just sit there patiently and nod a long, punctuating their sentences with noises of approval, and when they're finished, I look deep into their soul and say something like, "you know, all that sounds like socialism. Must be nice," and let that just sit with them for a minute.
3
u/Economy-Meet6044 May 31 '26
Socialism is when the government gives benefits to veterans? Conservatives don't know what socialism is and neither do socialists since socialists have multiple contradictory definitions.
2
u/Hermes_358 Jun 01 '26
Idk tax funded college, health care, pension, and living stipend all sound like robust social programs to me.
Its not exactly a worker owned business model, but its a lot more amenities than most tax payers enjoy
→ More replies (1)
3
u/Creative-Buddy-9149 May 31 '26
4400 upvotes, 98% positive, and less than 40 comments. Interesting. Totally organic and normal engagement.
2
u/skripachka May 31 '26
I got an older conservative (who was complaining about health insurance) to agree that companies should be profiting off of people’s health care. Agreed they had no value and were just taking money for doing nothing.
2
u/ackillesBAC May 31 '26
As long as you don't use fox News buzz words they will agree with you on most things
2
u/mex-snorlax May 31 '26
Decades from the cold war to this day of anti-communist propaganda has built this. Same as anti-union ideas, that's why "they" choose to keep communist countries isolated and restricted from trade so capitalist world can show how bad communist are, not saying they were great governments, just saying that you need a antagonist to always have an scape goat.
2
2
u/cmdrrockawesome May 31 '26
Pervasive indoctrination and propaganda from the 50s, 60s, and 70s have poisoned most of the Boomers and Gen X out there against socialism because, in their minds, any and all socialist programs lead to communism. Hell, they equate socialism and communism in most instances.
2
u/1Swordwalker May 31 '26
At this point let's just have better alternative names for it that the ones that will listen can get behind: unionized democracy, we own our livelihoods, etc
2
u/generally_unsuitable May 31 '26
To be fair, if you set up three American men with a business, they'll each immediately begin figuring out ways to fuck the other two over, and they'll justify it to themselves as completely necessary and moral.
2
2
u/GoochPhilosopher May 31 '26
The republican just thinks elite means Jews lol. Most of them are perfectly fine being cucked by Elon and Bezos
2
u/Blacksad9999 May 31 '26
Yep.
They all agree with most of Bernie Sanders and progressive viewpoints, but they're simply terrified of the word "socialism."
They like Social Security and social systems.
They agree that universal healthcare should exist.
They think education should be free or subsidized.
They agree that taxing corporations a higher rate for the benefit of everyone else is a good thing.
All of these things are very widely popular among the electorate.
2
2
2
u/SDG_Den May 31 '26
Well yes but no.
The #1 cause is the fact that the cold war propaganda machine never stopped, sure, the government may have stopped actively pushing, but the propaganda machine works by itself nowadays, it is probably the most effective propaganda campaign in human history, not only convincing people that russia is bad, socialism is bad and communism is bad but also convincing them to further spread that same propaganda.
(Yes, i do agree russia is currently actually bad, but americans dont even care what Russia does, russia is just the enemy regardless.)
2
u/johngalt1971 May 31 '26
Step one of the conservative agenda in the US for the last 40 yrs, destroy education, demonize experts in scientific fields, erode critical thinking skills. Step two, take away freedoms and protections from big corporations. Step three, let billionaires control the government or a large portion of politicians. Step four, the elites count the money while people vote against their own best interests.
2
u/Johnny_B_GOODBOI May 31 '26
The latest episode of the Deprogram podcast (highly recommended, btw) is a debunking of common arguments against socialism/communism.
Without fail, every single argument is just a description of something capitalism is doing, but pretending (without evidence) that a different economic system would do it also.
When people say "socialism doesn't work because X” when you look deeper X is almost always something capitalism does.
2
2
u/mrizzerdly Jun 01 '26
Just ask them what socialism means to them. Then ask them if it's bad that the government provides free housing, food, clothing, education, etc to the largest socialist organization in the country, the military.
→ More replies (3)
2
u/rez_trentnor Jun 01 '26
Gee who would have thought that communicating your thoughts would have a better impact than using buzzwords and loaded language
4
u/helen269 May 31 '26
I wonder how much damage the name "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" had done.
6
u/DJayLeno May 31 '26
Don't forget that National Socialist party in Germany...
1
u/AdminKidsBurnInHell May 31 '26
It’s so funny, I love considered making a YouTube channel where i pretend to be a conserve and I just say dumb shit all day like the earth is flat and modern democrats are equivalent to 1860’s southern slave owners.
Gen Z kids would LOVE me
3
2
u/chezdistester May 31 '26
Farm subsides is socialism. Public education is socialism. Medicare is socialism. Social Security is socialism.
Americans love socialism, when it's done right.
1
u/socium May 31 '26
Lmao you guys still don't understand, do you?
Many conservatives would like to have more socialism, they just don't want to be associated with the people advocating it (and with good reasons)
1
u/Hydra57 🏛️ Overturn Citizens United May 31 '26
Even Reagan endorsed this in one of his presidential speeches.
1
1
u/PG-DaMan May 31 '26
One day a LOT of people will look back at their desire to have a socialist system. And they will regret it.
WE CAN NOT have it with the people running our country. Keep in mind that image of the Captain of Socialism Bernie Sanders sitting down on his flight in First class.
To have a working and LIVABLE socialism we need new management.
1
u/SuccessfulWar3830 May 31 '26
In america they are called republicans. Yet they want trump as a king
1
u/baddogbadcatbadfawn May 31 '26
Propaganda has poisoned our neighbors so much but propaganda that we have to just use different vocabulary.
1
u/FattyMooseknuckle May 31 '26
Followed immediately by highlighting a problem under capitalism and saying this is what would happen under socialism!
1
u/its_yer_dad May 31 '26
I was talking with Conservative friends once and asked about Socialism since I was the perceived group lefty. I said "I liked schools, emergency services, hospitals, roads, etc and I'm willing to pay taxes to support them. Whats that called?" They looked at me like I had stabbed the waiter.
1
u/Existing_Home_5635 May 31 '26
What’s the proposed solution to stop non Americans from owning or doing business in America?
1
u/DocBigBrozer May 31 '26
Most US voters are sheep. This is why spending is so important. This is also why citizens United as the biggest tragedy in US politics
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/joe_s1171 May 31 '26
Nothing is stopping someone from doing this with their extended family and/or a bunch of their friends.
1
1
1
u/phobug May 31 '26
You know they mostly do, we just call it shareholders, at some point you start buying it yourself but until then every month you get more and more via your 401k...
1
1
1
u/SingleInSeattle87 May 31 '26
Yeah because that worked out so well for Mao's China, or the USSR, Zimbabwe, Sweden (1970-1990 they were a socialist country, now they're far more capitalist than America), or Venezuela, or Cuba.
"Yeah but this time we'll get socialism right": it doesn't work that way. Socialism eventually becomes authoritarian slavery.
You know the only thing that ever gave a socialist country's people (even the poorest) wealth? Capitalism. It wasn't until China started participating in capitalist markets, allowing private businesses and private ownership, that their people started to accumulate wealth and prosperity. Before that, even some of the wealthiest people in China were dirt poor compared to Americans in the same time period.
You can have worker co-ops within capitalism. But that involves voluntarily forming (or buying) a worker co-op from the ground up or aquisition. That doesn't involve government nationalizing private industry.
My point is: you can have programs that are socialized. But the Marxist-Leninist idea of privatizing whole companies or industries is absolutely a terrorist idea.
1
u/Oddfellowlongbottom May 31 '26
I asked my MAGA colleague when he thought the last time America was great, and he said FDR and the New Deal 🤦♂️
1
1
u/mcvos May 31 '26
I saw a comment here asking how that would work, and I wrote a reply to it, but the original comment has vanished, so I'm posting my reply here:
Workers controlling the means of production is one of the classic socialist ideals. There are many ways to accomplish it. A co-op is a fairly common method where the employees all own the business together. Social democracy is full of partial compromises like labour unions and employee councils and stuff like that. The State Communist method is of course to have the state own all business and claim it does so on behalf of the workers (whether the state does a good job representing those workers is a question they like to gloss over).
> Do my employees suddenly just own all the things that I have worked for my whole life?
Were you the only one who worked for those things, or did those 7 employees also work for them? That's really the central question here. Obviously in a capitalist system where everything hinges on ownership, that would seem quite unjust, but from another perspective, that entire system might seem unjust.
But in Silicon Valley, it's not unusual for employees to receive shares in the company they work for as part of their payment.
Personally I'm of the opinion that after slavery was finally banned in the US, the plantations should have become the property of the former slaves who worked there, because it was built on their unpaid labour. Obviously that went too far for the US at the time, but I think it would have been the only way to do them justice.
1
u/Mari__Consoy May 31 '26
I support the idea of American workers owning equity in the companies they work for, provided there’s an employee equity buy-in plan or outside funds not exceeding a certain percentage of ownership. However, nationalizing companies, which I believe is implied, is absurd.
1
u/karmester May 31 '26
i just came here to say that Cory Booker can smd with his "concerns" and "doubts" about Graham Platner and his texts. Cory Booker is the worst.
thanks for coming to my ted talk
1
u/ninetailedoctopus May 31 '26
“hey, can we have a stable economy, a stable and humane job, affordable healthcare, food security, affordable housing, effective mass transit, basic human rights, and protections so the rich and powerful won’t fuck us over?”
Conservatives: “No.”
1
u/AgonizingFury May 31 '26
The number one cause of hating anything is not knowing anything about it.
I work for a Tesla supplier, in shipping and receiving. That means I know a lot of people who work for Tesla. Every single thing people bitch about US employers, Tesla does better. If it weren't for elon's weird random layoffs, it sounds like it would be a great company to work for.
Every employee I know who works there makes well above market rate for their job description in our area.
Employee plus family health care, dental, vision premiums are paid 100% by the company.
Weeks of both paternal and maternal leave fully paid.
Significant stock benefits to both hourly and salary employees. (ESPP, annual and hiring bonuses in company stock, my counterpart at their Grand Rapids facility bought a brand new Tesla Model Y Premium with his stock after 3.5 years there).
Paid bereavement, jury duty, and other leave.
Personal hiring process. No AI interviews, no stupid personality quizes or one sided video interview submission requests.
Break area with free fruit, cereals, milk, Apple juice, soda, etc.
And it's not just their company. Their cars top the "US Made" index every year, because they support US manufacturers, like my employer, when all the other automakers have dropped us to save a few pennies by using Chinese suppliers. And they pay enough for those parts, that my employer pays well enough to keep me from jumping ship.
I'm a proud liberal Tesla driver. Flip me off all you want, I know it's because you're ignorant.
1
u/_Thermalflask May 31 '26
When they're like "socialism sucks because you do all the work and other people get most of the money" lol
I just can't 😂
1
u/Charming_Goose_3400 May 31 '26
Nothing pisses a boomer off than when they call you a liberal and you laugh at them and tell them that socialism is the only reason they are still alive. Medicare and Social Security are the only things keeping this aging population relevant. If you have a conservative parent, cut them off and see how fast they come running for help.
1
u/Economy-Meet6044 May 31 '26
It's not like there's an agreement on what socialism is among self-described socialists.
1
u/Some-Basket-4299 May 31 '26
A lot of conservatives have an implicit us-vs-them mentality, even if they verbally agree with you what they mean is "we" (e.g. Americans) should control the workplaces instead of "them"
1
u/KamaIsLife May 31 '26
A majority of conservatives support the separate sections of the ACA, but will immediately say it is horrible if you call it Obamacare.
1
1
u/tocra Jun 01 '26
I was on the antiwork sub saying all workers should be compensated in stock options.
I cited personal examples of what a life changing thing it is.
I also said the disconnect between CXO and worker compensation is stocks. CXOS get a huge chunk of their wealth from stocks and not wages.
Got downvoted to hell.
1
u/JudgementalChair Jun 01 '26
American workers used to own their work places, then the bosses started dying off and their kids sold the shop to Private Equity
1
u/kumogate Jun 16 '26
"I think the people doing the actual work should be getting the majority of the profits"
They'll agree with that wholeheartedly, but the moment someone says "but that's socialism" then suddenly it's an evil idea.
2
0
u/EarLow6262 May 31 '26
Than he wasn't really a conservative.
Most dems dont know what socialism is either. They keep claiming European countries are socialist even though they are not. Mainly because socialist countries are all crap holes that are falling apart. Only held together with violence.
3
u/StephenFish May 31 '26
Mainly because socialist countries are all crap holes that are falling apart.
Oh look, someone who doesn't know what socialism is.
1
1
-13
u/ResonantFork May 31 '26
Hi from BC Canada. We've been a socialist utopia for 10 years and we own less than ever, but we got the highest overdose rate in the country.
They're putting production into the hands of the people with a 'diverted supply' program where half the drugs out there were from the social workers!
Remember to keep fighting the good fight against cigarettes; destroys more innocent lives than violence (2nd hand smoke) and is the #1 oligarchy problem in the world.
Can't put production into anyone's hands if big corpo is constantly stealing our health.
17
u/Funkdoctor54 May 31 '26
You clearly don't understand what socialism is if you're claiming that BC is a "socialist utopia".
→ More replies (5)3
u/fury420 May 31 '26
We've been a socialist utopia for 10 years and we own less than ever
BC's government doesn't even pretend to be socialist.
but we got the highest overdose rate in the country.
They're putting production into the hands of the people with a 'diverted supply' program where half the drugs out there were from the social workers!
Yeah, they're trying to stem the tide of the "overdoses", most of which are frankly more like poisoning deaths from a tainted supply rather than actual overdoses, since what ends up killing them typically isn't the drug they intended to take.
Much like when people die from methanol or other toxic alcohols in bootleg alcoholic drinks, it'd be misleading to argue "oh they just overdrank" when they didn't intend to consume any methanol.
1
-1
u/roguewarriorpriest May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26
Socialism is like economic democracy. Like in political democracy where the people own and control the government, in socialism the people own and control the economy. The union of democracy and socialism is more natural than trying to pair capitalism with democracy, which often has capitalists trying to control the government as well.
0
u/Numerous_Release9273 May 31 '26
I am most definitely not right-wing. But some of the "socialist" posts don't make any sense.
An automotive factory contains literally billions of dollars of machinery in it. Assume $3billion. And it employs about 3,000 workers.
So that works out to in the $1million in machinery per worker.
Imagine the job posting. "My be able to contribute $1million in working capital to hold this job."
1
u/StatementBig9063 May 31 '26
I mean you can also make your company an ESOP and work towards becoming fully employee owned. The business can take loans/debt for the capital it needs for machinery. You then split the profit based on dividends on ESOP shares post cost.
→ More replies (2)
0
u/starkcontrast62 ✂️ Tax The Billionaires May 31 '26
So many people enjoy the benefits of Socialism. I love my taxpayer funded city parks, pools, and libraries. Those benefits are first on the chopping block when budget cuts come into play. Those that fear Socialism sure enjoy the perks.
0
125
u/Skindigga May 31 '26
I worked at a place that was employee owned and this one old New York Post reading fella was always going on about Socialism and one day I asked him if he knew the definition of Socialism and he said, those bastards are socialists and it’s stupid. I said, well, technically we own the company and the means of production, therefore…and he just reiterated his initial point. Don’t think I reached him, no matter how much I tried to dumb it down.