Hmm this meme makes me think. I am a socdem and was thinking of what the difference between communism and social democracy is and the answer i got to is that communism shares resources equally while socdem shares enough resources that everyone can lead a life but more resources are locked behind more work. In communism you get the best phone that everyone can get while in socdem you get a feature phone and you have to work to get a better one. I am not very qualified for deeper discussions about things like this but id like to see other peoples opinions. To me and most working class people i think this sounds like a more appealing system. I THINK(emphasis on I and think) that this leads to more innovation and a faster economy which, at the end of the day, does trickle down in a proper socdem system. Also i think european countries should have right to healtcare in the constitution and the right to food and housing is also healthcare because you need it to be healthy. Other things i think should be rights is transportation and communication for example. I guess those are similar to right to job but not the same and not mutual. Last time i tried to have a discussion it was on hexbear and everyone called me a a stupid capitalist pig but this is world so i hope someone whos even more to the left than me can add to this discussion. In the end we are more so allies than enemies.
Communism isn’t really when all workers get the same regardless of the work done, the difference with social democracy is in who owns the factories and buildings and machines and computers that we work with, who decides how and what work is done, and who decides the prices and the salaries.
In social democracy, people maintain the right to own capital (i.e. to privately invest their money in a business expecting a return, and to hire others through this ownership of capital). In communism, workers collectively (whether directly through coops or indirectly through the state) collectively own the factories and buildings and computers that are used to actually produce goods and services).
This doesn’t just translate to formal ownership, but to actual decision making in the workplace and to salaries. In capitalism (social democracy is a type of capitalism), a company owner will only hire someone if they can profit from it, which means they’re getting a part of the worker’s production and appropriating it for themselves, which communists call by the word “exploitation”. In communism, since the capital is owned collectively, so are the fruits of labor. This doesn’t mean everyone earns the same, it’s not the case in theory nor in practice. If workers elect a manager to direct some things at the company, the manager may make more in the form of for example increased production bonuses, or if a worker exceeds the quota, they can also very bonuses, as well as salary increases with different positions and level of training, studies and experience. As an example, a university professor in the soviet union made maybe 3 times as much as an entry level job at a supermarket. If you care about salaries per profession, Albert Szymanski’s “human rights in the soviet union” does interesting analysis of the evolution of salaries by sector in th USSR over the 50s and 60s.
Regarding innovation I have to disagree. In my opinion, innovation is mainly led by the investment in innovation that you make and how you manage the investment. Most innovation in the world for example already comes from the public sector: universities, research institutes, military, space agencies… It’s just that when some publicly researched concept gets profitable after all the research, a company will pick it up, make some improvements through investment, patent it, and live the good life of the monopoly. Then again I’m a communist and that’s my view, but looking at things like the transistor, the internet, the space sector, medicine, biology, astrophysics, material science… Most of those are advancements and disciplines either completely or overwhelmingly public funded in their inception and still today. It’s just that we experience a bias in consuming technology ultimately researched by companies because we live in a system where almost all we consume is by definition made by companies. Research and innovation can happen, in my opinion arguably better, under communism than capitalism.
Regarding the basic material needs as you mentioned: healthcare, housing, nutrition, even energy for heating and cooking, mobility with public transit, fuck, the right to work! All of those should in my humble opinion be guaranteed for everyone. Again, I could point to historical examples like the Soviet Union: housing costed 3% of the average household income on average and homelessness was entirely abolished, healthcare and education were completely free to the highest level and of excellent quality, especially for the level of development; public transit never changed prices from the 40s to the 70s, basic foods were heavily subsidised and very affordable, entertainment and sports were widely available through unions, everyone had paid vacation, the retirement age was 60 for men and 55 for women… My point with this isn’t “all hail Stalin”. My point is, if a socialist system born from the violence of tsarism and World War 2 such as the soviet union achieved all of that by 1970, what the fuck are we doing?
I could go on to talk about the problems with social democracy and imperialism in the third world, but I think this is a long enough comment. Please let me know it you find it interesting or wanna discuss anything inside
Most of those are advancements and disciplines either completely or overwhelmingly public funded in their inception and still today.
For a more modern example: all those chatbot we are hyping nowadays are based on many decades of publicly funded research. They literally did maybe the last 0.01% of the research and are cashing out big now.
But I always thought that is one of the problems of communism. The final step of getting to a desired consumer good is a thing that capitalism really excells at and communism struggles with. The DDR really struggled with that and it could be argued partially destroyed their industrial system with it. Communism excelled at optimizing products, because they didn’t need to think about “the next sell”, so stuff like almost unbrekable glasses became a thing in the DDR.
Not an expert by any means, but communism/socialism are inherently anti-capitalist, while a social democracy exists within the framework of capitalism.
In a socialist society, everyone will have their basic needs met. Basic needs are however different for everyone. To stick to the example of phones: not everyone will have the same phone, but you’d likely have a limited variety of phones to choose from. Big and small, maybe a feature phone for grandma and a special kind of device for the blind/hearing impaired etc.
In a capitalist society, you are forced to get a job and earn some money to survive. Since everything evolves around money, companies will compete for whatever amount of money you have left at the end of the month and will try to get you to buy their products. That’s how you end up with a dozen big smartphone manufacturers, each of which release multiple models of phones every year, claiming to have built their “best iPhone yet”.
Whether this leads to “innovation” is probably up for debate. The differences between the last couple years’ flagships of Samsung, Google and Xiaomi are marginal and, if I may dare to say it, nobody truly needs five different cameras on their phone anyway. I’d go as far and make the opposite claim: things like patents and trade secrets are actively holding back humanity and cost lots of lives. Studies on climate change done by the oil industry got actively buried and patents on the Covid vaccines held back vaccination efforts in poorer parts of the world, only for Biontech shareholders to make bank. I’d also bet that there is tons of research hidden in the drawers of big companies, that never got published because it might give an edge to a competitor. Science thrives out in the open, when knowledge is being shared, not when its done in secret.
As for social democracies: It’s capitalism with guide rails. It will try and make sure you do not starve and start revolting, but it will always make sure you are never doing well enough to stop going to work. The inherent issue is, that it is still based on capitalism. Profits are still going to the guy that owns the company, and wealth will always start accumulating. You can try and keep wealth accumulation in check by implementing high taxes, but at some point, someone will get wealthy enough to start lobbying politicians. Said politicians will start removing some of the guiderails, accelerating the accumulation of wealth and the whole system comes crashing down.
I want to say that this is basically what’s been happening around the western world for the last couple decades. It started out as a somewhat well working system. Workers where unionized and fought for their rights, wealth taxes existed, people could afford food and housing. The economy grew, the rich got richer and started lobbying. Then wealth taxes disappeared, public utilites and housing got pawned off to the highest bidder, productivity exploded, wages stagnated, minimum wage didn’t get raised. Then a pandemic, a war in Europe and inflation. Now people can’t afford to live anymore and start turning to facism.
Long story short: a social democracy sounds better than an anarcho-capitalist hellscape, but it will sooner or later turn into one, because capitalism is the inherent evil.
Hmm this meme makes me think. I am a socdem and was thinking of what the difference between communism and social democracy is and the answer i got to is that communism shares resources equally while socdem shares enough resources that everyone can lead a life but more resources are locked behind more work. In communism you get the best phone that everyone can get while in socdem you get a feature phone and you have to work to get a better one. I am not very qualified for deeper discussions about things like this but id like to see other peoples opinions. To me and most working class people i think this sounds like a more appealing system. I THINK(emphasis on I and think) that this leads to more innovation and a faster economy which, at the end of the day, does trickle down in a proper socdem system. Also i think european countries should have right to healtcare in the constitution and the right to food and housing is also healthcare because you need it to be healthy. Other things i think should be rights is transportation and communication for example. I guess those are similar to right to job but not the same and not mutual. Last time i tried to have a discussion it was on hexbear and everyone called me a a stupid capitalist pig but this is world so i hope someone whos even more to the left than me can add to this discussion. In the end we are more so allies than enemies.
Hey, fellow communist here and Hexbear enjoyer.
Communism isn’t really when all workers get the same regardless of the work done, the difference with social democracy is in who owns the factories and buildings and machines and computers that we work with, who decides how and what work is done, and who decides the prices and the salaries.
In social democracy, people maintain the right to own capital (i.e. to privately invest their money in a business expecting a return, and to hire others through this ownership of capital). In communism, workers collectively (whether directly through coops or indirectly through the state) collectively own the factories and buildings and computers that are used to actually produce goods and services).
This doesn’t just translate to formal ownership, but to actual decision making in the workplace and to salaries. In capitalism (social democracy is a type of capitalism), a company owner will only hire someone if they can profit from it, which means they’re getting a part of the worker’s production and appropriating it for themselves, which communists call by the word “exploitation”. In communism, since the capital is owned collectively, so are the fruits of labor. This doesn’t mean everyone earns the same, it’s not the case in theory nor in practice. If workers elect a manager to direct some things at the company, the manager may make more in the form of for example increased production bonuses, or if a worker exceeds the quota, they can also very bonuses, as well as salary increases with different positions and level of training, studies and experience. As an example, a university professor in the soviet union made maybe 3 times as much as an entry level job at a supermarket. If you care about salaries per profession, Albert Szymanski’s “human rights in the soviet union” does interesting analysis of the evolution of salaries by sector in th USSR over the 50s and 60s.
Regarding innovation I have to disagree. In my opinion, innovation is mainly led by the investment in innovation that you make and how you manage the investment. Most innovation in the world for example already comes from the public sector: universities, research institutes, military, space agencies… It’s just that when some publicly researched concept gets profitable after all the research, a company will pick it up, make some improvements through investment, patent it, and live the good life of the monopoly. Then again I’m a communist and that’s my view, but looking at things like the transistor, the internet, the space sector, medicine, biology, astrophysics, material science… Most of those are advancements and disciplines either completely or overwhelmingly public funded in their inception and still today. It’s just that we experience a bias in consuming technology ultimately researched by companies because we live in a system where almost all we consume is by definition made by companies. Research and innovation can happen, in my opinion arguably better, under communism than capitalism.
Regarding the basic material needs as you mentioned: healthcare, housing, nutrition, even energy for heating and cooking, mobility with public transit, fuck, the right to work! All of those should in my humble opinion be guaranteed for everyone. Again, I could point to historical examples like the Soviet Union: housing costed 3% of the average household income on average and homelessness was entirely abolished, healthcare and education were completely free to the highest level and of excellent quality, especially for the level of development; public transit never changed prices from the 40s to the 70s, basic foods were heavily subsidised and very affordable, entertainment and sports were widely available through unions, everyone had paid vacation, the retirement age was 60 for men and 55 for women… My point with this isn’t “all hail Stalin”. My point is, if a socialist system born from the violence of tsarism and World War 2 such as the soviet union achieved all of that by 1970, what the fuck are we doing?
I could go on to talk about the problems with social democracy and imperialism in the third world, but I think this is a long enough comment. Please let me know it you find it interesting or wanna discuss anything inside
For a more modern example: all those chatbot we are hyping nowadays are based on many decades of publicly funded research. They literally did maybe the last 0.01% of the research and are cashing out big now.
But I always thought that is one of the problems of communism. The final step of getting to a desired consumer good is a thing that capitalism really excells at and communism struggles with. The DDR really struggled with that and it could be argued partially destroyed their industrial system with it. Communism excelled at optimizing products, because they didn’t need to think about “the next sell”, so stuff like almost unbrekable glasses became a thing in the DDR.
Not an expert by any means, but communism/socialism are inherently anti-capitalist, while a social democracy exists within the framework of capitalism.
In a socialist society, everyone will have their basic needs met. Basic needs are however different for everyone. To stick to the example of phones: not everyone will have the same phone, but you’d likely have a limited variety of phones to choose from. Big and small, maybe a feature phone for grandma and a special kind of device for the blind/hearing impaired etc.
In a capitalist society, you are forced to get a job and earn some money to survive. Since everything evolves around money, companies will compete for whatever amount of money you have left at the end of the month and will try to get you to buy their products. That’s how you end up with a dozen big smartphone manufacturers, each of which release multiple models of phones every year, claiming to have built their “best iPhone yet”.
Whether this leads to “innovation” is probably up for debate. The differences between the last couple years’ flagships of Samsung, Google and Xiaomi are marginal and, if I may dare to say it, nobody truly needs five different cameras on their phone anyway. I’d go as far and make the opposite claim: things like patents and trade secrets are actively holding back humanity and cost lots of lives. Studies on climate change done by the oil industry got actively buried and patents on the Covid vaccines held back vaccination efforts in poorer parts of the world, only for Biontech shareholders to make bank. I’d also bet that there is tons of research hidden in the drawers of big companies, that never got published because it might give an edge to a competitor. Science thrives out in the open, when knowledge is being shared, not when its done in secret.
As for social democracies: It’s capitalism with guide rails. It will try and make sure you do not starve and start revolting, but it will always make sure you are never doing well enough to stop going to work. The inherent issue is, that it is still based on capitalism. Profits are still going to the guy that owns the company, and wealth will always start accumulating. You can try and keep wealth accumulation in check by implementing high taxes, but at some point, someone will get wealthy enough to start lobbying politicians. Said politicians will start removing some of the guiderails, accelerating the accumulation of wealth and the whole system comes crashing down.
I want to say that this is basically what’s been happening around the western world for the last couple decades. It started out as a somewhat well working system. Workers where unionized and fought for their rights, wealth taxes existed, people could afford food and housing. The economy grew, the rich got richer and started lobbying. Then wealth taxes disappeared, public utilites and housing got pawned off to the highest bidder, productivity exploded, wages stagnated, minimum wage didn’t get raised. Then a pandemic, a war in Europe and inflation. Now people can’t afford to live anymore and start turning to facism.
Long story short: a social democracy sounds better than an anarcho-capitalist hellscape, but it will sooner or later turn into one, because capitalism is the inherent evil.