Whether socialism results in authoritarianism because of the ideology or circumstances is irrelevant, the fact is that socialism generally ends in authoritarianism. It turns out that it takes a lot of force to transition a country from capitalism to socialism, so it’s not surprising that this transition attracts authoritarians.
And yeah, it probably doesn’t have anything to do with socialism itself, but on that transition. We see the same for other radical transitions. The problem isn’t necessarily what you’re transitioning to, but the process of transition and who is involved. Most countries in the world aren’t socialist, so transitioning to socialism will be a radical change and will attract the worst kinds of leaders. So it’s fair to criticize socialism precisely because a radical transition to it is highly likely to be fraught with authoritarianism.
Even transitions to liberalism runs that risk, but transitioning to liberalism has had a much better track record than transitioning to socialism.
That said, country-wide forms of socialism (arguably “pure” socialism) where capitalism is eradicated naturally come with a distillation of power in the government to control the flow of goods, and that concentration of power is what attracts authoritarians and is what’s being opposed here. So socialism has a built-in problem that lends itself to authoritarianism. Yes, I know there are theoretical anarchist forms of socialism, but they usually have a transition period from an authoritarian system (big counter is libertarian socialism, but that’s pretty “pie in the sky” IMO, as much as I respect Noam Chomsky).
Whether socialism results in authoritarianism because of the ideology or circumstances is irrelevant, the fact is that socialism generally ends in authoritarianism. It turns out that it takes a lot of force to transition a country from capitalism to socialism, so it’s not surprising that this transition attracts authoritarians.
The reason is because capitalists oppose it. If the world was ruled by Fascists you’d be saying we should try anything else because anyone opposed to Fascists gets undermined. It’s a fault of capitalism, not socialism.
There have been many elected socialist democracies, but the West undermined them. We can have socialist countries without any issues. It just requires capitalists in the rest of the world not overthrowing them.
There have been many elected socialist democracies, but the West undermined them
We’re getting into very biased reporting territory.
Let’s take Venezuela as an example. Here’s the events as I understand them:
Hugo Chavez takes power in 1999
Venezuela becomes rich from oil (prices increased in early 2000s) and spends a ton on populist social programs (presumably to stay in power; corruption is rampant
Rapid inflation and widespread shortages starting in 2010 due to over-reliance on imported goods and exported oil (oil prices started dropping in 2007) and no spending cuts after revenue shortfalls
Maduro takes over in 2013 and is even more heavy handed and doesn’t ease spending or improve anything economically
Protests and unrest, which the government violently repressed, especially in 2015 when oil prices fell dramatically
Sanctions due to human rights violations started in 2014-ish but really picked up steam from 2017-2019, which deepened the problems they already had, especially since the government refused to cut spending
Western sanctions only became a thing years (more like a decade) after they were already in crisis. The crisis wasn’t caused by western countries, it was caused by mismanagement and corruption. Venezuela was held as a model for socialism under Chavez, but things only worked because of oil money.
Whether socialism results in authoritarianism because of the ideology or circumstances is irrelevant, the fact is that socialism generally ends in authoritarianism. It turns out that it takes a lot of force to transition a country from capitalism to socialism, so it’s not surprising that this transition attracts authoritarians.
And yeah, it probably doesn’t have anything to do with socialism itself, but on that transition. We see the same for other radical transitions. The problem isn’t necessarily what you’re transitioning to, but the process of transition and who is involved. Most countries in the world aren’t socialist, so transitioning to socialism will be a radical change and will attract the worst kinds of leaders. So it’s fair to criticize socialism precisely because a radical transition to it is highly likely to be fraught with authoritarianism.
Even transitions to liberalism runs that risk, but transitioning to liberalism has had a much better track record than transitioning to socialism.
That said, country-wide forms of socialism (arguably “pure” socialism) where capitalism is eradicated naturally come with a distillation of power in the government to control the flow of goods, and that concentration of power is what attracts authoritarians and is what’s being opposed here. So socialism has a built-in problem that lends itself to authoritarianism. Yes, I know there are theoretical anarchist forms of socialism, but they usually have a transition period from an authoritarian system (big counter is libertarian socialism, but that’s pretty “pie in the sky” IMO, as much as I respect Noam Chomsky).
The reason is because capitalists oppose it. If the world was ruled by Fascists you’d be saying we should try anything else because anyone opposed to Fascists gets undermined. It’s a fault of capitalism, not socialism.
There have been many elected socialist democracies, but the West undermined them. We can have socialist countries without any issues. It just requires capitalists in the rest of the world not overthrowing them.
We’re getting into very biased reporting territory.
Let’s take Venezuela as an example. Here’s the events as I understand them:
Western sanctions only became a thing years (more like a decade) after they were already in crisis. The crisis wasn’t caused by western countries, it was caused by mismanagement and corruption. Venezuela was held as a model for socialism under Chavez, but things only worked because of oil money.
I’m happy to discuss other countries as well.