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.
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.