Then a dictatorship spending 80% of GDP to prepare for war would be a socialist country.
Even if all the money is spend on social issues, only utopian socialism equals this. It’s what got Karl Marx so fussy about because he knew the capitalists/monarchs/oligarchs will never allow it to happen for as long as they live. So a next social revolution à la the French revolution he predicted.
Since Marx, socialism is when the means of production is in the hands of the workers and one’s income is comparable to one’s contribution.
And since Marx didn’t have a good idea as to how a socialist government would function as his version did not get off the ground, we now have standard vanguard (SU) and capilliary vanguard (PRC '78) democracies as examples of socialist societies.
For Marx, worker ownership is not Socialist. Cooperatives are petite bourgeois structures, the form of ownership must be public ownership, ie equal ownership across all of society, not just the working unit. Countries like Cuba, the PRC, and former USSR all have public ownership as the principle basis of society.
Marx had a decent idea of how Socialism would function, you can read a bit about it in Critique of the Gotha Programme. Lenin and other Marxists took the basis created by Marx and implemented the first major steps towards Communism in real life.
Marx’s version of socialism has never actually been realized yet. Every country that’s attempted to have revolutions was only inspired by Marxism but diverted from his original plan for revolution, mostly because these revolutions were done in undeveloped feudal counties, whereas Marx anticipated revolutions in advanced capitalist countries (which, even through he was wrong about which countries would have revolutions firsts, he was clearly right about which ones should).
Countries like the PRC, Cuba, USSR, and so forth did not divert from “Marx’s original plan.” Marx held a set of beliefs about Capitalism of his era, and when it came to pass into Imperialism, Lenin picked up where Marx left off. Marx was wrong about where revolution would sprout from first, correct, which means your point on needing Imperialist countries to become Socialist first is entirely off the mark. Imperialist countries see de-industrialization, they advance beyond real production and into financial domination.
The Socialist countries of the world are right to pursue Socialism. Workers in Imperialist countries should also fight for Socialism as well. When you say that only “developed Capitalist countries should rebel,” you ignore Imperialism and tell the workers in the Global South to hope workers in the Global North will save them. You curse them to inaction.
socialism is when the government pays for things, and the more things it pays for, the more socialister it gets
- Cunk on socialism
Why do you need to redefine a world that ot’s creator defined?
They are sarcastically pointing out that public roads aren’t Socialist.
Then a dictatorship spending 80% of GDP to prepare for war would be a socialist country.
Even if all the money is spend on social issues, only utopian socialism equals this. It’s what got Karl Marx so fussy about because he knew the capitalists/monarchs/oligarchs will never allow it to happen for as long as they live. So a next social revolution à la the French revolution he predicted.
Since Marx, socialism is when the means of production is in the hands of the workers and one’s income is comparable to one’s contribution.
And since Marx didn’t have a good idea as to how a socialist government would function as his version did not get off the ground, we now have standard vanguard (SU) and capilliary vanguard (PRC '78) democracies as examples of socialist societies.
A few corrections:
For Marx, worker ownership is not Socialist. Cooperatives are petite bourgeois structures, the form of ownership must be public ownership, ie equal ownership across all of society, not just the working unit. Countries like Cuba, the PRC, and former USSR all have public ownership as the principle basis of society.
Marx had a decent idea of how Socialism would function, you can read a bit about it in Critique of the Gotha Programme. Lenin and other Marxists took the basis created by Marx and implemented the first major steps towards Communism in real life.
@folaht @AppleTea
Marx’s version of socialism has never actually been realized yet. Every country that’s attempted to have revolutions was only inspired by Marxism but diverted from his original plan for revolution, mostly because these revolutions were done in undeveloped feudal counties, whereas Marx anticipated revolutions in advanced capitalist countries (which, even through he was wrong about which countries would have revolutions firsts, he was clearly right about which ones should).
Countries like the PRC, Cuba, USSR, and so forth did not divert from “Marx’s original plan.” Marx held a set of beliefs about Capitalism of his era, and when it came to pass into Imperialism, Lenin picked up where Marx left off. Marx was wrong about where revolution would sprout from first, correct, which means your point on needing Imperialist countries to become Socialist first is entirely off the mark. Imperialist countries see de-industrialization, they advance beyond real production and into financial domination.
The Socialist countries of the world are right to pursue Socialism. Workers in Imperialist countries should also fight for Socialism as well. When you say that only “developed Capitalist countries should rebel,” you ignore Imperialism and tell the workers in the Global South to hope workers in the Global North will save them. You curse them to inaction.
This is chauvanism and anti-Marxist.
Just to clarify, the post you reponded to is definitely paraphrasing famous prof. Wolff joke about exact same topic.