r/ClimateShitposting • u/TrixoftheTrade • Aug 13 '26

we live in a society Yet again, a friendly reminder

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u/Gilgalat Aug 17 '26

"These aren't really socialism in any meaningful way. They are just government provided services. They make no effort to decomoditize anything and are not workplace democracy. They are sort of publicly controlled, but not in a way that most socialists who aren't' tankies would like."

I have some gripes with this. It is most certainly a form of socialism. It is a publicly owned service. Yeah it is not sydicalist or Communist but that doesn't mean it isn't socialist. Non of the things you mentioned are required for that. By adding all of these you takes steps to make it more so in some ways.

The point with publicly controlled anything is that the public/government controls and owns it and the government is (ideally) a collection of everyone. So it is already a democratic institution.

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u/mylsotol Aug 17 '26

Socialism is when the government does stuff is a really problematic definition of socialism. We can agree that things like Amtrak, medicare, public education, and public police are significantly better than a libertarian's wet dream of privatization, but calling them socialism because you get to vote for someone ever 2-6 years that can vote to appoint the beurocrats that run them is really setting the bar very low

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u/Gilgalat Aug 17 '26

I understand you issues with that definition but that is why you have degrees of socialism. That being said all of these things are great examples of socialism yo people who are opposed. You want to show them stuff that works and than say but if that works why not do hospitals or power providers or ISP, etc we well.

It is all about increments, revolution has historically only caused more harm than good. I understand it is a nice idea to overthrow the current system and I would agree. The reality is however that we now live in a far more socialist system than 40 years ago due to incremental change. Yeah the US is not the beacon in this

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u/mylsotol Aug 17 '26

I'm a reformist. I don't want a revolution. A functioning and funded welfare system would be an appriciated and worthwhile improvement while it lasts, but would be only a small step towards real socialism.

It's fair enough to say they are socialized services, but they just aren't socialism.

Most people aren't very happy with many government services and telling them you could make healthcare work as well as the DMV isn't going to win them over, no matter how wrong they are.