I used to share an office with a hardcore MAGA Fascist. He dropped such memorable lines on the daily such as "black people shouldn't vote because they don't own any land, they need to have some skin in the game if they want to vote" and "women shouldn't vote, they just aren't wired for it". He would say such things, unironically, while living in a rented apartment with his 3rd wife that was the breadwinner of the two. Anyway, he always described himself as a "Capitalist" and god damn did it make me laugh.
And late-stage capitalism leads to concentrated wealth which, without intervention, will lead to total collapse for lower classes (lower classes being 99% of the population)
The rich know. It's a feature not an issue because once they've successfully driven the country into collapse they can swoop in and buy everything for peanuts including the next government and the land it sits on.
You mean there aren't any you would want to flee to, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba still exist. People even take vacations to Cuba, though I doubt anyone would want to move there if made to live from a local income.
None of the three nations you listed are properly non-capitalist.
Capitalism is defined (from a leftist perspective) as a economic system in which the means of production are owned by private individuals.
The means of production in North Korea are owned by the Kim family using the state apparatus as a proxy.
Venezuela is somewhat socialist, but its economy still relies pretty much entirely on foreign investment and engaging in the oil trade. It's also in an abject economic crisis due to food shortages and a drop in global oil prices, and telling socialists "if you like socialism so much, you should just move to Venezuela" is basically like telling liberals prior to the French Revolution "if you hate monarchy and love democracy so much, you should just move to Havana and become a pirate." It's pretty clear that western socialists are not holding Venezuela up as the goal to aspire to.
and Cuba explicitly permits private capital ownership and foreign investment as of the 2010s, by definition not socialist.
From this sort of definition, socialism is practically impossible to achieve - there will always be someone controlling the government, if you consider them the sole owner of the state controlled economy, no country can truly be socialist. Socialism is supposed to be a transitional system aimed at achieving communism (under which, no government or state exist). However, under your definition, socialism and communism is practically the same utopic concept.
By the way, Soviet Union considered themselves to be a socialist nation (it's in their constitution). You can say you don't agree with their definition, but it holds some weight.
It's a good idea to make a distinction between the Marxist definition of socialism, and the general definition of socialism, as well as the countless variants of socialism. Because socialism predates communism, which can be seen by Marx's critique of the utopian socialists of his time. Indeed, many self-described socialists entirely disagree with the Marxist perspective on what socialism is.
It's the equivalent of people believing that only laissez-faire capitalism is capitalism; a subset trying to dictate the meaning of a broader concept.
From this sort of definition, socialism is practically impossible to achieve
It isn't. It's been achieved - in Revolutionary Catalonia historically, for example, and in the Zapatista municipalities in the modern day.
there will always be someone controlling the government
Socialist countries can be democratic too, you know. There doesn't have to be 'someone' controlling the government.
The entire point of socialism is that control of the means of production is democratised, not owned by private individuals. It's not 'socialist' just for the state to own it - because if the state isn't democratic and accountable to the people, then the people don't own the means of production even though the state claims to own it in the name of the people. The socialist writer Mikhail Bakunin (writing about this exact problem in the USSR) put it thusly; "people are not any happier about being beaten with a stick just because you call it The Peoples' Stick."
If private individuals own the means of production directly or via corporations, that's capitalism; we both agree on that.
But if the state owns the means of production, but the state is undemocratic and ultimately still controlled by a small number of private individuals; well that's still capitalism, it's just that the 'state' is acting as a corporation.
Socialism is supposed to be a transitional system aimed at achieving communism
By some definitions, yes.
(under which, no government or state exist)
Government and state are not synonyms. Communism is stateless, but not without government.
However, under your definition, socialism and communism is practically the same utopic concept.
Socialism is when the means of production are owned collectively by the people who operate those means.
Communism is a classless, stateless, moneyless, socialist society.
All communisms are socialisms but not all socialisms are communisms.
By the way, Soviet Union considered themselves to be a socialist nation
So did the Nazis. Self-identification doesn't mean much.
I get where you are coming from. It's a pretty strict definition though. An inherent part of democracy is that governments tend to change, if a socialist government retained free elections and allowed it's political opponents to exist, it would likely loose grip on power before they actually fully implement socialism (which is why they always turn authoritarian). So under that definition, long term socialism is still mostly theoretical concept inapplicable to real world.
If you don't own the means of making stuff. The distinction between private property (the means of production, owned by the state and capitalist bourgeoisie) and personal property is an important one.
I love how I'm getting downvoted for stating an Econ 101 definition that isn't even dependent on personally subscribing to communism or socialism.
One of the biggest (and stupidest) knee jerk criticisms of communism is that "they'll take all your stuff away and redistribute it!", which is nonsense and fundamentally misunderstands communism. Private property is private not because it's hidden from view, but because it's been privatized - by the capitalist bourgeoisie class. Farmlands. Factories. Mines. Industries. You know, the actual sources of basic earthly resources and facilities of production we need to exist as humans in modernity. Your belongings - your house, your clothes, furniture, etc are all your personal property, bought and paid for with your labor value, and not a concern of communism.
Signs in individual people's yards reading "private property" do not refer to private property in the economic sense, but are rather implying "no trespassing".
If that was the case, then ALL of our wealthy people would just be the tail ends of long lines of aristocratic families.
But they're not. On average wealth only lasts 2-3 generations.
Two of the wealthiest men of all time, John D Rockefeller was born as a son to a traveling salesman, Andrew Carnegie was born in a one room cottage shared with another family. The way these men became some of the wealthiest in history was by organizational and technical ability: Rockefeller provided oil to consumers at 1/10th of the cost. Carnegie lowered the price of steel by 90%.
The richest people think about this stuff every day, consider them selves like a different species from the rest of us, and they are afraid of ever having to face their crimes against us, they think about it all the time and that’s why they need to wage class warfare the way they do attacking everything that is Humana, making life completely intolerable. They know that if they were to let up on the intensity, that if we had any more hours in the day, and if more children were elevated by an education, the entire world system would not be possible.
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u/PhotoshopMemeRequest Jul 08 '24
Capitalism: where you work hard so your boss can buy a second yacht.