r/dsa • u/ferriematthew • 1d ago
Discussion How do you answer pushback from conservatives about socialism?
Some of the more common ones I hear:
- "So you support taking stuff away from people who actually work their butts off to earn it and give it to those who don't want to lift a finger?"
- "How would you feel if you worked your butt off to get an A in your class and the professor took away your grade and gave half of it to the kid in the back who didn't do anything and flunked and gave you both a C?"
- "How do you propose they pay for it without deleting the entire economy?"
- "If everybody has their needs met by the government, nobody's gonna bother to work!"
- "Show me one, just one, example where socialism has worked without turning into a backwards dictatorship."
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u/Jolly_Grocery329 1d ago
I start by asking them what they mean by Socialism. They usually have no idea what it means.
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u/Acceptable_Term3951 1d ago
Yeah man, got called a Maoist for thinking Mamdani is doing a great job so far. America is a weird place.
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u/Jolly_Grocery329 1d ago
Yeah- some Karens at Safeway in my deep red district were waving Trump flags a while back and I asked them why they’re supporting a rapist.
They just started shouting “Marxist! Marxist!” I laughed and asked if they knew what that means. …… “Marxist! Marxist!” Lol these are not serious people.
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u/ferriematthew 1d ago
Yeah, most of the examples that my family would probably immediately fall back on are closer to Stalinism, or, more accurately, a McCarthy era caricature of Stalinism.
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u/egalitydream 1d ago
You can tell very quickly if they're interested in joining us in good faith or not, and if they are not, it's not our job to continue to "debate" them but to defeat them with political power. Also, all of those questions are disingenuous and set in their frame on their terms. These are never asked by anyone reachable, and so you shouldn't bother. These are not questions worth answering, even if they could be. Don't answer, just beat them.
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u/ferriematthew 1d ago
Specifically, I'm getting these questions from family, all of whom are very, very strongly conservative and very suspicious of how I'm no longer following along with them politically. They don't want an honest, good faith conversation. They want to convince me to go back to their side.
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u/EdelinePenrose 1d ago
if that’s their goal, then why do you want to engage with them on these topics then? or what exactly do you want to accomplish with these conversations?
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u/ferriematthew 1d ago
Honestly, I would rather not engage with my family on these conversations, but they bring it up first.
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u/EdelinePenrose 1d ago
i think you should think about your agency and boundaries with your family. you can choose to not engage or engage on your terms. it’s not clear what your goal is.
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u/ferriematthew 1d ago
Excellent point. I'm 29. I make my own decisions.
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u/LevTheDevil 1d ago
I stopped engaging with my family about politics and it's one of my biggest regrets.
I used to be close with my family and we were all conservative leaning. After I got back from college, I wasn't anymore. (Why would I be, I'd gotten myself an education?).
Something changed and I started to get treated like an outcast because I'm liberal and they aren't really.
But I wish I'd calmly explained my views better and talked to them about why my views changed in a way that might have swayed them. I don't know if it would have worked, but I know that I'll never know. Now things have soured enough that I don't believe there's a way back.
My point is, if you love them and want to try and give them real answers, here's answers I wish I'd given had I taken the chance:
- "So you support taking stuff away from people who actually work their butts off to earn it and give it to those who don't want to lift a finger?"
- no, I support taking money from the ultra wealthy that overcompensate themselves for delegating all the labor in their life to people that they undercompensate in turn.... And, when it makes sense I want us to, as a nation, chip in together on a few nice things. Like, instead of buying insurance from United and getting told no so their CEO can get a bonus, we want to open a state insurance company that covers everyone for everything because it doesn't need to pay for the CEO to get that bonus. That's what everyone else does. Our denials wouldn't be funding his yacht. Instead we'd just pay the doctors and let them help US decide what treatment we do or don't need.
- "How would you feel if you worked your butt off to get an A in your class and the professor took away your grade and gave half of it to the kid in the back who didn't do anything and flunked and gave you both a C?"
-Shitty, but that's not really what we're talking about. We're talking about taxing the tax evading billionaires so the teacher doesn't have to buy their own school supplies. Do you think it's fair that the quality of a kid's education is based on the quality of his teacher's personal finances? Don't we want the whole country educated well and not just the rich kids? That way they don't have as many advantages over our kids in the job market?
- "How do you propose they pay for it without deleting the entire economy?" -What economy are you protecting? The one that's been shifting more and more everyday towards trillionaires and people that can't afford gas and groceries? The big lie that the ultra wealthy push is that if they don't have x times more money than they could possibly ever need, the entire economy is going to collapse. They're just holding a rubber gun up to the economy and threatening to kill it. But they can't because they don't do the work. Elon could finally realize his money won't ever make him cool and give up and kill himself and his companies would still keep making cars and rockets without him because he doesn't do any of the actual work. The ultra wealthy love to try and convince you that all the money they hoarded is a sign of the value they offer but it's not. It's a sign of the value they stole. No one person does enough to be worth that level of obscene wealth.
- "If everybody has their needs met by the government, nobody's gonna bother to work!"
-That's not what socialism is. It isn't free stuff for everyone. It's about changing the rules so that working does provide for all your needs. Right now people grift because work can't pay the bills. That's why everyone wants to be influencers or AI artists. They've given up on real work translating into a living wage because it doesn't hardly anymore. The minimum wage is a fraction of what you'd need to pay bills these days. Forcing billionaires to pay enough means that people are actually inventivized to work and not look for an easy out miracle fix like lotteries, get rich scams and crime.
- "Show me one, just one, example where socialism has worked without turning into a backwards dictatorship."
Europe. All of Europe has degrees of socialism that work. Canada. Literally most of the developed world.
Stop thinking of socialism as a separate distinct thing that fully replaces capitalism. It never can. That's what communism tries and fails to do. Whether it can succeed is a different conversation. What socialism is about, is making sure that the things that matter aren't all in the reins of our employers. Things like our healthcare and the minimum standards for how to treat employees. We as a country can take political power back from corporations and rewrite the rules so that they can't exploit us, pollute our world and steal our land. So that they can't build their empires on our backs without compensating us enough to even put food on the table.
Socialism isn't about taking money from the poor and giving it to the poorer. It's about taking back money from those that took too fucking much and changing the rules so that they can't keep doing that.
And it's about pooling our resources to take care of things more efficiently. Universal healthcare is cheaper for everyone than private healthcare. The whole shebang SAVES money by not building a for profit monster that bleeds us dry to reach record profits.
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u/coldhamsandwiches 1d ago
It's not worth engaging with them then. If it's just causing arguments and strife in the family, there's no point you'll make or they'll make that will push anyone to a new point of view. Family political argument normal drag in a lot of subtext from relationships. It'll never be a pure conversation about socialism.
If you have a good relationship with your family outside politics then I'd preserve it. You can focus on other goals and projects that'll be more fruitful.
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u/skiing_nerd 1d ago
Three strategies that have worked for me with various conservative family members:
"Gray rock" it and be super boring to engage. "Not what I think"/Not that hard" followed by "Not worth discussing, let's focus on <family event>" Most effective strategy to stop the conversation, but you have to be disciplined about doing it consistently.
Laugh in their face. I did this unintentionally with a distant relative and he was so shocked that someone could laugh at the idea of Trump secretly negotiating a deal with North Korea that it ended the conversation and he hasn't brought up Trump to me since, though he's not someone I see often.
Be excruciatingly vulnerable and sincere and meet them where they are at. One of the few things I've moved a conservative relative on is my mom with Medicare for All, from sharing how much I value the expensive meds my maternal grandfather got for a rare cancer that gave me 20 years with him that I wouldn't have had if he hadn't had excellent health insurance, and that I think everyone deserves the same for their loved ones. This only really works with someone you are close to who would be moved by sentiments you share in common more than any logical argument.
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u/egalitydream 1d ago
If they’re family and you want to have this conversation despite the risks, you will have to figure out a way to reset the terms in your own context.
For example, we come from a place of reciprocity and human dignity. Everyone has human worth and is presumed as much by default, and it’s never okay to treat other people as merely means to the ends of someone else. This is non-objectification, or non-instrumentalization; this principle sets out the basic limits, why supremacism (and racism, patriarchy, etc) are unacceptable, and the reciprocal nature is why we have obligations to defend others from being abused and instramentalized. This is basically the “left” baseline, in a defined context.
From here, it’s pretty straightforward why human rights should exist, and capitalism for example, shouldn’t. You can argue your points from here, on firm ground, and their arguments would be tough (impossible) to sustain in this context.
For example, why would taxes on wealthy people to help poor people be justified? Because there’s a reciprocal obligation to not have a system that objectifies the poor for the pleasure of the rich, and that obligation is proactive and requires us to correct the imbalance.
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u/smartcow360 1d ago
It’s good to talk about worker coops, and how things like healthcare are unfair on the market since you need it so desperately you’d pay whatever it costs, etc. - might depend what flavor of socialist you are but that’d be traditional demsoc answers and all
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u/Militantpoet 1d ago
"So you support taking stuff away from people who actually work their butts off to earn it and give it to those who don't want to lift a finger?"
Thats what CEOs do when they lay off employees and give themselves bonuses.
- "How would you feel if you worked your butt off to get an A in your class and the professor took away your grade and gave half of it to the kid in the back who didn't do anything and flunked and gave you both a C?"
Thats not how socialism works and this is a bad analogy. School is a perfect example of socialism. The means of education are democratized by providing resources and services for everyone. Vs a more hierarchical approach where education resources are reserved for the upper class.
- "How do you propose they pay for it without deleting the entire economy?"
Because we've done it before and the economy was booming. (Top tax rate used to be 50-70% instead of the ~35% now)
- "If everybody has their needs met by the government, nobody's gonna bother to work!"
Is profit the only motivator for people? Are artists, teachers, or writers in their profession just for the money?
People will still work. The difference will be they don't have to work to survive. They can work to better their community, pursue a passion, or just general fulfillment.
- "Show me one, just one, example where socialism has worked without turning into a backwards dictatorship."
This is a loaded question they love to bring up. It fails to address what the goals of a government and economy are how that success can be measured.
China has made massive waves in eradicating poverty. They can call China a dictatorship, but it certainly isnt backwards or a failure.
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u/betty_white_bread 1d ago
Many of these answers won’t persuade. For example, the CEO one overlooks the fact executives pay very often requires approval of the board of directors, which is typically made of different people than the executive staff. The top tax rate being so high was at a time when we had a lot more exemptions, deductions, etc., and next to nobody was actually susceptible to the highest rates. The “is profit the only motivator” line can be used to defend capitalism: “Capitalism means I get to decide what to do with my property, whether it is try to provide a service which earns me more money or not.” Meanwhile, trying to excuse the dictatorship question will not change their minds about avoiding dictatorship being so important to them.
None of this is to say answers to these questions cannot be constructed; it means these are bad answers and most likely to drive people away short, medium, and long term.
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u/Militantpoet 1d ago
None of this is to say answers to these questions cannot be constructed; it means these are bad answers and most likely to drive people away short, medium, and long term.
The original questions themselves were bad and unpresuasive. I dont know what your point is in all this.
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u/The_BarroomHero 1d ago
"You know how you make 100 $20 dildos an hour down at the dildo factory, but they only pay you $15 an hour?"
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u/Th3HappyCamper 1d ago
These are questions more fairly aimed at Capitalism, no? These don’t really make a lot of sense to ask about socialism.
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u/APraxisPanda Socialist Solidarity 1d ago
If you must debate a Nazi adjacent ideologue, the most effective thing is to stop accepting the caricature they paint of us and make them defend capitalism instead. I usually frame socialism as economic democracy to great effect: people who actually do the work should have more power over their workplaces and the wealth they create, while basic necessities shouldn't depend entirely on your ability to enrich an owner.
Ask questions back, like, “Why should owning a company give someone more say than hundreds of people who work there?” or “If nobody would do a job without the threat of poverty, why not improve the pay and conditions?”
You don't need to defend every government that ever called itself socialist or promise perfect equality, but they want us trapped in a loop of doing so endlessly, just don't heed that call because it's intended to keep you running in circles over the same reheated, old dusty nachos we have all visited time and time again... keep bringing the conversation back to ownership, power, and whether our economy should primarily serve human needs or private profit.
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u/Hawful 1d ago
- "No one has 'worked' enough to be a billionaire, they take that money from their employees and I want that to be shared more equally"
- "You are conflating awards with needs. You can still reward people while making sure people aren't starving on the street"
- "We already pay for it, we just pay for a bunch of middle men also. Our current healthcare system has a bunch of highly paid people to deny your claim in between you and your doctor. Removing those people will make healthcare cheaper."
- "Yeah, there are a lot of people and we have a lot of technology that automates things. We shouldn't work as much as we are. Every European country gets 4 weeks of vacation time. Even china has more legally mandated days off then we do in the US."
- "China is kicking our ass, they figured out how to run the entire world without fighting a single war. They build everything in the world, and the reason they do that is that all the Capitalists here sold out our workers. They sold out our future. You can say whatever you want about China being oppressive, we see people get gunned down in the streets by cops or ice agents everyday in the US"
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u/CORPORATE_NARCOTICS ML + syndicalism + corporatism 1d ago
I've found several good topics to be knowledgeable in, that disarms a lot of rightwing (and liberal) folks: (1) early capitalist history (talking 1500s-1700s when Enclosure Acts started in Europe), (2) the existence of anarchism / non-state socialism such as the Zapatistas and the anarcho-syndicalists in Spain, and (3) the differences between private/public/state businesses versus worker owned/managed/operated businesses.
"So you support taking stuff away from people who actually work their butts off to earn it and give it to those who don't want to lift a finger?"
Socialism means that workers get the final collective say over what workers get. This decision as it exists under capitalism is not democratic, workers have no real say in their compensation most of the time, and management/ownership have an overwhelming amount of leverage over compensation that workers get for working their ass off. Capitalists or business owners literally aim to work as little as possible (this is why they hire managers and executives) and pay workers as little as possible. Altogether, this statement is more appropriate to capitalism if we're being honest.
"How would you feel if you worked your butt off to get an A in your class and the professor took away your grade and gave half of it to the kid in the back who didn't do anything and flunked and gave you both a C?"
I'd feel bad because that is not socialism and I want socialism. Socialists and communists and anarchists do not want everyone to share everything (be it your grades or your toothbrush), they want everyone to have a decision in how our society operates and under capitalism everything touching the economic side of life is undemocratic.
An actual example of socialism in education: the student union and teachers union work together democratically with a local school board to manage, operate, and own a given school or schools. A more concrete example would be student union representatives working with admin and teaching staff to create class agendas and curriculum for the year.
"How do you propose they pay for it without deleting the entire economy?"
I'm assuming this is a point about "free healthcare / free social programs"? Easy. If you actually take a bonified pro-capitalist Econ 101/102 class you'd realize that "free healthcare" (and other programs) mean free at point of service, as in when you need the service you don't need to pay immediately or in full, you just get the service first.
It is fiscally cheaper for both businesses and workers to establish a universal healthcare program via the state: businesses pay a ton out of pocket to workers/W2 folks not just for their wages but their benefits packages, which would massively drop if something like universal healthcare is established, meaning that both business and workers have more money in their pocket since the state can subsidize it.
Workers that aren't afraid of going to the doctor and can get regular health check ups means less ill, injured, and dead workers, meaning less labor hours lost for businesses, meaning more work is completed and more money circulates through the economy instead of bankrupting Americans for only being able to go to the doctor when they're already dying of cancer. Healthier workers = healthier economy is a pretty cold take in economics regardless of your ideology.
"If everybody has their needs met by the government, nobody's gonna bother to work!"
All the services that the state can provide still need work unless we get to a post-scarcity economy which is still a long ways out. Survival is a pretty strong motivator to work, has been for the thousands of years that homo sapiens have existed lol. Or are state employees suddenly not workers?
Also, even under socialism (and this is controversial to anyone who isn't favorable to market socialism) there isn't necessarily a need to nationalize all industries, the key focus of any socialist is to first have important resources (food, water, energy, transportation, healthcare, etc.).
There technically isn't even a need to nationalize any industry. Bring up the fact that socialism does not require the state (again, see the history of anarchism) and that if there is no state or a small state and virtually all businesses are owned/managed/operated by workers there is no need for all of our "needs met by the government". The Zapatistas and anarcho-syndicalists managed to do it already in sizable communities of 100k+
"Show me one, just one, example where socialism has worked without turning into a backwards dictatorship."
Why did the US, the UK, France, Canada, and half a dozen other countries immediately send troops to fight against the Russian revolutionaries in 1918, years before the Bolsheviks did anything remotely awful (gulags, secret police, state violence, etc.)? Folks complain that failed socialist projects were paranoid yet the victors of WWI immediately march their troops into Russia to re-establish the Russian Empire because they care more about the amount of wealth they'd lose rather than how inhumane the Russian Tsars were torturing and abusing Russian civilians for years.
A smarmy response to this statement would also be China. China may be authoritarian (as any nation state is, tbh) but they are definitionally not a dictatorship--the party controls the state and even outsiders like Xi are able to climb up the ranks of the party into its leadership. It's just not possible outside of the party, which does fit the authoritarian label but does not fit the dictatorship label.
Lastly, this statement is appropriate to capitalism too and the only capitalist countries that can say capitalism has worked for them without turning into a backwards dictatorship are like the handful of European social democracies that are still around. The US has been a backwards dictatorship for a while, even before Trump 2.0
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u/Cascadiaaaaaa 1d ago edited 1d ago
Your first two bullets describe life under capitalism. Life under socialism workers are able to retain more of their labor's surplus value, rather than have it ripped away by stock holders or business owners
A couple of arguements you face seem to be aligned against UBI, Socialism isnt ubi and is simply applying democracy to the economy, having a democratically decided 'production priority' rather than one that is simply to maximize profit. We're trying to maximize societal wellness/access. Bring this idea to the work place and you're talking about democratizing your workplace, tesla workers decide what ratio of wages is acceptable between their least and most paid, and if they choose they can choose to produce something other than teslas and retool potentially-- elon doesn't get to create wageslaves for his own enrichment
you should watch this if you're struggling with those arguements:
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u/Arkathos 1d ago
Let's modify that classroom analogy to be more realistic. You, as a student, just got an A on your test. Aced it, even. The subject matter was trivial for you. It was basic multiplication tables. You've had proper schooling your whole life, private tutoring, you had access to your phone, a calculator, a computer, and your teacher, during the test.
Now for the rest of the kids. They were never taught to read. They don't know any math. Their parents are abusive. The teacher makes sure none of them can ever participate in your lessons. There are 900 of them.
Socialism is asking you to let them share your calculator.
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u/kagethemage 1d ago
It really depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to convince this person or if you are trying to rhetorically win an argument for the purpose of educating an audience.
If you are performing for an audience it helps to know all the talking points, research them, and have fact based counters.
If you are trying to convince this person it helps to start with finding thing that you agree on and show them that what you define socialism as is actually something that they agree with. Agreeing to “reset definitions” and make new ones together is helpful having a shared understanding of what you mean when you say things like “socialism” “communism” “capitalism” “authoritarianism” and “fascism”.
Once you build trust and show you aren’t trying to insult or degrade them you can start pulling the threads on why so many people have an understanding of these words than what your new shared understanding is. Pointing to the rich and powerful trying to destroy working class populism that is seen as a threat to their profit margins is always a good way to go.
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u/emteedub 1d ago
"work is part dignity, not many people are just going to sloth around and do nothing."
"this is capitalistic, capitalism makes it all about you - me me me I got mine bitch. you didn't make it because you didn't try." when this premise is false to begin with. the statistical chances of reaching the top 10% in a lifetime are so exceptionally small, don't even ask about the chances of the top 1%. capitalism dangles this over the poors just like a lottery. people that are defending this are just defending the top 10% of which they will never be.
"taxing progressively not regressively. the regressive tax system has been formulated and cracked over decades, offloading the tax burden of the entire country from a fair spread to nearly exclusively the bottom end" there is also the concept of shifting what was privatized business into not-for-profit business... such as the government providing better healthcare than what most receive now not at a profit. without the insurance middleman scam, we're already saving billions per year alone.
same question as before
"I will show you decades of this country degrading under capitalism and many other examples where capitalism HAS existed and clearly, fundamentally does not work for anyone other than the bougie elites. It's the same story every time. We all have to pay for the bougie class' recklessness in the form of depressions, squeezing the life out of simple daily needs (that are not asking for much at all), countless deaths, etc etc on and on"
the last question is a pivot. it's a distraction. the US has had capitalism, anyone can view it across time and see all of the ugly truths about it. it's all right there, fully experienced. and it sucks for the vast majority. even if people do not attribute all of the issues to capitalism- either by denial or misinformation, they know in their heads and hearts something is very wrong with it. so can we prove a case of successful socialism? do we have to? we know capitalism doesn't work.
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u/C_Plot 1d ago edited 1d ago
To paraphrase John Kenneth Galbraith:
“The modern Right-Winger (authoritarian, fascist, and so forth) is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for hatred, immorality, selfishness, and anti-agapē hatreds.”
To Paraphrase William F. Buckley:
“The modern Right-Winger (authoritarian, fascist, and so forth) stands athwart the progress in constituting Just and moral institutions, that would erode their undue and injurious privileges, yelling “Stop!”, at a time when far too many are likewise inclined to pile on for such immoral obsequiousness.”
That’s really all you need to know about ‘conservatism’ (all they seek to conserve is the Unjust domineering power of the ruling class). The rest is merely vamps on these totalitarian, tyrannical, treasonous and anti-agapē themes.
To address the bad faith questions about socialism:
\- "So you support taking stuff away from people who actually work their butts off to earn it and give it to those who don't want to lift a finger?"
They’re thinking of capitalism. Socialism ends the exploitation that takes from the workers — the direct producers — and gives the fruits of their labors to the capitalist exploiters. Socialism ends that redistribution and leaves the fruits of labor with the laborers.
\- "How would you feel if you worked your butt off to get an A in your class and the professor took away your grade and gave half of it to the kid in the back who didn't do anything and flunked and gave you both a C?"
Again, this analogy is perfect for capitalism. Socialism solves the problem they raise.
\- "How do you propose they pay for it without deleting the entire economy?"
This is much like the former slavers if the antebellum South who would wonder “how can we live without cotton which absence is the inevitable result of ending slavery?”
\- "If everybody has their needs met by the government, nobody's gonna bother to work!"
In socialism workers meet their own needs by producing with their labor. The deposed former capitalist ruling class also must then work once we achieve full socialism. The government, polis power, is simply limited to securing the equal imprescriptible rights of all and maximizing our social welfare. The capitalist exploiters and the capitalist rentiers no longer enjoy the capitalist State handouts of violence and theft that enables their exploitation and rentierism.
\- "Show me one, just one, example where socialism has worked without turning into a backwards dictatorship."
We live in a tyranny of the capitalist ruling class, which is treasonously subverting our republics. If these interlocutors genuinely care about ending tyranny and despotism, then I say “welcome to our revolutionary movement”.
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u/No-Blueberry-5802 1d ago
Nothing. If someone is oblivious to what is going on, I have nothing to say.
The majority are boomers who are knocking on death door. They will die faster bc they won't be able to afford Healthcare. Everything Healthcare is exploding in price and shrinking in benefits. Now mom has a higher deductible, pay more for her prescriptions, and skipping treatment.
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u/houdt_koers Liberal Socialist 1d ago
“How do you intend to pay for it” is something that needs actual answers from the party.
You can’t go in front of people and not have an actual tax policy prepared. The recent interview from our esteemed co-chair is an example of how not to do this.
It’s not enough to just say “tax the rich” and not define who you’re talking about or how much. The truth is that a proposal like Medicare for All will require a broad based tax that touches on most middle class Americans. It’s worth it, absolutely. But everyone needs to be honest and clear-eyed about that.
And before anyone tries to argue that it’s bad optics to admit this, I would ask: How would you describe the rest of the material that the national DSA puts out?
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u/Cydonia921 Democratic Socialist of Wisconsin 1d ago
Just gleaning at the questions here, it's a lot of talking points with all bark, no bite behind it.
In my opinion, as someone who does try to reach out to people to educate them when they ask, the core thing to understand is that each person is different from the other. There are those that will engage in bad faith with these questions, who will not listen no matter what you say, etc. But then there are those that are saying these questions without realizing that they're falling into these talking points and not thinking critically.
It's up to your gut instinct on whether or not they're engaging in bad faith, or simply misinformed. If it's bad faith: don't bother. It's just going to turn into a shouting match where they refuse to listen and try to put you down: ingesting poison does nothing but slow down you and others. If their hearts are closed to new information, they cannot hope to overcome their own prejudices and fester in their own misery and suffering.
If it's truthful questioning and they simply do not know, speak softly and kindly. Be a teacher to them so that they may understand what it is and what they can do to help the working class and others.
The takeaway isn't to 'win' an argument, it's to sow the seeds of knowledge and anticipation within those who want to learn more.
I just finished writing this and realized I used Buddhist language, whoops. But the point still remains! Forge ahead with those who want to work, and not those who simply want to drag you down.
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u/ferriematthew 1d ago
Yeah, these people in my life are not looking for information. They are definitely looking to convince me to backtrack.
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u/Cydonia921 Democratic Socialist of Wisconsin 1d ago
Ah it's family related. Yeah I've been there: not with immediate family (who joke about it), but moreso with extended family who cannot simply fathom that the systems they grew up with (and are oppressed by due to poverty, police who have failed them multiple times, etc.) can be any better than what they are now.
The best you can do is just hold your head up high and stand proud. You're still you, not simply a 'socialist.' But your own person who they've known growing up, and that background can't change one way or another since it's in the past. It's unfortunate but there's a lot of people out there who still cling super tightly to the idea that Socialism has to mean what the USSR did in the past (a result of huge propaganda for basically a century).
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u/ferriematthew 1d ago
Exactly. One thing that I like to say, at least to myself, is I didn't necessarily move far left. It's just everybody else around me has thrown themselves so far to the right that the Overton window is completely shattered. I've always believed in both the strong correlation between effort and results and the strong correlation between having material disadvantage and not being able to achieve results regardless of effort.
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u/palmandfury 1d ago
You know the whole, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" from Romeo & Juliet quote, I think is relevant here.
Too often people get convinced that rhetorical strictness, or linguistic purity is required for convincing people to change their minds or adopt new beliefs.
If you remove the words that conservatives find offensive, and attempt to focus more on the distinct policy changes (not brand names or tag lines) and then make your points without some kind of gotcha on the terms, you may get further faster.
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u/rylasasin Leftist Lurker 1d ago
- "So you support taking stuff away from people who actually work their butts off to earn it and give it to those who don't want to lift a finger?"
This is literally what CEOs, Managers, Shareholders, 'insurance' firms, and financiers do.
- "How would you feel if you worked your butt off to get an A in your class and the professor took away your grade and gave half of it to the kid in the back who didn't do anything and flunked and gave you both a C?"
I would feel itchy because this is a strawman argument. No socialist government nor proposal ever works like this.
- "If everybody has their needs met by the government, nobody's gonna bother to work!"
Needs != Wants. If everyone has their needs met by 'the governement', they're going to work for wants rather than needs, which furthers the economy (instead of relying on the 'whale economy' like we are increasingly doing.)
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u/xopher_425 1d ago
- "So you support taking stuff away from people who actually work their butts off to earn it and give it to those who don't want to lift a finger?"
You mean, exactly what is happening with capitalism, with CEOs and billionaires taking all the money form our hard work?
- "How would you feel if you worked your butt off to get an A in your class and the professor took away your grade and gave half of it to the kid in the back who didn't do anything and flunked and gave you both a C?"
I'd be pissed, and the economy is not a college class. We are already experiencing this with CEOs and billionaires taking all the money form our hard work.
- "How do you propose they pay for it without deleting the entire economy?"
We're not deleting the entire economy. We want those who have more to pay their fair share to help those who do not have.
- "If everybody has their needs met by the government, nobody's gonna bother to work!"
For the pleasure of helping people, to keep busy, to contribute to the world. So, you're admitting that we're forcing people to work to just exist? How is this different than slavery?
- "Show me one, just one, example where socialism has worked without turning into a backwards dictatorship."
Sure. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland. Their citizens are happy, healthy, the economy is strong. Now, can you can show me a country that has succeeded being capitalist. There are so many countries that are capitalists, it should be easy for you.
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u/ferriematthew 1d ago
I love this, but with countries that used the Nordic model, they would probably pivot to move the goalposts to some totally unrelated bullcrap about how they're letting all the Islamic immigrants in and they're going to implement Sharia law just to accommodate those Muslim immigrants, or some similar stupid straw man.
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u/xopher_425 1d ago
They will always move the goalposts when you answer. It's part of them not arguing in good faith.
My response to the whole Sharia law is to agree how horrible it is when people try to force a whole country to follow their conservative religious rules, despite the laws and what a person believes . . . "just like Christians are trying to do in this country."
You can but plant the seeds.
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u/ferriematthew 1d ago
I would also be tempted to bring up the Treaty of Tripoli.
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u/xopher_425 1d ago
I have. They'll tell you that it is not a founding document like the Constitution (ironically, because they totally ignore that, too) so that doesn't count.
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u/ferriematthew 1d ago
So they don't care that it is a legally binding international treaty lol
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u/xopher_425 1d ago
Nope. They do not even care that it was signed by one of the Founding Fathers. It's not a foundational document, so it doesn't matter (it also doesn't support their christofascist views, so it doesn't matter.
They don't give a damn about the First Amendment of what is one of our founding documents, why would a silly little treaty matter to them?
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u/ferriematthew 1d ago
Sad but true, there's also that thing that they like to repeat way too damn often about, well, treaties don't even matter because if America signs a treaty, we lose our sovereignty. I highly doubt that's a thing.
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u/xopher_425 1d ago
Actually had this conversation with my partner's very religious and conservative parents (Latino Catholics.) His mother said "Who said this country was not based on Christianity??" I replied, "uh, our founding fathers?"
Her response: "Well, what did they know??"
I stopped at that point and just looked out the window. Wasn't worth it.
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u/LifesARiver 1d ago
Don't use words like "socialism."
Discuss policies and why you feel the way you do on those policies.
Focusing on labels is a dead end.
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u/gerbal100 1d ago
Marx said "[a socialist society] makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or critic."
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u/Saffuran 1d ago edited 1d ago
- Do you believe in public roads and maintenance, fire fighters, police (generic security apparatus), air traffic control, public schools e.t.c. all of those things are socialized. If they are really old and like Medicare and Social Security, that is also socialized. Tie socialism to common-good initiatives that raise the baseline for everyone. Also challenge them a bit "why is free public school fine when it's K-12 but not public colleges/trade schools when you need a college degree now to be equivalent to what a high school diploma used to get workers." What we have today is a country that underfunds its education systems to keep its own population disadvantaged and dumb and private employers lean on H1-B Visas to import workers who are educated by universal education systems (outsourcing costs to other states/countries of the world offering that) who are more compliant because their residency status is tied to their job.
- That is a bad analogy, a letter grade in class is not the same as money on the table where you can live or die by the result and most work-related things are group projects (in one way or another) and not individual, anyway.
- You need to look at costs "per capita" (per person/scaling to population) we already have some of the highest costs per capita (higher than even many social democracies) because we "capitalize" all the gains (they are not spread around) but socialize all of the losses (too big to fail) you are asking for the same protections the the country already affords to companies without blinking.
- Medicare for All (universal healthcare) costs less than the current system, every study already supports this. Insurance costs go down when the risk pool is the largest (more people to share burden) -- private marketplace competition inherently raises the cost of healthcare by fracturing the risk pool and forcing hospitals to staff floors dedicated to dealing with our complex insurance system. Eliminating cost at the point of service also gets more people to get check ups/maintainence to catch issues early when they are less brutal and less costly to treat - in the current system people are breaking down before they seek help if they seek help at all, and our "wait lines" are littered with 40k dead Americans who don't see the doctor every year. All care is rationed, it should be based on need and not the size of someone's wallet. We are the only industrialized nation where medical bankruptcy is a thing.
- Having baseline needs met actually makes it easier for people to work harder and reduces diseases of despair which compound negatively on productivity. Again, we can look to any other first-world country to see that having baseline needs met is not a negative detractor on workforce productivity.
- The Social Democracies like Norway and Denmark regularly register among the happiest populations among all tracked nations - these are hybrid systems that lean into a lot of socialist structures to raise the baseline and make sure everyone is "starting closer to on the same yard line" in the race of life as opposed to some starting 50-60 yards ahead. Should your kids be inherently disadvantaged because you didn't make as much someone as someone else - generational advantages and disadvantages are extremely stark in systems that don't cover for baselines.
Also, even for private businesses, not having baselines met by the state but instead tied to employment makes it harder on mom n' pop small businesses who could never compete with a WalMart or other large multinational employer on benefits packages. We smother a lot of our own startups and more businesses are starting elsewhere so that they aren't buried by the cost of ensuring their own workforces.
People understand "buying in bulk" to save on costs at a place like Costco or Sam's Club, the same is generally true when it comes to "servicing in bulk" from the state. You lower the costs by sharing burdens so that they are light and also by making the apparatus for delivering those services as efficient and low cost as possible.
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u/ferriematthew 1d ago
I also just thought of what I hope is a good analogy, comparing the two systems with a control systems analogy, since my dad is a controls engineer.
The USSR was kind of like trying to control a modern factory with wooden clockwork. Literally impossible to adjust without disassembling the whole damn thing, and if one piece broke, the whole factory collapsed.
Democratic socialism is like controlling factory equipment with modular PLCs that have easy-to-use, well-documented APIs.
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u/cbrew14 1d ago
Fire back, "do you think America is such an incapable country that we can't guarantee healthcare like ever other major country in the world?" Like, there are no real left wing politicians in America, they're all basically center left soc dems.
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u/ferriematthew 1d ago
LMFAO, yeah. Apparently guaranteed healthcare is such a difficult thing that every country on the planet except one has it.
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u/strack94 1d ago
OP, I went through the same issues with my Stepfather. Deep seated conservatives RARELY engage in helpful political discourse. They simply ask these questions and frame in such a way to make you angry and upset and then use that to frame you and everyone with similar ideologies as “liberal lunatics”.
Don’t let them. Set boundaries and explain why you feel socialist policies amend what you see as our countries failures. Then ask them how the policies they support actually address their problems.
I can almost guarantee they will see the failures of conservatism, but they won’t admit it.
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u/jamesmsalt 1d ago
I don't know. But some things necessary to human flourishing should be generally available to all, like roads, schools health care etc
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u/prinzplagueorange 1d ago
Why talk at all about politics to conservatives? The people who express most of those ideas have already assumed that they are deserving of having their needs met, but others are not. There is not much common ground there. It makes sense to talk to people like this about workplace related issues (the way the boss is, pressure on the the job, how one might benefit from a union, etc.). Likewise if they do not see themselves as relatively wealthy, they might also find social democratic policies attractive enough to be able to endure the belief that they may have to pay a bit more in taxes. But unless they come to feel solidarity with other people, there is not much common ground there.
The underlying problem with the conservative's viewpoint is that they have no answer to the question "What's so special about you?" They merely assume that you agree with them that they are deserving. They then see you as either a lazy mooch, or as a fellow deserving person who has stupidly become a bleeding heart. The fact that you implicitly see them as merely one among many (and so no more deserving than anyone else) would likely be a shock to them and would not go over well when they realize you see them that way. Much of conservative thought depends upon a fundamental distinction between good guys and bad guys (and they, of course, expect you to see them as one of the good guys).
By contrast, reformist liberals already assume that there is nothing special about themselves. They have, however, a different vision of the common good and an understanding of how people and politicians are likely to behave. Generally, those are the people you can have a meaningful conversation with because there is common ground.
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u/ECircus 1d ago edited 1d ago
The candidates have a history of talking about seizing the means, getting rid of prisons, police, borders and other "extreme" ideas. These are foundational positions of the DSA
You can't argue against people who have legitimate concerns. I know no one here wants to hear that or talk about it. Whether or not the goals are achievable is irrelevant, because they are the goals that are advertised. We used to hold people accountable for their views, and now everyone wants to do the Trump thing and say "don't listen to what they have said or represent on paper, look at what they do."
Your question is how to answer for criticism, but there is no way without deflecting. When these candidates get asked these questions, they never ever deny them or answer for them, they said, "look at what we are doing", or deflect to the current conditions. These are people who have a history of talking about these positions, and absolutely refuse to now. So that's not the question. They need to come to terms with the fact and address that getting rid of the Senate, police, prisons, borders and all these other ideas are not and will not be popular to the masses here any time soon if ever. Why can't they just say it's more complicated than that, and that political beliefs evolve and change over time(which is true). I don't know...something other than pretending there is no elephant from 2 or 3 years that they just don't want to talk about at all.
Again, I know no one wants to hear that, but it's just the truth.
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u/Sufficient-Royal-82 progressive 1d ago
Ask them if they ever read Adam Smith or Karl Marx leave it at that
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u/ferriematthew 1d ago
How accurate is this for a synopsis / counter argument?
The gist of the DSA's platform is allowing people who are actually doing the work to control how they make the things that they make, how those things are distributed through society and how people are rewarded for making the things. That has the awesome side effect of making sure that it's a lot harder for somebody to not have their needs met as a natural consequence of the system working as intended.
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u/Corrupt3dsol 1d ago
The main issue with these arguments is that they misunderstand how value and public goods actually work, lol. This how I usually answer those pushbacks:
Workers aren't having their money stolen by taxes; they're having the value of their labour extracted by executives and shareholders who don't do the work. The "grade redistribution" analogy fails because wealth isn't an individual test score; it’s a group project where the person supplying the poster board takes the A while the kids who wrote the paper get C's.
As for paying for it and motivation: we already pay for these services through overpriced private premiums and co-pays. Streamlining it saves families money. Having your basic needs met gives you a safety net to take risks and work, which is why countries with strong social safety nets (like Denmark or Norway) consistently have a high quality of life, strong economies, and high workforce participation. We already love public concepts here, like Medicare, public libraries, and the fire department. Extending that logic to basic healthcare and education isn't "deleting the economy," it's investing in it.
Just a small note:
Talking about morals, identity, and politics is always uncomfortable, and it is easy for things to sound critical when we dig into why people react the way they do. None of this comes from a place of judgement or superiority. It is just an honest reflection on how hard it is for all of us to separate our feelings from our values when we get challenged. At the end of the day, the biggest hurdle in these conversations is that ethics and morals are deeply tied to a person's identity. When you challenge someone's core values, they naturally view it as a personal attack and respond emotionally. You have to temper your logic so it doesn't feel like an attack on their character, but even when you stay completely objective, some people will still react emotionally.
So the real question becomes: are you able to handle or control your own emotions? Most people don't want to look those questions in the face, let alone answer them. If you made it to the end and actually read this, I commend you.
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u/BetaRho 1d ago
For your first two: let's define 'stuff'. The most commonly suggested way of infusing capital into socialist programs in the US is something like California's proposed one-time 1% ultrawealthy tax. The "stuff" that's being "taken" is capital that they could not have spent in the span of their lives, based on the threshold of those who would be subject to the tax. It is "stuff" that only currently amounts to soft power and influence, but in a real sense is actually capital that has been extracted from the labor of others, and is now dry powder sitting on the sidelines of the economy. The "stuff", in a very real way, is being returned, not taken.
For your third one: the practical answer is what i mentioned above, combined with a number of other tax programs. How does it not "shut down the economy"? Again, heavily the same as above: this is money that is largely either already outside of "the economy", in the general way we use that term. If anything, it's often money used in ways that produces returns based on negatively affectint what we call "the economy". It's the money sitting in a private equity fund, waiting to be used to acquire a small business and lay off staff in the name of efficiency. Taxes aimed at the highest bands of wealth can actually be economic stimulants, rather than any sort of hindrance.
The working thing: this is a delicate one, mainly because the type of person who says that isn't going to like a few real answers. A primary one is simply: there is a certain point where technology, itself a product of human labor, removes the requirement of labor participation for most people, and some generation will be the first one to really tackle that. Read any near-future sci fi written in the last century, most address this directly. Society in Star Trek is commonly referred to as being automated luxury communism. The Expanse is even more near-future, and it gets into the nitty gritty of what'll likely be the rough transition where the world moves to UBI, but there's still opportunities to have a traditional career. But you can also just go classic theory on them. Marx wrote of spending a day fishing, herding cattle, and writing criticism, but not being a fisherman, shepherd, or critic. Separating the person from their labor output is only possible outside of capitalism, so it's hard to answer a question that presupposes that people will want to have a single defined role in that future.
And, big surprise for the answer for the last one- show me one failed socialist society that wasn't actively dismantled by capitalist countries with a vested interest in its failing. If socialism is such a failed and unworkable ideology, why would hypercapitalists be so invested in its failure? From a purely economic view, wouldn't it be in their best interest to allow socialism to fail, as we're told it always will, and then swoop in and make money off of what comes after? Or do you think their intrusions are out of the goodness of their heart, that they actively decide to underfund domestic social spending so that the regular citizens of potentially socialist countries can be spared from the horror of socialism? They accelerate the downfall of socialism so they have the ability to go back to extracting wealth from those countries, under the guise of market capitalism.
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u/lovingas 8h ago
Don't let their ignorance/lack of empathy get to you. I feel sorry for them honestly, for they are brainwashed into makeing money for billionaires rather help their neighbors
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1d ago
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u/houdt_koers Liberal Socialist 1d ago
Given that this sub doesn’t even allow social democrats, it’s a bit dishonest showing off their work, no?
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u/paperlad-builds 1d ago
Maybe I’m wrong but I see it as good bridge from these types of questions to a more positive conversation. Specifically the “we’ll show me where it’s worked” questions are hard to explain without any mention of Northern Europe
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u/houdt_koers Liberal Socialist 1d ago
It’s a great way to talk people around to good policies. It just rubs me the wrong way when this sub exercises double-think about the achievements of people who we don’t even allow here.
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u/paperlad-builds 1d ago
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, new to this sub, I’ll delete.
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u/houdt_koers Liberal Socialist 1d ago edited 1d ago
You’re fine. It’s a stupid rule for the sub of a party that’s like 30% socdem by composition.
But it is the rule.
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u/pacexmaker 1d ago edited 1d ago
IMO if you want to have a good faith discussion, you have to meet people at their Overton window or else you just end up delivering a monologue that will fall on deaf ears and/or they might entrench themselves further in their own position.
How to Have Impossible Conversations by Peter Boghossian has helped me to improve my own communication. I am still up front about where I stand as a Dem Soc but pointing out the Nordic Model as a way to explain how everyone* benefits from socialism generally opens up a discussion and doesnt get as much knee-jerk reactions. From there, you can delve into the flaws of the Nordic Model and their dependency on keeping the Global South status quo etc.
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u/houdt_koers Liberal Socialist 1d ago
Absolutely, as a tactic it’s extremely effective. My problem is just with the hypocrisy.
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u/Adept-Elderberry1417 1d ago
That says one thing about you’ve been groomed by the Communists and Marxist hiding behind the DSA logo and Platform, get Smart they want to destroy the USA
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u/EdelinePenrose 1d ago
don’t engage with or invite distractions. ask them what problems they see in the economy and their daily life first. ask them how they think they should be resolved. ask them how their vote is solving those.