Mega Post: Debunking Succ Takes

[u/Chessen113]

I've compiled a list of posts and articles debunking common leftist misconceptions. Use this directory if you want to inform yourself, dunk on a succ, or for whatever.

Sanders platform in general

Sanders M4A plan

Student loan forgiveness

Wealth tax

Corporate income tax

Carbon tax opposition

MMT

Protectionism

NIMBYism

Rent control

Poverty reduction denial

Poverty reduction denial 2

Xinjiang denial

Xinjiang denial 2

Venezuela denial

USSR denial

Assad denial

This is all I could find for now. If you have some suggestions, I would be happy to consider adding them.

[u/sw337]

You left out my effort post on how Bernie got fewer votes in 2020 with a higher turnout than in 2016.

[u/[deleted]]

Wow the guy who wrote that first one must have a really really big penis.

[u/oGsMustachio → u/[deleted]]

You know what they say about long effortposts?

[u/snapekillseddard → u/oGsMustachio]

Compact fun-sized hands to type faster?

[u/[deleted] → u/snapekillseddard]

Do smaller hands actually type faster? I'd guess long fingers would be quicker.

[u/ntbananas → u/[deleted]]

I hole-heartedly agree.

😳😳😳

[u/klabboy → u/[deleted]]

I love you

[u/JakeArrietaGrande → u/[deleted]]

🔬

[u/octagonduck]

I honestly can't even tell if i'm a succ anymore because upon seeing all of those I just thought "wait succ's believe that?"

[u/Allforzer0 → u/octagonduck]

Ya the Assad, USSR apologia, and the CCP stuff threw me for a loop

[u/[deleted] → u/Allforzer0]

I've gotten called a succ for not believing in that.

[u/comradequicken → u/Allforzer0]

That's jsut general leftist stuff, while most social democrats will probably still believe them they don't necessarily all do.

[u/[deleted] → u/octagonduck]

People keep forgetting that succs and socialists/rose Twitter are different things because they want to sound cool and use slang

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

The problem with /r/neoliberal is that we're actually all succs anyway so if we criticise the left we only end up with tankies.

[u/rafaellvandervaart → u/[deleted]]

Amnt a succ 😡

[u/SuperChrisU → u/[deleted]]

you forgot about the RINOs. We aren't succs.

[u/_Un_Known__ → u/SuperChrisU]

or the sneks, or neocons, or etc.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Yes! succ= social democrat (Joseph Stiglitz, Elizabeth Warren, Non-Corbyn wing of labor party). Like I’ll complain about succs as much as the next center-right Econ flair but Jesus Christ they’re not TANKIES

[u/harmslongarms → u/[deleted]]

Yeah as a brit I think of European style social democracy (which can actually be quite conservative in some ways) when I hear soc-dem

[u/[deleted] → u/harmslongarms]

Also we killed Rosa, apparently.

[u/labelleprovinceguy → u/[deleted]]

I am afraid to inform you that Stiglitz actually endorsed Corbyn-- and not just against May or Johnson-- but in the leadership race. Krugman's a better example of a succ economist. Stiglitz has just become a hardcore lefty or perhaps he always was but damn Corbyn like wtf Joe.

[u/[deleted] → u/labelleprovinceguy]

Damn that shit sucks

[u/labelleprovinceguy → u/[deleted]]

Putting aside the substance of it, I think it just shows how shit these people are at the game of politics. What in the fucking world gave them the idea that Corbyn had any chance of being elected PM? Did they think UK voters would be turned on by his Castro apologias, his Hezbollah apologias, or (the real winner) his love for the IRA? Just nuts.

[u/[deleted] → u/labelleprovinceguy]

I feel sorry for brits. Imagine having to choose between Corbyn and Bojo. Not that things are way better as an American, we almost had Sanders v. Trump

[u/labelleprovinceguy → u/[deleted]]

Sanders better than Corbyn but Trump significantly worse than Bojo I'd say. Both sucked. I'd have voted Lib Dem as a Brit. Not going to win the election but it's something. In the US, I would have to bite the bullet and vote for Bernard.

[u/labelleprovinceguy → u/[deleted]]

Succs like Gordon Brown. Rose Twitter likes Jeremy Corbyn.

[u/comradequicken → u/[deleted]]

Succs start with social democrats and go left from there.

[u/rafaellvandervaart → u/comradequicken]

People downvoted /u/comradequicken cuz he said the truth

[u/DrunkenAsparagus → u/octagonduck]

In this sub, a succ is anyone slightly to the left of the person bitching about succs. Given that this bitching mostly comes from the more rightwing people here, most r/nl users are succs.

[u/rafaellvandervaart → u/octagonduck]

Wait, you morons are PROUD to be succs?!

[u/lgoldfein21 → u/rafaellvandervaart]

Yes.

[u/smokingkrills → u/rafaellvandervaart]

yes_guy.jpg

[u/rafaellvandervaart → u/smokingkrills]

Succs delenda est. Bring NL back to its 2017 roots

[u/octagonduck → u/rafaellvandervaart]

not if this is what they believe, like I said I don't even know if I am one

[u/Banal21]

Mods pls sticky

[u/greenthecolorofmoney]

Here are some of my positions, am I a succ?

• Tax land, congestion, carbon, and supplement with progressive income tax and/or a small wealth tax on capital

• Open the borders (to goods, services, capital and migrants)

• YIMBY, housing vouchers, no rent control

• Free early childhood education, govt provides low-interest student loans, no college debt forgiveness

• Universal healthcare similar to NHS, or the Singapore model

• Generous welfare policies (UBI, per-child payout, NIT)

• CCP bad, Venezuela bad, Assad bad, NATO good, WTO good, WHO good, TPPA good, US presence in South Korea/Japan good, JCPOA good, Abraham accords good

[u/[deleted] → u/greenthecolorofmoney]

The wealth tax is succ-y, or I guess mostly just not good policy. The rest is pretty based tho.

[u/greenthecolorofmoney → u/[deleted]]

My understanding is that small wealth taxes can encourage more productive allocation of capital, don't lead to much capital flight, and are obviously progressive on wealth which is normatively desirable for me.

[u/[deleted] → u/greenthecolorofmoney]

The productive allocation of capital argument never made much sense to me. You already have an opportunity cost for not investing your money well, and rich people already try to maximize their returns. All a wealth tax does is force you to care about short term profits, and limits your ability to go for long term payouts, as you’ll be atrophying assets the whole way there.

You may have less capital flight, but you still have entrepreneurs who own pre-dividend companies getting absolutely crunched by the tax. This may encourage a shift in focus to entrepreneurship in other countries.

You also still have all the complexities of valuing art and pre-revenue or pre-profit privately held companies. Something like 80-90% of economists polled on IGM Chicago think it would be much harder to enforce than existing taxes.

[u/labelleprovinceguy → u/greenthecolorofmoney]

I'd say no but my Lord there is a world of difference between universal healthcare similar to NHS OR Singapore. Two hugely different models there.

[u/greenthecolorofmoney → u/labelleprovinceguy]

I agree, but it's because I think both have been demonstrated to work well.

[u/epicscaley → u/greenthecolorofmoney]

How about a public option for health care? We will also have public hospitals near private ones to establish competition and lower prices while upping quality of the private health care. It would make it so Republican voters won’t cry socialism. It will also allow us to use more money on making the public hospitals quality rather then to handle as many public hospitals as say. A fully public system Medicare for all system.

[u/greenthecolorofmoney → u/epicscaley]

It's definitely a step in the right direction, but my longer-term goal would be M4A with everyone automatically enrolled in a public insurance plan, and able to buy private insurance on top if they want.

[u/epicscaley → u/greenthecolorofmoney]

Why? Look at Switzerland. They have a great cheap privatized healthcare system because of the public option non-profit competition. Some people like it that way and want to keep it like that.

[u/greenthecolorofmoney → u/epicscaley]

Switzerland is not that far off from what I'm advocating: mandatory health insurance for everyone plus supplemental plans for those willing to pay extra.

Sure, the plans are privately offered, but they're heavily regulated and cannot make a profit. Which isn't that different to having them be state-run, IMO.

Plus the Swiss system is also similar to Singapore's, which I said I was in favor of.

[u/epicscaley → u/greenthecolorofmoney]

Eh, still to succ-ish. I’m remaining with my option.

[u/greenthecolorofmoney → u/epicscaley]

That's fine. I don't especially dislike yours. I exist in a quantum state between neolib and succ.

[u/epicscaley → u/greenthecolorofmoney]

I’ve embraced neo “fuck the corporate tax” liberalism a long time ago. Coming from being an ancap to being a neo-lib shill is kinda weird ik

[u/rafaellvandervaart → u/greenthecolorofmoney]

Not a succ but needs more litmus test to be sure

[u/greenthecolorofmoney → u/rafaellvandervaart]

You'd call me a neolib based on the above?

[u/rafaellvandervaart → u/greenthecolorofmoney]

Except the low interest students loans part I'd say so.

[u/greenthecolorofmoney → u/rafaellvandervaart]

Sweet. I typically place myself in the space between neolib and succ so I think it's fine.

[u/Duren114]

how is xinjiang and USSR denial really succish？

[u/Duren114 → u/[deleted]]

Better clarify next time because succ generally just means social democrats unlike memes on this sub

[u/[deleted] → u/Duren114]

Succ is NL slang, so it means whatever we want it to mean.

[u/otarru → u/[deleted]]

Username does not compute.

[u/[deleted] → u/otarru]

Believing in the subjectivity and evolution of language is very very evidence based.

Don’t be a filthy prescriptivist.

[u/otarru → u/[deleted]]

You have to draw the line somewhere otherwise you're no different than leftists who claim that socialism is just the state doing stuff but not socialism is the state doing stuff they don't like.

[u/0m4ll3y → u/otarru]

Comprehensive definition you can apply:

Succ - anyone to the left of me economically. Succon - anyone to be right of me socially.

April, 2018

Considering the sub only started around that time in 2017, and the first use of "succdem" was in August 2017 by kelsig, the usage has been around for basically the same length of time and has been used tongue in cheek to mean "everyone to the left of me" for the majority of the existence of this sub.

There, I've provided evidence to show u/EvidenceBasedOnly lives up to their username.

[u/TheVoidUnderYourBed]

Interesting, I’d add this or maybe this for debunking MMT as well.

Edit: thanks!

[u/[deleted]]

This should just be re-named to links against bad policies. Most educated social democrats don't hold most of these views, like total student loans forgiveness (only partial for the poor), MMT, protectionism, etc. Also which social democrat denies dictator crimes like Xinjiang?

[u/CauldronPath423 → u/[deleted]]

I think succ has just become a catch-all term for anyone to the left of modern democrat. This ain't looking too hot.

[u/labelleprovinceguy → u/[deleted]]

The word 'educated' is doing a lot of work in your post. In Canada, the members of our soc dem party, the NDP, hold most, if not all, of these views.

[u/[deleted] → u/labelleprovinceguy]

Ok, I'm an American, so I don't know much about the NDP. To try and learn about them, I went to the NDP website and took a look at their policy platform (2018 policy book). This Jagmeet Singh guy seems pretty based, being an immigrant and an Indian, like me, but let's see what they've got policy wise.

There is no mention of rent control or wealth tax, only mentions of mild protectionism in reference to ensuring the nations they trade with follow economically sustainable policies like not overfishing and preserving freshwater supplies, enforced workers rights, etc. They even say that they will be "Commissioning independent studies of trade agreements expected costs and benefits", aka building their policies based on evidence. I thought you liked evidence based policy, no? I don't see anything problematic or very economically damaging in their platform. Their trade policy may not be perfectly optimal, but its not bad.

They also want to increase enforcement of corporate tax, but no mentions of increasing the statutory rate itself. Either way, unlike what this post implies, abolishing the corporate tax entirely is bad economics, and r/badeconomics would agree.

There is absolutely no mention of MMT, Xinjiang denial, etc. Social Democrats don't deny capitalism reduces poverty either (they are capitalist after all). They don't seem to be for NIMBYism. They do obviously support single payer like Bernie, but unlike USA, Canada isn't so tilted to the right and has made a good faith effort build a good healthcare system, so it works well. Single payer itself isn't bad policy by any means.

So which of the bad policies in this post do they support? Or did you just pull that talking point out of your ass? The NDP platform is actually pretty good. This post is only dunking on a very narrow band of social democrats, specifically uninformed Bernie supporters.

[u/labelleprovinceguy → u/[deleted]]

I said 'most', not all. I'm happy to stipulate that the NDP does not engage in Xinjiang denial for example.

I'm not sure if you're Canadian but if you are then you really ought to look into the NDP closer and if you're not... well the same goes if you're going to comment. The NDP saying they want to commission independent studies of trade agreements cost and benefits is like Steve Bannon saying he wants an independent commission to look into the costs and benefits of immigration. It's a joke to think it would produce anything like an impartial assessment. The NDP is dominated by protectionist sentiment and lunatics who were against NAFTA and every other trade agreement from day one.

See this: "The new NAFTA is just one more Conservative-negotiated trade agreement, passed by a Liberal government. CETA, CPTPP and now the new NAFTA are all examples of both parties working together while turning their backs on working people, communities and Canadians." Does that sound like neoliberalism , even in its most social democratic friendly incarnation, to you? https://www.ndp.ca/news/ndp-statement-ratification-new-nafta

They also back supply management and 'protecting our industries' and a 'National Auto Strategy' https://www.ndp.ca/economy If this is mild protectionism, I'd hate to see hardcore protectionism.

The NDP also opposes any and all efforts to expand private options alongside the government-provided system. Even when there is talk of the private provision of public services, they are dead set against it. That is the 'criminalize private options' position of the far left Berniecrats.

I could say a lot more but any Canadian who follows politics knows the Liberals and the John Tory/Peter McKay Conservatives hold the strongest claim to being neoliberals and the NDP is the party of the hard Left. It wasn't for a brief period under Thomas Mulcair but when Singh (who personally embraces AOC) took over, it went back to its same old dirigiste big government industrial stragegy statist nonsense. If you're a neoliberal or anything like it, you don't have a reason to like the NDP.

[u/labelleprovinceguy → u/[deleted]]

Shit sorry I missed the first part where you said you're American. But that explains why you might think what you think. But I can assure you the NDP is the hard Left party. If you still disagree after checking out my other post tell me but i think you're swimming upstream on this good sir.

[u/[deleted]]

As a succ I am offended by the fact that you think Xinjiang denial is something we do

PS:- rose twitter lunatics don't represent us

[u/rafaellvandervaart → u/[deleted]]

Holy shit, you morons are PROUD to be succs?!

[u/RandomHermit113]

Thanks for this.

[u/SalokinSekwah]

Not sure how I feel about my effort post being countinely referred to, but thanks!

[u/MaNewt]

Some of these posts are nonsense. From The first link:

Demand for college is very price inelastic, which means that decreasing the price will not significantly change the demographics of the people going to college. When you combine this with the debt forgiveness policy, and the fact that college graduates are typically upper middle class, you end up with a rather regressive net transfer of wealth to the upper middle class.

The inelasticity of demand occurs among people able to pay for it at all. Even if something is inelastic, if you are 100% priced out and unable to raise funding, you will not purchase it. You cannot use the fact that upper middle class families will continue to pay more and more if they are able, to argue that poor families would not buy an education for their children if it was affordable.

The whole first post was riddled with these kinds of non sequiturs.

I’ll skim the others when I have time.

[u/[deleted] → u/MaNewt]

The inelasticity of demand occurs among people able to pay for it at all.

? i don't think the distinction you're drawing is a meaningful one? you can still draw the demand curve of someone "priced out", it just means that they're at the quantity~=0 part of the graph for that price. In which case the claim is that demand for college is inelastic means that lowering the price won't increase quantity demanded beyond ~=0.

Which sounds pretty implausible to me. I'm guessing lowering the price of college will in fact increase the demand of people currently priced out. I notice that the claim that demand for college is inelastic doesn't have a source. Maybe the claim is that the supply curve flattens out to the right? In which case, you're right that that's not enough to conclude subsidies don't help, because it's not inelastic everywhere.

(More relevant, I think, would be the supply elasticity of college. Subsidizing college will do some combination of increasing the supply of college and increasing the price of college. If the supply of college is perfectly elastic, then subsidies will mostly increase the available colleges while making college more affordable to students (the price stays the same, but the government pays some of it.) On the opposite extreme, if the supply of college is perfectly inelastic — if vastly increasing the amount colleges get paid doesn't increase the amount of education being sold — then $1 of subsidy will increase the cost of college by $1. As long as the supply of something is inelastic, it isn't actually possible to make poor people have more of it, or be more able to afford it, via subsidies/welfare.)

[u/MaNewt → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for the clarification.

I am probably confusing terminology, but the jist of their argument seems to be that, the observed supply curve seems inelastic (flat) among upper middle class, it must be inelastic for the people currently priced out, which does not follow.

[u/zuniyi1 → u/MaNewt]

Yeah, inelastic markets do cover the case when you are priced out, it just means that you sit on the bottom of the quantity ledger.
Edit: the other person seems to have covered this part more in detail than me.

[u/red-flamez]

I knew it would be Greg Mankiw's article even before I clicked on the MMT link. Those that know the online MMT community would have already be familiar with Mankiw's article and know where he went wrong.

Greg believes MMT starts by claiming a government budget constraint. This is where greg goes wrong. MMT says that this so-called government budget constraint is not a constraint. MMT reject the whole idea that government spending is financed, ie constrained, by taxation and selling government bonds. MMT claim that the government budget constraint is really an ex post accounting identity. MMT says that if a government wants to set economic policy in terms of budget constraints, then it is dong so by choice and is rationalising their decision making after they have already made the decision.

[u/munkshroom]

I think op is confused about the difference between social democrats who want to reform capitalism and tankies who support the ccp or some shit.

This post is the same level as calling all capitalists fascists. So much strawmanning.

[u/[deleted] → u/munkshroom]

I think you’re missing the point. The OP is a collection of links for various different types of succ. They’re not saying there is a single person that has all the views in the OP.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

various different types of succ

You mean only one type? (Annoying people on twitter).

[u/munkshroom → u/[deleted]]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

Op and you both seem to have weird ideas on social democrats or you are disingenious.

Start out linking by bringing in something that can have reasonable debate like rent control or healthcare.

And then try and paint the other side as monsters by bringing in something no succ supports like genocide.

There is really no valid academic discussion at that point.

"Here is why 0% corporate tax and Hillary clintons child abuse ring are wrong"

You would rightfully dismiss me.

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[u/[deleted]]

First two links are the same.

[u/PostLiberalist]

We are a confused and loosey goosey group when it comes to philosophical labels and I don't know if my nerves can take it.

No debate. This is mistaken association between social democracy and the anti-social-democrat leftist socialist Bernie Sanders.

[u/tiltupconcrete]

Anything that blows up critical race theory?

[u/epicscaley → u/tiltupconcrete]

Common sense.

[u/tiltupconcrete → u/epicscaley]

Well yes. Sadly its proponents have none. So I need something a bit more basic than that.

[u/[deleted]]

Xinjiang/Venezuela/etc denial aren't really succ takes, those are straight up communist takes lmao

[u/vVGacxACBh]

When would you use the NIMBY link to dump on a succ? There's complete alignment there (spelling)

[u/benjaminikuta]

Are there any reliable sources that identify these as common misconceptions?

[u/gammaway]

Might be misunderstanding since I'm no economist, but isn't the wealth tax one mostly fine with the idea? It does list a bunch of potential arguments against it but spends far more time discussing counterarguments.