[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Socialism%20never%20took%20roo...
Some context; I know the USA better than most Europeans, having lived and paid taxes there for three years, whilst working and traveling all over the USA. I would never call Americans stupid. I've met some stupid ones though obviously. But Americans as a whole are as interesting and diverse and awesome and loathsome and everything in between as any other countries' citizens.
The collective results of the media, political developments of the past few decades, the countries' legal makeup (local, state and federal law) and what not more together result in stupid situations. One of them being that the USA is incapable of providing clean and affordable drinking water to all of its citizens.
And if you have to resort to compare yourself to Venezuela you're losing anyway. It's a bit like the: "hey, at least we're not THAT bad". But you STILL cannot provide clean drinking water to your citizens. What's that saying again? Never be the smartest guy in the room? Maybe compare yourself with countries doing better than the USA and then try to improve things?
And no, not everything is that bad and there are tons of things I like way better in the USA than in Europe. Things are hardly ever that black and white. But comparing yourself to Venezuela is one of the weaker arguments here.
EDIT: just realized that parent comment stated he's not American; doesn't take away from any of my points regarding the Steinbeck quote and the Venezuela comparison.
But I think the federal government exerts more control over US states than anyone exerts over Sweden. (Maybe the EU? I'm certainly no expert.)
Or "propaganda" as it's more usually known.
I don't mean to sound like the stereotypical "leftist" by saying that Venezuela isn't a Socialist country, but I'll have to in order to get the simple point accross that Venezuela operates a capitalist economy, protects private property, and the working class as a whole is not in power of any branch of the government; if Socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, it simply does not exist in Venezuela. It's very simple when I say that there is no such thing as wage labour within a Socialist economy. Socialism isn't just when the government does stuff; that idea is a false one, so much that it would be wise to call it "vulgar Socialism".
The idea also that Socialism requires the implementation of policies that Venezuela has implemented is farcical, too. By "Socialism" Steinbeck, nor any other Socialist author is referring to price centrols; Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, Steinbeck, Marx, Engels, Chomsky, Bookchin, Bakunin etc. had a very specific idea in mind; there's no need to be intellectually dishonest to advance the idea that Socialism makes you eat rabbits. It doesn't. They didn't eat rabbits in the Paris Commune nor in revolutionary Catalonia, nor to my knowledge Burkina Faso under Sankara.
If you want to read up on the modern advances in Socialist economy, I'd recommend looking at Paul W. Cockshott's Towards a New Socialism; to dismiss it without doing this research reeks of laziness or worse dishonesty. But please don't make assumptions about what Socialism is about while you have clearly failed to do the required research.
Perhaps because the quote by Steinbeck likely wasn't said, have one by Vonnegut instead:
"Socialism is no more an evil word than Christianity. Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, and children are created equal and shall not starve."
Not really. I'm sure Socialism looks great in book form, but the implementation has never worked. I'm more interested in the reality than the theory.
Reality requires theory; you simply can't claim to make a comment on modern Socialism without reading about what theories modern Socialists have created as to how the economy should be run. I provided counterexamples to the idea that it "never worked", too. Though even if you choose to dismiss 20th century Communism, I hope you realise how ignorant it is of you to dismiss modern innovations in theory, which has not yet been put to the test. Do you see how silly it is to dismiss a theory you haven't even read about?
At the moment you appear to be the monarch who says that civil liberties for the populace look great in book form, but implementation of liberties has never worked. What of Lockean liberalism or even capitalism, which has thus far had disastrous consequences and foundations in terrible subjugation and enclosure in Western Europe?
Reality does require theory, but in the same way I don't really need to care about how an internal combustion engine works to drive a car, I don't need to care about your theories. The evidence for whether a theory is any good or not is how it works in reality. Do either of the two examples you gave still exists?
I think it ironic that you raise the subject of civil liberties, given that they are complete anathema to socialism and must be overcome for any sort of socialism to be implemented.
False, Oscar Wilde writes about how Socialism is the very peak of individualism, core freedom for artists and scientists especially who nowadays are limited severely in their freedom by the tyranny of want and the subservience of market forces which degrades culture until it is only the shell of what it once was. He's not the only one; Marcuse and Adorno have also noted this. George Orwell too. In fact, Communism is called the epitome of free association of people for the reason that it is so liberating.
>The evidence for whether a theory is any good or not is how it works in reality.
Not really, but if you want to go by that measure then capitalism must be immediately replaced.
>Do either of the two examples you gave still exists?
No, they were both crushed by invading forces; in the case of the Paris Commune by the French government and in the case of Revolutionary Catalonia by Franco while being attacked also by the authoritarian Soviets. You seem to be ignorant of the fact that it is within the interest of governments to oppose Communism, because Communism is a liberation movement which opposes the state. It is also within the interest of capital to crush such movements which attempt to free themselves from it. This is extremely obvious.
>I don't really need to care about how an internal combustion engine works to drive a car
So you choose to remain ignorant as to what philosophy drives the world which you live in? Why would you do such a thing? I just don't understand it, other than perhaps laziness.