Understanding the Rise of “Socialism” | Hacker News Reader

Understanding the Rise of “Socialism”

braddelong.substack.com

6 pointsbrandonlc9 comments

The image could do with an ALT tag or title. I'd love to know whats going on in that photo

It's about 80 people, all posed for the photo.

There is a desk in front of them, sitting on cobblestone pavement. Many of the people have bow ties and beards. I think about 4 of them are women, so it is about 95% male. It's a black-and-white photo.

Perhaps the photo is of a signing ceremony.

Looks like the founding of the Finnish Social Democratic Party based on reverse image search:

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3511-the-social-democratic-...

It’s so disappointing that asking for an alt got you downvoted. This site can be ridiculous.

I did a reverse image search and found [0]:

The founding meeting of the Finnish Workers' Party was held in Turku in 1899. At the bottom center, the first chairman was Nils Robert af Ursin. Four years later, the party's name changed to the Finnish Social Democratic Party.

[0] https://www.hs.fi/politiikka/art-2000006207266.html

Well I read a long way before I didn’t get to anything about socialism, and then I got to the part distinguishing a democracy and a republic and... there is none because a republic is just any rule without monarchy. So I gave up. I was hoping this would be of interest as a socialist, I hope it will be to people who aren’t already.

A neoliberal economics professor who insists on putting socialism in quotes may not have the most nuanced or even balanced "understanding" on the matter.

No joke. Liberals talking about socialism reminds me a lot of Christians talking about evolution: "we didn't come from monkeys!" …right, no one said as much.

Even a cursory read of Marx/Engels/Lenin would clarify a lot of the points in this ignorant "article."

Socialism has a proposal that we as a society should cover the basics of life. Which most governments weakly attempt to do. You can generally find shelter, food, water, and safety.

Socialism was tried in many countries and is now dead. It died a bloody death in 1989. The world is slowly shedding socialism now. Places like Venezuela and Greece are unable to provide the benefits that socialism is supposed to offer.

China has the Uighurs, russia has the gulags, vietnam has their "rehab camps". Socialism requires forced labour camps.

The funny thing to me, there is a way forward to make socialism work and it can even happen under capitalism. That's automation. Make the robots our slaves who do everything for us. If we built vast arrays of fully automated food producing farms that dont need people and we produce an excess, food becomes so cheap that it's given away.

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