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Comment by mike10921 | Hacker News Reader

It's all coming back in reverse. The young generation who don't appreciate having democracy are bulking at democracy and choosing socialism. The vast majority of immigrants from socialist countries do not vote or support socialism because they appreciate their freedom.

Someone who is born with abundance doesn't appreciate his blessings, but one who is born with very little and acquires abundance appreciates it every day.

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> The young generation who don't appreciate having democracy are bulking at democracy and choosing socialism.

Contrary to what some people argue, "democracy versus no democracy" and "capitalism versus socialism versus communism" are separate axes. For example, there exist capitalist countries with very little democracy. And there exist socialist countries with relatively robust democratic institutions. And the opposite combinations exist.

(There have not, as far as I know, been very many self-proclaimed communist countries with robust democratic institutions.)

The questions that I care about are, "Can the people of the country make a comfortable living?", "Can they successfully petition the government for a redress of their greivances?", and "Does the country protect minorities of various sorts from the tyranny of the majority?" Achieving all three of these can be a challenge, and different countries may vote for more or less safety net.

I'm not sure if I'm taking a bait here but the young people talking about socialism almost universally mean the Nordic style social democracies, which represent the most free and stable of all democracies. It's a deliberate misunderstanding and derailment of discussion to equate it with some autocratic communist societies like USSR or Venezuela.

> the young people talking about socialism almost universally mean the Nordic style social democracies

It's just plain wrong to call us Nordics socialist. We have free market economies just like all Western countries.

https://www.vox.com/2015/10/31/9650030/denmark-prime-ministe...

Meanwhile, something like 1/3 of the market cap on the Oslo Stock Exchange is state owned, the second largest media group is owned by a public benefit corporation, the largest bank is owned 34% by the government and ~10% by a foundation with a public benefit mandate. At the same time Norway has a more expansive welfare system than most supposedly socialist countries.

It's fair enough that they're not fully socialist by any means, but for a lot of socialists the Nordic model is far closer to what they want than e.g. China.

Indeed, but the Nordic approach is what the people talking of "socialism" usually mean. Not command economies.

It’s not the young people who are turning against democracy. It’s the baby boomers who talk ceaselessly about “fake news”, rejecting anything that doesn’t match their cloistered reality.

Social Democracy, where the state is used as a tool to support the populace, is not whatever boogeyman of socialism you are trying to conjure

One is a form of government, the other is an economy.

You can have a Socialist Democracy or a Socialist Dictatorship, just like you can have a Capitalist Democracy or a Capitalist Dictatorship.

Why do you conflate socialism and a lack of democracy? Am I wrong in thinking there can be a democratically elected socialist government?

It's just that there hasn't been a notable example in history. Its constructor throws a NotImplementedError

"The constitution declares India a sovereign, socialist, secular, and democratic republic"[1]

If the largest democracy in history isn't a "notable example" what is?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_India

The word socialist was added to the constitution because of Indira Gandhi, the only dictator to ever hold power in India. So I think you are making my point for me

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-second_Amendment_of_th...

Are you seriously arguing that India didn't practice socialist policies before that amendment? And continued to do so for decades afterwards? Arguably continues to do so in some respects even today.

Even the link you provided notes the same thing: "Ambedkar's (the original author of the constitution)...objection [to putting "socialist" in the original preamble] was [it was] "purely superfluous" and "unnecessary", as "socialist principles are already embodied in our Constitution" through Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles of State Policy."

> Am I wrong in thinking there can be a democratically elected socialist government?

Yes, if a socialist government is democratically elected it's overthrown shortly afterwards by the CIA.

(sarcasm, but this is basically what happened to South America, and there's longstanding questions about some of Italy's postwar politics)

I can't quite express it, but there is something very fundamentally "unfair" or "undemocratic" at the core of socialism and its policies. And it's not that I'm selfish and don't want to help those that are suffering. To me, socialism means I am giving less consent. At least with democracy, that is less apparent and I technically have "more consent" to the things imposed on me.

Speaking as someone who's far more Libertarian-leaning than I suspect most of HN is, socialism is not the opposite of democracy.

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