Because any measure to help the populace or address inequity is decried as socialism by the Right.
But thank you for repeating THEIR talking point.

When you say "But it's DEMOCRATIC Socialism" you've already lost the argument.

And again, no nation, even those without RW political movements, seems to have thought Socialism ("the State controls the means of production&quot is a good idea.

Do you really follow such a black and white views of things or do you think it better to incorporate the best of various systems and ideas? As an insufferable pragmatist, I don't give two shits about ideology.

goes away. Social Democrats.
Of course the fact that Democratic Socialist political parties in power have generally implemented social democratic reforms and only rarely nationalized industries belies just how pedantic the argument is.

Communism is a social/political system that, among other things, utilizes socialist economic policies.

Socialism is not communism-lite.

We have a very robust (and yet also highly regulated) private capitalist sector that synergistically works with an expansive public social welfare state that combine to produce some of the highest (if not the highest) standards of living on the planet.

We most definitely are NOT socialist nations, democratic or otherwise.

So frustrated that some of the left Democrats falsely self-label as democratic socialists, when none of them argue for state control of the means of production, which is a core tenet of socialism. Even Sanders has said NO, he doesn't believe in pushing for state control of the means of production on multiple occasions.

I have been battling this almost since I joined here in summer 2018. It is such a self-defeating (and false) self-labelling to grasp onto in the hyper-capitalist, reactionary US.

I think he was into smörgåsbords or something but I'd have to check.

Plural

smörgåsbord - indefinite form
smörgåsbords - indefinite form genitive
smörgåsborden - definite form
smörgåsbordens - definite form genitive


Singular (with the Swedish names for the forms, they mirror the English labels for the plural forms above)

ett smörgåsbord - obestämd form
ett smörgåsbords - obestämd form genitiv
smörgåsbordet - bestämd form
smörgåsbordets - bestämd form genitiv

The system is manifestly broken. Instead of debating how to fix it, what to replace it with, we are forced into defending the status quo in order to hold back 21st century fascism.

This is a truly shitty situation.

Reminds me of a chat with some of my Swedish colleagues. Sweden has one of the highest rates of millionaires and billionaires per capita on the planet. And yet has a massive social safety net, with taxes to fund it. How can that be? Their simply answer was, unlike Americans, Swedes don't have to worry about healthcare coverage and basic income, so they're free to follow their dreams and ideas as far as work is concerned. And sometimes those ideas hit it big. That's a gigantic risk few can take in the US. Not the whole answer, certainly, but it is an interesting factoid.

Capitalism works, just like fire works. But both can kill you if not well controlled. In my mind, that's where socialism comes in. On the other hand, communism, like libertarianism, is illogical and an abject failure.

Of people. Making 4,000% what your workers make might seem to work for you. But not so much for the people doing the work for slave wages.

Drives me nuts when we fail to see the nuance and get just as black and white as the right. That's a simplistic view that doesn't work in the real world.

Capitalism works very well. It's efficient and meshes well with human nature. Sometimes too well and you get the example you mentioned. Like most things, it has to be controlled and that's where socialist ideas come in. Equality before the law. Equality of opportunity. And we are our brother's keeper to an extent and must ensure they don't starve or lack medical care.

BUT, if you're looking for equality in all outcomes, that's never, ever going to happen. We are most certainly not created equal and the differences will show over time. Sorry, but that's how the world works.

Idgaf how it should work, this is reality. Condescending remarks aren’t going to change it,
Fuck the patriarchy!

This is even more heartbreaking.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218858982

From the late 70s onwards the neoliberal consensus has deregulated capitalism globally. It is at this point nearly impossible to reverse that because of the well financed global fascist political parties that actively obstruct reform and force their opposition into a defense of a status quo that everyone knows isn’t working.

And you're substituting a different boogeyman for the one the right uses, .i.e. George Soros. Amazing how we fall into exactly the same illogical thinking the right does. I guess it's just being human.

But to your point, yes, we have rolled back regulation too far in a number of ways. And sometimes Democratic administrations supported it. The Financial Services Modernization Act, signed by Bill Clinton, is quite possibly the most horrible thing a Democratic administration ever did short of escalating the Vietnam War.

With social welfare policies. Social safety net programs are not socialist. Socialism is the state owning all or most of any business operation.

Sweden is not a socialist country. They also do not have more millionaires per capita than the US.

A democracy where the means of production are owned by the state? Now that's a conundrum.

Is still socialism, it's just chosen by the people democratically instead of forced upon them by a revolutionary authoritarian single party government as it is in communism.

The economics are still largely the same with the state controlling the means of production and the allocation of resources.

The Bernie crowd has tried to sugar coat it and focus on the positive side, but at the end of the day, it's socialism and the American people will reject it. We are all pretty much fine with socializing certain things like defense, public safety and roads. Many of us are fine with socializing medical care and public utilities. But outside a handful of radicals, nobody wants to socialize food production or manufacturing.

Socialism and communism, whenever implemented, have always taken people’s freedom away. That’s why people apparently prefer to tinker with capitalism than embrace socialism. Under capitalism, people have always tried to speak truth to power. Under communism and socialism, power is the only truth allowed, which is probably why they have such trouble catching on. Nobody except a control freak likes living where control freaks have total control.

elected socialist government. It is almost as if what our government fears most is just that.

Predatory Capitalism in check.

if this group of so-called new Republican's win, they will toss the constitution on the first day, and the Corporate Fascists will take control forever more....

It will read like Orwell's ANIMAL FARM, or 1984.......of course it isn't the government we had to fear, like Orwell stated....It was the Corporations taking over the Gov't which is what we have to fear. Dictionary definition of Fascism: A merger of Corporations and Government......

Instead of the United States of America, it will be the Corporate States of America, or Facist States of America.... We are already mostly there, folks.....this is the last stand !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

were rich, mostly White, people in suits and ties. Wage theft is one of the most common types of theft in the US and is rarely mentioned.

... is the control of capital – MONEY – and is in no way, shape, or form synonymous with free enterprise, in fact, capitalists hate free enterprise because it gets in the way of their ultimate goal of establishing Feudalism v.2, where the oligarchs have total dominion over the lives of their vassals – that's us – and they have zero compunction about employing any and every means at their disposal to achieve that nefarious end.
The Soviets gave socialism a bad name, and capitalists harped on it constantly, but it is simply putting the best interests of people ahead of the best interests of corporations, which have NEVER given two shits about the harm they do to working people, the environment, and the world in general.
Here's an idea: Make every corporation a Benefit Corporation. From Wikipedia: "In business, and only in United States corporate law, a benefit corporation is a type of for-profit corporate entity whose goals include making a positive impact on society. Laws concerning conventional corporations typically do not define the "best interest of the corporation", which has led some to believe that increasing shareholder value (profits and/or share price) is the only overarching or compelling interest of a corporation.[1] Benefit corporations explicitly specify that profit is not their only goal. Their activities may or may not differ much from traditional corporations.[2] An ordinary corporation may change to a benefit corporation merely by stating in its approved corporate bylaws that it is a benefit corporation." Might want to stiffen the B-Corp requirements a bit.
Capitalism and predatory corporatism will not only be the death of America, they will ultimately spell the death of humanity, and all life on Earth if they are not brought to heel, and we are gaining speed toward that horrific end a lot faster than anyone wants to admit, but the science doesn't lie. Corporatists do. Their motto might as well be: "What has posterity ever done for me?"
To paraphrase Sun Tsu in "The Art of War," such people will burn the world to the ground just so they can rule over the ashes.

Where everything is exposed to market forces, including our access to healthcare and education, where other advanced nations seem to draw a reasonable boundary at where these market forces can penetrate.

But don't ask Empty-G was socialism is. Little Miss "PPP forgiven" will tell you it's about Joe giving money to people who don't deserve it.

I just found out Eddie Albert was blacklisted because his wife was a leftist from *gasp* Mexico.

Margo held progressive political views, but she was not a member of the Communist Party. In 1950, her name and that of her husband, Eddie Albert, were published in Red Channels, an anti-Communist pamphlet that purported to expose Communist influence within the entertainment industry.