Burnies a
democratic socialist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders not a Social Democrate. Democratic socialist countries are pretty central these days are they not? Most western countries have Democratic socialist ideals and systems and are going further to the left. What was left is now centre would be my view.
Universal wage was once very Left but has started to become a central left ideal. Perhaps in 5 to 10 years it will be central.
But as i said what Burnie's ideals are for America is normal here in Australia, in fact we have gone further. His ideas are central to both the right and left parties here. Our right wing Conservative party, The Liberals is probably a little left of the Democrat's and our Left leaning Party, Labor is Social Democrats and are the largest party representing the majority of the voters. So must therefore be very central.
I didnt know they were so different. Then again I neither took poli sci couses nor hung with the philosophy of gov’t crowd. Also there were few in what most regarded as a tier-1 premed mill.
So if I understand, a democratic socialist wants the whole enchilada including collectivization of the national means of production and wealth. But the “democratic” bit means the means matter. Socialists of the older school saw progress only through revolution. A democratic socialist prefers nonviolent regime change while a social democrat will only use means that are within the law of the established state.
which leads me to thinking Bernie (it is polite to spell names right. That’s why I like to tweak the names* of the lowest troll class: those who shout qrap hoping to trigger someone into losing it.) wants to arrive at a collective final state. Im not good with that, with the reason that no fully socialist country has come to be afaik, so I have no real idea if the stable outcome is available from either revolution or the more incremental democratic socialist model.
Interesting article. I skimmed it and found them to use a strict economic perspective, ignoring the other sociopolitics.
By this strict measure the USSR was a near-complete socialist state. The bigger picture showed their socialist institutions were bundled with big fascist ones that don’t have to do with socialism, like creating a political counterreligion (science for the Russians; the Germans went all iron age mystical) to extend control beyond the economic.
On the face of that, I have spent my adult life believing that socialism (which for majors not in politics or history) is conflated with communism, which became the word for red fascism, thr stable endpoint for every sicialist revolution of the previous century.
Never having seen how a socialist economy can be combined with open democracy, I see only failure modes ending in China or Cuba. I dont want to live in a red fascist society.
If there is an incremental way to give socialism a try, with equally incremental and peaceful to go back and dismantle the new (and already ossified and defended!) bureaucracy while keeping the state liberal throughout, I might be willing to try.
(edit) uhm article.
In this article, we take a look at 15 socialist countries that have succeeded. You can skip our detailed analysis about state of socialism, and go directly to the 5 Socialist Countries that Have Succeeded. Socialism is an economic theory that stresses the ownership of means of production by...
finance.yahoo.com
fwdtogether.org
www.reuters.com
thehill.com
www.axios.com
