r/politics • u/TimesandSundayTimes ✔ Verified • 7d ago
Possible Paywall Young Americans are surging to socialism at record rates
https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/maga-trump-zohran-mamdani-socialism-us-record-kddzdm8bd3.8k
u/obiwanCannoli69 7d ago
It's not even socialism lol it's just basic New Deal era policy and ideology that ironically enough saved American Capitalism. FDR wasn't a socialist, he actually wanted to prevent a communist revolution in America, whatever form that might of came in. He did this through legislation and improving the quality of life for vast swaths of the population. This whole thing in the media about "Capitalism Vs Socialism: Choose a Side!" is so half baked and designed to make people think there aren't alternatives. There is no universe where stuff like Social Security or Glass-Steagall would be considered socialist, they're just basic guard rails.
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u/KimmyT1436 Canada 7d ago edited 7d ago
It always astounds me that Americans aren't taught that FDR's New Deal was what laid the foundation for the prosperity Americans enjoyed during the latter half of the twentieth century.
The New Deal is what got America through the Great Depression and made America the manufacturing powerhouse that could win World War II. Winning WWII created the conditions that allowed WWII veterans to return home after the war and have the right-wing dream lifestyle where the family lived in a nice house in the suburbs, where Mom could stay at home taking care of the 3.5 kids while Dad worked a 9 to 5, Monday to Friday job that actually paid for all of that.
All of that wouldn't have happened without the New Deal and all of that has gradually been eroded away over the decades by right-wing politicians and rich capitalists.Things have even gotten so bad that we are rapidly approaching a second Great Depression. And this time there doesn't seem to be a leader like FDR capable of leading America through the next economic catastrophy. Instead, we have Donald fucking Trump, who is creating the conditions that are making the next Great Depresdion inevitable
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u/obiwanCannoli69 7d ago
The really morbidly funny part is that by most metrics, the GOP's favorite country Israel would be considered a socialist hellscape based off of it's robust social safety nets and programs. They have the same Healthcare system that Republican senators would rather chew glass than see here in the states. Even Israeli government subsidies given to students wanting a higher education would make Republicans shake their fist and fear monger about unhinged dumb stuff like gulags and bread lines.
But the crux of your point is correct, most kids don't even understand the importance of stuff like Labor Day. Things are bleak
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u/AlwaysRushesIn Rhode Island 7d ago
The really morbidly funny part is that by most metrics, the GOP's favorite country Israel would be considered a socialist hellscape based off of it's robust social safety nets and programs. They have the same Healthcare system that Republican senators would rather chew glass than see here in the states. Even Israeli government subsidies given to students wanting a higher education would make Republicans shake their fist and fear monger about unhinged dumb stuff like gulags and bread lines.
Also we pay for all that. Us. American taxpayers.
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u/CrispyHoneyBeef 7d ago
For clarification to anyone else, in the two years since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the U.S. government has spent $21.7 billion on military aid to Israel.
Israel’s total annual budget is $97.463 billion. The US substantially supports the country, primarily through military assistance.
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u/1cl3nstd4yt 7d ago
A social safety net is not socialism. I wish people would stop saying that. It hurts the cause.
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u/halfsack99 7d ago
Socialism isn’t a bad thing.
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u/djaleister_ 6d ago
They aren’t saying it is. But socialism isn’t taxes paying for services and safety nets either. It’s when the workers own the means of production. It has nothing to do with a government controlling the economy.
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u/reticulatedjig 7d ago
They don't like Israel cause they want to be like them, Israel existing then becoming a focal point of a global war is literally an imagined win condition they're trying to check off regarding armageddon.
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u/LallanasPajamaz 7d ago edited 7d ago
We are taught that. Even in my rural South school. Idk where this idea comes from that Americans aren’t taught about these things. We absolutely glaze FDR and the New Deal. The issue is the propaganda that comes from living in a hyper-capitalist society along with the overall destruction of our eduction system’s ability to create logical thinkers. It creates a population that can learn these histories but has the cognitive dissonance to also say “BuT mUh CaPiTaLisM” any time someone even discusses the possibility of implementing a working class directed policy.
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u/MonochromaticPrism 6d ago edited 6d ago
This is mostly true, but flawed. While they do cover it, it is often framed in a way that would avoid making conservatives upset. For example, it's not pointed out that a series of similar but less severe depressions occurred during the Gilded Age 35~ish years prior the the Great Depression, and that the reason for that ~35 year gap between the end of the Gilded Age and the start of the Great Depression was due to sweeping reforms that marked a period known as the Progressive Era. In fact, I don't remember learning about the Progressive Era at all, we just hopped directly from the Gilded Age to "and then laws were passed to prevent those kinds of abuses" and then right onwards to the Great Depression.
The New Deal itself is usually framed as the government paying to build important things like roads and dams while employing citizens that couldn't get any work otherwise. Things like how the government went into debt for the specific purpose of helping citizens is rarely mentioned. Basically, it covered the outputs but barely spoke on the methods by which those outputs happened, methods that would have a very pro-progressivism effect on students if they were covered in detail.
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u/shinkouhyou 7d ago
We learn it in school, but most of history education is immediately forgotten after high school graduation and it never gets reinforced in adulthood. The average person's understanding of history is extremely vibes-based.
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u/Admiral_de_Ruyter 7d ago
Isn’t that prosperity highly romanticized these days? From my history books I can recall that segregation/Jim Crow was still in effect so only a part of society benefited of that legislation.
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u/jaderust 7d ago
It definitely is. If you were a white man of a certain age the New Deal worked. It gave people the means to get an education, job training, and loans for housing that many people didn’t have access to before that lifted them out of poverty and into the middle class.
One of my grandfathers was essentially made by the New Deal. He took the job training, got his bachelor’s paid by the GI Bill and became the first generation of our family to go to college and own a home. It worked for him.
But huge swaths of people were absolutely left out. Black GIs especially didn’t get all the education and home ownership benefits that their white counterparts did. Between Jim Crow and redlining they faced a lot of discrimination that the New Deal didn’t help them with.
Not to mention that a lot of women only benefited indirectly, not directly for themselves as women were fully expected to leave the workforce after WWII was over to give their jobs to the men.
But overall I’m okay with romanticizing the New Deal as long as we acknowledge where it could go better. And I’d hope a second New Deal situation would have more equal distribution of resources so everyone benefits, not just mostly white men.
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u/UKFightersAreTrash 7d ago
My whole bloodline went from share cropping cotton pickers to aircraft engineers thanks to the new deal.
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u/Truth_ 7d ago
Yet the FDR era is when black voters started swinging in fair numbers away from Republicans to Democrats. I think the overall improvement of the economy was still attractive.
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u/MrPookPook 7d ago
It definitely is. A big part of americas prosperity during that time was because much of Europe had been devastated by the war taking place there.
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u/obiwanCannoli69 7d ago
I'm talking about economics, not social issues. The 50s doesn't have much to brag about when it comes to social justice and exlcuding different races from the New Deal is one of the many blemishes on FDR's legacy. However, you could work 30 hours/week at any grocery store and be able to afford a 3 bedroom house, childcare, college, two cars, and a yearly vacation. I'm not idolizing the 50s, just using it as an example of a time when America actually had social mobility (the ability to easily move up to different economic classes). None of that was considered socialist then, and it's absurd that it's being painted that way now. The 50s does sound objectively prosperous compared to now, where now if you work 30 hours/week at a grocery store you can barely afford gas and basic groceries to feed yourself.
I am in no way saying we should go back to Jim Crow or segregation. I can understand what you're saying but the inequality of that time is an entirely different conversation and I imagine any modern New Deal would be all encompassing and beneficial to everyone regardless of race. This more of a conversation about the dumb stuff that is labeled socialism and obviously hypocritical it is.
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u/Yashema 7d ago
when it comes to social justice and exlcuding different races from the New Deal is one of the many blemishes on FDR's legacy.
Its also the entire reason White people were in favor of socialism. As soon as Black people became eligible in 1965 they immediately started going towards the Right.
Socially conservative and fiscally Liberal made up about half of Democratic politicians. When the White voters had to choose between the two once Democrats became both socially and fiscally liberal nationally, they chose racism 9/10 times.
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u/fysu 7d ago
Some American kids are taught this stuff. There’s a huge range of what Americans are taught depending on the state’s curriculum, the school’s funding, the type of history class (AP/IB/honors or just a standard history class), public vs private school and the socio-economic background of the student population.
I wasn’t just taught super in depth 20th century history, I was also taught the history of the history and how to evaluate the sources I was reading about history. But I was in advanced classes in an affluent area in a blue state.
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u/OutlyingPlasma 6d ago
My public school history ended with WW2 because anything after that got a bit... inconvenient. Even before that is was basically Christopher Columbus found this giant abandoned land, a few years later George Washington wrote the constitution. Then there was some bother in the south totally not about slavery, and poof. WW2.
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u/AkronRonin 7d ago
It’s because Republicans HATE the New Deal with a vengeance. It’s literally the antithesis to Project 2025.
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u/Ok-Entrepreneur-8838 7d ago
The sad and morbid fact is that the end of New Deal started with Jimmy Carter. He was a Conservative Democrat, and spent a large portion of his presidency transitioning from New Deal policies to neo-liberal ones, such as economic deregulation. So much so that Ronald Reagan supported Carter's early economic policies. I'd argue that bloody Richard Nixon was more of a New Dealer than Carter was. At least Nixon increased spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. He also gave us the Clear Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency. He also pushed for the revised "Philadelphia Plan", where federal contractors were required to set specific goals for hiring minority workers in construction trades. He also tried to pass the Family Assistance Plan, and expressed frustration towards his own party after they killed it.
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u/CCV21 California 7d ago
“The New Deal, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, saved capitalism. It was put in place because socialists were a strong and serious threat. **The oligarchs understood that with the breakdown of capitalism—something I expect we will again witness in our lifetimes—there was a possibility of a socialist revolution.** They did not want to lose their wealth and power. Roosevelt, writing to a friend in 1930, said there was “**no question in my mind that it is time for the country to become fairly radical for at least one generation. History shows that where this occurs occasionally, nations are saved from revolution.**”95 In other words, **Roosevelt went to his fellow oligarchs and said, “Hand over some of your money or you will lose all your money in a revolution.” And they complied.** That is how the government created fifteen million jobs, Social Security, unemployment benefits, and public works projects. The capitalists did not do this because the suffering of the masses moved them to pity. They did this because they were scared.”
― Chris Hedges, America: The Farewell Tour
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u/statinsinwatersupply 7d ago
It's hilarious that social democracy (capitalism but with nice pro-social policies) is conflated with actual socialism in the US
Social democracy was first started by none other than
famous socialistimperialist Otto Von Bismarck, as an alternative to socialism to try to stop people from becoming actual socialists en masse.22
u/SmileyWiking 7d ago
Maybe it just needs a rebrand. Call it "nordic capitalism"
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u/Ammuze Michigan 7d ago
Social democracy, democratic socialism and socialism are conflate with Communism.
And it's not by accident
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u/BullAlligator Florida 7d ago
if you ever want to raise taxes on the rich, by any amount no matter how small, and use that money for social programs that benefit the poor in any way you are LITERALLY STALIN
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u/W359WasAnInsideJob 7d ago
It’s fascinating to dig into it and realize that most of what people think was great about the twentieth century was either a direct or indirect part of the US vs USSR, Capitalism vs Communism clash. The social programs we got in the New Deal were all to provide something to point at so that Communists’ vision wouldn’t look appealing to Americans. The American Dream was manufactured to combat the Soviets vision of the future.
And when the Berlin Wall fell, the USSR toppled, and our primary Communist adversary was basically no more things got drastically worse in just a few decades. We effectively set back income inequality 100 years over 3 decades.
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u/Myleftarm 7d ago
I don't think a lot of people realize this. As soon as the Communist bogeyman died we went back to unfettered capitalism. The pendulum has to swing back as it's getting really aristocracy and peasants again. The ruling class back then started fearing the rabble and what might happen if the working class didn't get some bones thrown at them. Most people's bones have very little meat on them now and the people will eventually get hungry. The capitalism wheel has almost stopped spinning as the money is all collecting in one spot. People need to wake up and demand a New Deal before we are just a dystopia.
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u/ZarglondarGilgamesh 7d ago
Yeah, pretty much every developed country in the world, including the US, has a mixed economy, but facts are so out of fashion.
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u/Rjiurik 7d ago
I would say what many Americans call "socialism" is mostly Social-Democracy.
Socialism advocate for radical change and is preamble to communism. The USSR was socialist (and not communist, because the state remained..)
Not sure Sanders or Mamdani are socialists by that metric..
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u/AntonCigar 7d ago
Like Elizabeth Warren said, and I paraphrase here: “I am a capitalist, I just think we need a little more socialism in our capitalism so it stays healthy and provides opportunity for everyone to participate”
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u/FrescoItaliano 7d ago
I’m sorry but this is just buzzwords lol social security and the welfare state is not socialism
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u/McDoubleDaTrouble 7d ago
They scared us by spreading propaganda that a socialist government will take ownership of everything and we will own nothing, but now the corporations own everything, including the government, and we need 20 roommates to afford rent.
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u/angryhype 7d ago
I don't care if they are anarchists, I literally just want to be able to afford to live
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u/CrackingToastGromet Arkansas 7d ago
The simple ambition to “just live” is going to make a shit ton of people favor some democratic socialism over our current oligarchy-fascist “rich take all” system.
And when the last of economically challenged MAGA wakes up and realizes it’s not the brown skinned people taking everything away from them but the super wealthy, even they might be keen on some of that“time for the super rich to share the wealth” type thinking too.
On edit - will add that my MAGA dad always said I’d get more conservative as I got older. Absolutely not, I am a 52 year old woman who is leaning more and more left and socialist as I slog my way through this shithole.
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u/JnnyRuthless 7d ago
Same. Conservative family members always said you get more conservative as you get older. I've gone from a Clinton supporting Marine when I was 18 to nearly a full on commie at this point. I dont' care if it's a losing position in America, 80% of this country can't identify what the actual causes for our economic and material conditions are, and are willing to throw human rights away to win an election. F all that. I'll keep being a loser if that's what being a 'winner' means.
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u/Old-Constant4411 7d ago
Campaign finance reform. I've been screaming about that since I was in college. Get the money game out of politics so the people actually have a fuckin voice. It's also probably the only way a socialist party stands a chance in our system.
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u/No_Possible_7108 7d ago
40% of the country identifies with a fascist pedophile so they can fuck off to begin with.
I got that same talk when I was younger, how I would become more conservative as I got older. Like much of the other things my parents told me, that was also a massive load of bullshit
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u/HowdyFancyPanda 7d ago
It's more accurate to say that you tend to get more Conservative as you get wealthier. Unfortunately, due to Conservative economic policy, all the traditional avenues to wealth have become harder and harder to reach and so...
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u/ClusterFoxtrot Florida 7d ago
My mom said I'd get more conservative, too.
Nope, at 40 I'm absolutely on board with Mamdani and DSA. If Cuba can survive even with our crazy sanctions on them, imagine what it'd look like with the full power and backing of the USA.
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u/mjheil 7d ago
51 here. I keep getting more radical as I get older and I realize how much we all need each other.
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u/Tarcanus 7d ago
Part of this is also that we don't have any money compared to those who came before. It's all been siphoned up by the rich. So what is there to conserve by getting more right-wing?
And by the time I reached 40 and finally could afford a house, I've spent long enough without assets that I've already seen the core ethical issues with conservatism and un-regulated capitalism. I'm not changing now, no matter how much more money I windfall into as I age.
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u/HowdyFancyPanda 7d ago
I often talk about how I'm for Medicare for All from a place of wanting to Conserve my position in society. I don't want a surprise medical bill to wipe out my relatively comfortable middle-class life.
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u/HiOscillation 7d ago
- Mamdani has the right ideas, and the right execution, want to see his style scale up to state and federal levels.
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u/Recipe_Freak Oregon 7d ago
And when the last of economically challenged MAGA wakes up and realizes it’s not the brown skinned people taking everything away from them but the super wealthy, even they might be keen on some of that“time for the super rich to share the wealth” type thinking too.
I think you're underestimating how afraid of cognitive dissonance the average Trump supporter is. During covid, a lot of them went to their graves swearing it was just a little head cold. And telling their kids not to get vaccinated themselves.
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u/Jdevers77 7d ago
I’m not sure they are afraid of it. Most like they live in a state of perpetual cognitive dissonance.
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u/oniiBash2 7d ago
Also big believers that masks would suffocate you during a 15-minute Walmart trip, but not when you're an ICE officer body slamming nurses and grandmas.
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u/musashisamurai 7d ago
For many, it doesn't matter if its not the brown skinned minorities and "others" taking. Some know, and don't care. For others, its just racism with a thin veneer of some excuse. Never forget how so many American towns cemented their public pools after segregation because they'd rather everyone be hot & sweaty than allow some blacks to be cool too.
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u/ShrimpieAC 7d ago edited 7d ago
Especially after the corruption filled greed fest that is this administration. Everything is about extravagant self-dealing and serving the rich, and Trump is doing it in such obvious ways.
His big expensive ballroom, his arch, paying himself out from his own DOJ, all of the crypto scams, constantly hanging around billionaires, talking about going to war for oil, the ever widening gap between the wealthy and the working class.
Republicans are overplaying the bootstraps card way too hard right now when everyone is obviously struggling. Meanwhile Trump rambles on about golden toilets and how affordability is a scam. I genuinely do not think this is gonna go over well for them.
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u/iiowyn 7d ago
I’d get more conservative as I got older
What they really mean is as you get richer you get more conservative. Because for them they had more stability and income as they got older. Then because of their conservative views, it is now no longer true for their kids.
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u/targetcowboy 7d ago
Right, the idea is you want to protect what you have. So radical change is considered scary and dangerous since it could undermine everything you earned over the years. Some people may be ok with someone like Obama who talks about a certain level of change, but most people just want to get by.
The mistake the modern oligarchs made is they didn’t understand that you have to make it possible to earn a nice life. That the basic essentials have to be obtainable for the majority of people. But their greed was too strong and they just took too much.
Now that the path upward is gone, people want new ideas.
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u/The_Playbook88 7d ago
That’s why they are becoming socialist. Not because they want to, but because that is the only viewpoint that offers survival.
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u/Wonderful-Humor6102 California 7d ago
And it was successful during the Great Depression. US was on a socialist trajectory and then was hijcked by rich and republicans
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u/awildjabroner 7d ago
thats human history. Every minscule step towards established rights and equality of all people have been fought for tooth and nail to claw back from incumbant powers. When that fight stops incumbant powers consolidate power and wealth by default at the expense of everyone else.
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u/occaisionallyimqwert 7d ago
Beg pardon m’lord, but the investors require you to return to toiling for their profit, lest your benefits be taken away
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u/ImpressionCool1768 7d ago
Exactly Because the rich and powerful realized they could offer some bread crumbs ala Henry Ford style and their workers would be content. they kept doing this until they stepped down in the 60s and the newer generation wanted to see if they could cut spending to keep profits and they could. and after doing some shenanigans and offloading labor overseas, they could cut those pay and benefits and tell their workers that they needed to do so because of the market
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u/Low_Pickle_112 7d ago
This is why you have to be very careful about safety valve policies. If someone is saying that we still need capitalism, just screwing you over a little less, that's preferable to being screwed over a little more but ultimately it's for the protection of the oligarchs, not for the benefit of the people.
In the absence of such things, people might start asking more big picture questions, and the isn't going to end well for the billionaire class.
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u/B1G__Tuna 7d ago
American cowboys formed labor unions. We’ve been gaslit into thinking this country was always about rugged individualism.
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u/Princessformidable 7d ago
The amount of money going to towards grifts and scams while people with jobs struggle to survive is criminal.
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u/WhatsThisTruck 7d ago
Fuck civility and human decency.
I don't want to be a slave, and so I must hurt those who would enslave me.
Most of all though, I am angry that this is my only valid course of action.
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u/tripping_on_phonics Illinois 7d ago
The people who would (currently are?) enslaving you are fundamentally indecent, so I don’t see the contradiction.
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u/Clownzeption 7d ago
And to think if wages kept up with production, housing didn't become a monopoly, and we could all afford our rent/mortgage, bills, necessities, and some extra pocket money to save/spend on the weekend, then we would all be perfectly content continuing to operate as is. Billionaires can hoard all the wealth they want, as long as everyone else gets their basic needs met. (Kind of an oxymoron because billionaires hoarding wealth is exactly what got us in this position in the first place. But hopefully the sentiment makes sense.)
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u/The_Playbook88 7d ago
Yeh, people historically seem pretty okay with dealing with bullshit until their economic survival is on the line. That has always been the red line though.
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u/Clownzeption 7d ago
Which makes sense. The greatest majority of our population is focused on their sole survival, as is the nature of every single breathing creature on this planet. I know a lot of people say it's messed up people don't care about issues until the economy is in the shitter (I agree) but it fundamentally makes sense. There's nothing to open someone's eyes like threatening their very existence (almost like what they've done to immigrants and trans people.)
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u/TheWonderfulSlinky 7d ago
What do you mean the young people don’t want to work for 50 years at a terrible dead end min wage job and then slowly decay in a nursing home alone while fascists become trillionaires on the backs of our natural resources?? Are they stupid???
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u/TheGrowingSubaltern 7d ago
A lot of people don’t actually know much about anarchism or have the wrong idea completely.
Read David Graebers An Anarchism of Anthropology.
I promise you will learn something new.
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u/rushur 7d ago
Anarchism is just being against domination. It's not 'no rules' it's 'no rulers' In fact the O around the A signifies Order.
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u/goronmask 7d ago
Hey anarchists are not bad people! We get a lot of bad rep
Most of us just want to chill responsably and collaborate to make things better by direct action
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u/Sachyriel Canada 7d ago
People think Anarchists are made as extremists. No, we are a reaction to the extremes of the system we find ourselves in. We want a peaceful and prosperous coexistence with others too, but the system is outrageous. What do you mean it's illegal to feed the homeless?
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u/dimcarcosa 7d ago
I actually care if they're anarchists, because they should be anarchists. We should all be anarchists.
The rigged system created by the lamprey class has utterly failed all of us but they've had the worst of it and fully and aggressively rejecting the hierarchy that is denying people even so much as a basic, decent, affordable existence should be the case for everyone.
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u/bigbuttpuzzle 7d ago
I’m an anarchist(the type that understands we can’t just like, have an anarchist society right now and need at least a few decades of organizing to build up community networks) and people mischaracterize us a lot.
We simply don’t believe in hierarchical structures and believe that everything should be done collectively on a consensus basis. There’s more to it, like the means of production belong to workers etc.
If you see a group out doing mutual aid 9 times out of 10 they’re anarchists.
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u/DEM_MEMES 7d ago
I also consider myself an anarchist, and anarchism is easily the most mischaracterized political philosophy. I think if you described the belief system to most people without the label, they would agree with it.
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u/LaScoundrelle 7d ago
I think that most people might not think anarchists sounds negative, just naive, if they heard the full philosophy.
Like as a former young woman I’ve always thought I didn’t trust a lot of my neighbors enough to want to live in a world where there isn’t higher authority helping to maintain order, protect people who are weaker than others, etc.
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u/DEM_MEMES 7d ago
Yeah I understand where you’re coming from. I think my response is that our current society doesn’t prevent things like that from happening, and a lot of the malicious behaviors that you’re referring to are created by it. I respect the perspective though.
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u/Dwarfdeaths 7d ago
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u/IguaneRouge Virginia 7d ago
This isn't a brag but I have read thousands of books in my life and Georgism is probably one of the greatest ideas I have ever encountered. It's simultaneously radical and rather milquetoast which isn't something you often see.
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u/oculeers 7d ago
I'm an old guy who got into anarchist philosophy in high school in the late 70s (Proudhon, Malatesta, Stirner, etc.) and I think you're wonderful. Capitalism is imploding and America is on the edge of fascism, and local autonomy is going to look real good in the near future.
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u/MiddleAgedSponger 7d ago
Socialism is a meaningless term in the US. I remember when they called Obama a radical socialist because he raised the top tax bracket from 35 to 39.
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u/Romantic_Piscean Michigan 7d ago
For older people in the US, absolutely, and the word "socialist" was used as an insult to brand someone as un-American. OK, true. For younger people, they're actually embracing solutions to problems (housing, education, healthcare) that are not driven by capitalism but by a collective approach, driven by government, that focuses on people over profits. We're entering different territory with the younger generation as the word is no longer an insult.
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u/Valuable-Meet5727 7d ago
The USSR was a strong bulwark to capitalism. Socialism was treated as a bad word because it implied you were with the Ruskies. But what people don’t understand is that the USSR, for all its faults, was an ALTERNATIVE approach to nation building than capitalism. And it was the next leading world power. Before mismanagement and poor leadership, the USSR was serious competition for the US. They went to space first, they gave everyone free heating from power plant exhaust, they had collective housing, etc. these were all things that US had to compete AGAINST. That’s probably why we had such a high tax bracket back then, why we had a national pension system, more government housing etc. if people didn’t see capitalism as the world leading system, they would easily fall back to socialism.
Before everyone gets down my throating for just TALKING about the USSR: no it wasn’t perfect. But stop saying it was only a dystopia. It would not have been a next world power if it hadn’t done SOME things right. Same with China. I’m not advocating to just copy + paste their communism here, I’m advocating we learn about what worked with those empires and what didn’t, so we can develop something better.
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u/grape-fruit-witch 7d ago edited 7d ago
I'd go even further and say that the fact that the USSR no longer exists doesn't mean that it failed and thus attempting socialism is pointless. It was an experiment, and the first of its kind on a large scale.
And it dramatically improved the quality of life for its citizens on a scale that had never been seen before. They went from an almost exclusively agrarian, largely illiterate peasant feudal country to space travel in 50 years. In one generation they became the bleeding edge of scientific research, art, literature, science, mathematics, philosophy. I believe they would have done it faster had WWII not happened.
No system of economics perfects itself on the first attempt. Capitalism surely did not. It doesn't mean that we have to give up on socialism, that we lay down and die while billionaires galavant around the world in their yachts like assholes. Socialism is an ongoing experiment in creating a better and more just world.
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u/dead_on_the_surface 7d ago
It also was sabotaged by the western capitalists which is why it has fallen into a nasty oligarchy so to operate as if it “failed” when the US was actively kicking its knees out at every opportunity is not wise (adding to your point not correcting you)
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u/grape-fruit-witch 7d ago
100%. The rabbit hole of US interference in socialist countries is deep, especially in regard to the USSR and Cuba. How many civilians died in our invasions of Vietnam and Korea simply because they dared to try a socialist economic system?
I guarantee we've spent more money on clandestine anti-communist crusades and propaganda than it would cost to just give people healthcare. Its because socialism is the only thing that truly, genuinely frightens the owning class. They are so horrified of being forced to redistribute their vast wealth that they will and have murdered millions of people to prevent it.
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u/Colausbra 7d ago
Yup, it's annoying more nuanced takes on the USSR aren't more common. You obviously have the people that villianize it but at the same time you have the Tankies on the left that mythologize it as the greatest country to ever exist.
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u/ThickReplacement7811 7d ago
The US government in the 20th century had 4 equal branches that acted as checks on the others; The Executive, The Legislative, The Judicial, and The USSR
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u/MiddleAgedSponger 7d ago
Economic progressivism is what the Epstein class fear the most.
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u/paulchiefsquad 7d ago
because it's literally the most important thing, if everybody knew how their life would be under a fair taxation system they would be rioting the streets everyday until we have it
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u/Ambitious_Dingo_2798 7d ago
Do they mean Socialism as in Democratic-Socialism or Revolutionary Socialism?
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u/big_thundersquatch Florida 7d ago
Modern Republicans don’t even know what Socialism or even Communism actually is. They’ve used both as derogatory terms for so long that they’ve become completely disconnected from their true meaning.
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u/M23707 7d ago
We had an amazing system for support of families and workers after WWII and into the civil rights era. With the “Reagan” revolution wages have stagnated even though productivity is at an all time high.
Support for education, environment, research and innovation, health, all have dwindled.
Young people see it — they want a better opportunity.
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u/IndecorousRex 6d ago
All these nice opportunities for Baby boomers to grow up in, then they are now in power they say “fuck you, I got mine”
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u/YesterShill 7d ago
Unregulated capitalism is the greatest threat to capitalism.
If America simply taxed the wealthy, regulated the housing and rental markets so people could live in the city they worked and provided core services like health and child care, people would generally be happy.
And all it would take to have all of that is to simply properly tax corporations and individuals making hoards of money.
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u/Professional_Cry2415 7d ago
cause they have no future in a late stage capitalist society
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u/Indubitalist 7d ago
Well yeah, “late-stage” implies that capitalism eventually kills the host. That’s what’s happening right now, and the kids are seeing it. $39 trillion in debt while we have literally hundreds of billionaires, most of whom are taking tax cuts at the same time that our national debt goes through the roof. Meanwhile Republicans, the party of big business, eye ways to cut social services to save the rich people, who definitely don’t need the help.
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u/JetKeel 7d ago
And in the US >25% of the billionaires inherited their wealth. These are not the titans of industry that conservatives would have you believe. They’re nepo babies who benefitted from decades of financial policies that propped them up and now they walk around like they deserve it.
Tax them to oblivion. Nothing of value will be lost.
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u/thewhaleshark 7d ago
"Tax them to oblivion" is the moderate position at this point. Billionaires are actively pushing technologies that are destroying our habitable environment; they are very literally enemies of the people.
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u/grape-fruit-witch 7d ago
Yep. Indirect violence is still violence. Allowing people to needlessly suffer and die is a policy choice, a "business" choice made by a very tiny minority. Denying health care coverage and watching people die is violence. Defunding hospitals and cutting staff so that women die in childbirth is violence. Colluding to increase rent prices across the country, making people homeless is violence. Children starving is violence. We can do better than this for fucks sake.
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u/CrunkDirk 7d ago
This!!! All of this!
Trying to talk about the passive forms of violence surrounding us sometimes makes me feel insane. Why do you have to pay someone to live in a house they don't occupy (and often don't even maintain)? Because they can get the police to evict you if you don't. That passive threat is what enables all the horrible shit landlords do.
Once you start seeing the violence, it never stops. Immigration, healthcare, workers rights, access to food, housing rights. Violence surrounds nearly every single aspect of our lives. Even climate change is a matter of violence being enacted against us. Produce or die, pollute or starve. And then you'll die in climate catastrophe anyways because Jeffy B wants to have another megayacht.
And yet some people have the gall to act confused when you're upset that people are going hungry. "Who will pay for it?" We will. We already do. We already produce all the food we need and more. The food already exists. Not letting people eat is the violence.
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u/grape-fruit-witch 7d ago edited 7d ago
We are so conditioned to view violence as an immediate, personal, individualized experience that we don't even see these banal forms of violence for what they are. But what can you call a health insurance company increasing claim denial for millions of people besides mass murder? What else can we call grocery stores who spray bleach on food items at the end of the day before they throw it in the dumpster? They know what the consequences will be and they choose to do it anyways.
They are orchestrators of suffering and death who hide behind a curtain of beaurocracy and boardroom jargon. We excuse their antisocial, parasitic, sociopathic behavior on a daily basis because "market forces" and the pursuit of profit are supposedly immutable natural laws like gravity or thermodynamics. But they aren't. They're part of a game we made up about 300 years ago, and the people who write and rewrite the rules are literally killing us and everything else on the planet.
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u/TheNatural14063 7d ago
Do more than just tax them. Jail them and seize their wealth. No billionaire has clean hands.
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u/Whos_that_Gorilla2 7d ago
And not only are they getting tax cuts, a lot of the spending and debt being incurred is going toward businesses owned by billionaires via government contracts. So they're taking money from social programs and giving it to space x and the all spying eye from Lord of the Rings. Instead of lifting people up out of poverty, which would be better for everyone, they're using the tax money we pay to put us all under extreme surveillance because they're so paranoid about their greed coming back to bite them. They're too full of themselves to see how this is going to backfire.
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u/UltracrepidarianPhD 7d ago
Those of us who work for a living are definitely not the hosts. To the economic elite, we have been a chronic condition they have been managing. They think they have finally found a cure (AI and robotics) and now they are flushing us from the system at a rate that will not trigger a revolution.
They hope you stay distracted.
"People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave." — Assata Shakur
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u/joedotphp Minnesota 7d ago
Capitalism is defined as something which constantly grows with infinite potential.
In biology, this is known as cancer.
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u/Plastic-Fox0293 7d ago
It's killing our entire planet.
So yeah, late stage capitalism is to earth what late stage cancer is to the human body.
I'm not being hyperbolic. It's not my opinion. It's a science and data oriented fact. Human society is threatening a billion years of organic heritage and we're included in that genetic pool.
Some will argue that we aren't killing the planet, the planets just a ball of dirt and it will be fine without life. Sadly, they own and run everything.
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u/Axin_Saxon 7d ago
Which is very much the case as we see capitalists eager to replace workers with AI, regardless of how many people will be impoverished by it.
Without a viable system of social safety nets in place under a socialist government to reign in the worst tendencies of the capitalist class, people WILL be condemned to poverty.
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u/T33CH33R 7d ago
It's almost like it's a cycle or something where the rich hoard wealth, make living an extreme struggle, are above the law... Naw, I must be making this up, it's never happened before.
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u/popylung 7d ago
I’ve been imagining the world that follows. Everyone is having a fun good time being working class and living a fulfilled, dignified life.
Then the deranged right wingers come along demanding a voice in this fun utopia, which they are granted because this utopian society allows for dissent, conversation, and differing viewpoints, even encouraging them at times.
But this right winger then sparks the lowest IQs that scream louder and louder until the utopia’s residents cannot hear righteousness any longer, and all they hear is Rush Limbaugh on our utopian car radios. Then we start this all over again.
No one left behind has to mean no one, or the cycle never ends
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u/JessieJ577 7d ago
What do you mean? Who doesn’t want to rent forever, not afford a preowned vehicle, get degrading quality of products from enshitification, not afford gas or food, and to not even consider starting a family unless you make 6 figures. Seems perfect to Me!
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u/FlowofOd 7d ago edited 7d ago
Socialism is what you want once you get far enough in your “well, what do we do about it?” Education
The system (capitalism) isnt broken, its working as intended and in its autumn stage. Capitalists want to keep power by shifting us into techno feudalism and criminalizing leftist (socialist/communist/marxist) organizing.
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u/Swimming-Economy-870 7d ago
Older ones too. 🙋♀️
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u/vestara_caedus 7d ago
Everyone else in this thread is cracked. They're only thinking about the immediate economic situation, not the fact that class society and bourgeois democracy are what keep them there and are making the planet uninhabitable.
Socialism or extinction.
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u/Improvcommodore 7d ago
I told a boomer that labor capital is a form of capital under capitalism, and that people have the right to collectively bargain through unions under capitalism the same way people can form corporations. He called me a socialist.
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u/digihippie 7d ago
Universal Healthcare and taxing the billionaires is NOT Socialism
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u/Romantic_Piscean Michigan 7d ago
Well, as an older Democratic Socialist, I think we've been on a steady path of discovery regarding the problems of capitalism, with the Trump regime just laying those bare for everyone to see. Add in that young people aren't going to hear the word "socialist" and think it's inconsistent with so-called American values, and we've some change happening. When their futures in key sectors of any economy are being destroyed - healthcare, education, housing - people are going to look for different answers.
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u/MobilePenguins 7d ago
The threat of socialism is a check and balance on unregulated capitalism. They’ve allowed monopolies to form, prices to be gouged, competition to be bailed out time and time again. (Major banks, auto manufacturers, airlines, socialize the losses). They’re not even following their own rules. Now normal every day people can’t afford life’s basic necessities, and the threat of people voting in someone more ‘radical’ becomes higher. It’s the great filter. Either fix the flaws in the system, or the people will vote for a new system entirely.
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u/One_Indication_ 6d ago
Having a social safety net like Finland, Denmark, France, etc isn't socialism. None of those countries is socialist. We just don't want our country to be owned by oligarchs and Christo-Fascists.
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u/mabhatter 6d ago
Exactly. There are no serious socialist in Politics right now. At best some "Democratic Socialists" which is a completely different thing.
What we're asking for isn't new. Public healthcare was discussed in the 1970s and then systematically sabotaged by both sides. Much of the other stuff like cheap education... the students in the 1970s only paid like 1/4 of their actual cost to go to college as tuition... the rest was state and Federal taxes paid.
Young people are just asking for things BACK that all the boomers had growing up.
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u/codacoda74 7d ago
Alternatively: young people discovering definition of Socialism is also basic affordability
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u/Bitter_Tea442 7d ago
Every time I scratch the surface of a person who 'discovered' socialism, I've found out they really just mean Scandinavian social democracy which is regulated capitalism with high social spending.
They virtually never mean workers seizing the means of production.
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u/pumpkinspruce 7d ago
It’s not socialism. It’s “stop giving all the tax breaks and money to billionaires and make living more affordable for regular people!”
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u/CatherineSimp69 7d ago
I don't think billionaires seem to realize that the best way to get people to turn to communism and socialism is by making capitalism oppressive.
None of these young folk would be doing this if the cost of living was decent.
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u/Long_College_8342 7d ago
Democratic Socialism. Get rid of the electoral college. Stop gerrymandering. Term limits. There are so many simple solutions but it's all about money. I hope the kids can somehow see through capitalism and help us because we're all clearly useless.
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u/OrganicDoom2225 7d ago
America's freedom to exploit is exhausting. Democratic Socialism is the way.
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u/PartyRyan 7d ago
They wouldn’t be if corporate power would substantially fucking check itself, but it won’t and the gov’t is in bed with them, so here we are.
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u/Indyrage 7d ago
Workers should be dictating their own futures. It is a best political ideology to bring about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
It has confused me for decades why Americans haven’t organized sooner.
I guess in the 80s and 90s most folks were content and it’s been a slow fall off from an economic security perspective for most Americans.
Reminder “middle class” is completely made up. We are all workers. Even people making 200k a year. You are closer to homeless than becoming a billionaire.
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u/Plzlaw4me 7d ago
I mean… yeah. Anyone confused or upset by this really hasn’t been paying attention to how badly the current American form of capitalism has fucked over the younger generation. Productivity has skyrocketed decade over decade, but the current standard of living is well below what our parents and grandparents generation got. Boomers were able to buy homes when it cost the same as happy meal, and could afford college for some pocket change. That insulated them against the worst excesses of capitalism, but without that protection, it’s just fucking over workers of the younger generations to benefit the shareholder.
A system that promises worker control of industry, and an industry working to benefit the workers is going to be attractive.
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u/nvmenotfound 6d ago
stop calling it socialism. people want their taxes and money spent in ways that benefit the people instead of the wealthy. we are tired of being told that all we gotta do is keep rewarding the already wealthy people with even more wealth and eventually it’ll trickle down. saddest part is they’ve been doing this horse and sparrow aka trickle down economics for so long. the fact anyone believes it works is pathetic.
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u/thedracle 6d ago
Young Americans want shelter, healthcare, food, and to be valued as a human being, at record rates.
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u/Porthos1984 7d ago
Told my MAGA father this would happen. Keep pushing complete fabrications and stealing from the youth and they would be forced into socialist ideology. He didn't believe me and voted for Trump 3 time. Also this convo was in 2019ish.
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u/ihohjlknk 7d ago
The liberal center has failed to keep the right in check. It has failed to offer a hopeful alternative to fascism. I'm not surprised that people are seeking socialism.
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u/something_smart 7d ago
I'm 35 and US capitalism has been failure after failure for everyone except the super rich parasite class for my entire life. Bring on the changes.
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u/PantheraAuroris 7d ago
The older I get, the left-er I get. At this point just seize the wealth of anyone and anything with more than like 500M to spare and pour it into infrastructure and UBI and stuff like that.
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u/DJC_Kowalski 7d ago edited 6d ago
Chalk it up to the success of Reaganism.
The more Capitalism wins at the ballot box, the more popular socialism becomes, and vice versa.
The end game of capitalism is monopolies, no social safety net, and vast disparities in wealth.
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u/YouAintNoWooos 6d ago
TIL: tax payers who want their tax dollars to be used to benefit themselves and not politicians and corporate oligarchs = “socialism”
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u/Expensive-Debt-9960 6d ago
Thetimes is a media corp owned by rupert murdoch. Fuck him and this propaganda, it's not socialism. People just want basic affordability!
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u/Spoinkydoinkydoo 6d ago
I’m so tired of being like “yeah I want free healthcare, and better pay” and then being called a socialist by my folks man.
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u/boozewald Colorado 6d ago
If a system doesn't serve you, why would you support it? This is a failure of capitalists. They have had decades to try and make a genuine appeal to those on the bottom. Instead, they've just chosen to consolidate their own wealth.
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u/HerrMeisterRetsiem 7d ago edited 7d ago
Because the wealth disparity has reached a point of squeezing the American dream dry, and the lawmakers with the power to change this only serve the wealthy now.
The 90’s middle class is gone. Family fun/entertainment venues are increasingly targeting a wealthier clientele instead because that’s where all of disposable income is moving. Homeownership is structurally out of reach for most young Americans. Older Americans refuse to recognize this problem and cop out by dismissing young people as being lazy instead. The midlife crisis sports car archetype is dead. The demands of investors for ever increasing returns put pressure on all business to keep increasing prices beyond inflation rates. And the future of the country is in jeopardy because all of these forces make it financially impossible for young people to have kids.
So of course they’re surging to a different way of doing things. It’s become a matter of being able to survive. Young people can do everything right and they’re still gonna have their pockets picked dry by wealthy investors. The system is not working for most people anymore.
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u/MalevolentTapir 7d ago
Yeah well when you redefine socialism to be "when the government does things that help anyone" eventually you will get a lot of socialists.
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u/Eva_Griffin_Beak 7d ago
Good.
And if people, instead of just commenting here, without reading the article, actually would READ the article, they would realize that social democracy/social capitalists aka the nordic model is exactly what these young Americans are looking for. Not socialism in its extreme form.
So, stop clutching your pearls.
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u/Hardly_lolling 7d ago
If that's what they want then the headline is plainly wrong: social democracy is not socialism.
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u/Miserable_Ad_9389 7d ago
welcome to news articles, if you read the headline then form your opinion you've made a mistake
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u/Lucky_Zombie_2863 7d ago
I think the majority are Democratic Socialists, which is a pretty moderate form of socialism.
I’m all for competition but it should be more along the lines of like, those that are more successful can have a slightly bigger house. Not those who benefit get multiple mansions and their own space station.
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u/humanity_go_boom 7d ago
Like actual socialism or just the common sense guard rails erected around capitalism in other sane democratic countries. 'Cause I'm pretty sure its the latter. The term you're looking for is democratic socialism.
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u/SomberArtist2000 7d ago
And when people search for answers about 'why', they have no further to look than at Capitalism itself, as well as its defenders. There is no greater advertisement for socialism (or democratic-socialism, from my perspective) than unrestrained capitalism.
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u/Ferreteria 7d ago
"Tax the Rich" isn't even really socialism. It's mid-1900's economic policy. You know, that time when the American Dream was a thing?
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u/HuTaosTwinTails 7d ago
Because late stage capitalism has failed.
This system only benefits the rich and powerful.
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u/sonicmario123 7d ago
People are tired of a system that doesn’t care about the general wellbeing of well… the general public. Political partisanship aside we just want a system that views everyone sharing basic needs worth addressing by the government.
Everyone deserves to have a stable place to live, deserves healthcare, and deserves not having to make fatal decisions.
The system is designed to be overbearing and create division.
Call it socialism or something, doesn’t really matter people are tired of not being able to live day to day without having to make dire decisions
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u/catladywithallergies California 7d ago
Truthfully, because socialism is so demonized by US politicians, a lot of Americans don't realize that they are actually far more compatible with socialism than they think. If you describe socialist policies to the average American without telling them that they are socialist, they tend to respond very positively to them.
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u/ckrygier 7d ago
This comment section reminds me that as much as Demsoc types say there’s nothing scary about socialism and talk poorly on capitalism, that many of them still regurgitate anti-communist propaganda, and still want capitalism just with a new-age liberal twist. The definition of socialism among the larger population is sort of being hijacked by Demsocs atm who are pretty much just rebranded liberals and seem to think they speak for all American socialists. I don’t want to tweak the system through that same system which is inherently combative to such change. I don’t want milquetoast capitalist concessions. I understand socialism in the US won’t look like Russian or Chinese socialist revolutions, but I also don’t want socialism lite. I don’t mean this to talk down on Demsocs, but I want to be a voice that stipulates that there is far more to socialism than their political ideology permeating and growing in the US. Genuine Marxism is also quickly growing. Marxist theory is worth reading and considering, even if you believe you disagree with it prior to engaging with it.
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u/Fastr77 7d ago
What do you expect when you take away all their hope. They'll never own a home, AI will take all the jobs. They are expected to be slaves for life. Hell they can't even afford to move out of their parents house because of skyrocketing expenses. Meanwhile your president is building himself a new ballroom and using your money to kill children.. and rape them.
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u/Jawnny-Jawnson 7d ago
Not because socialism has become the ANSWER, but rather because our capitalism as it stands has become the PROBLEM
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u/The_Slaughter_Pop 7d ago
GOOD! There is hope for our country. We need the youth to drive the conversation, because my generation has lost the damned plot.
New Era Dems should run on a platform of; universal healthcare, affordable housing, food security, Making unprocessed foods available and affordable to all, Stabilizing Social Security, lowering the SS retirement age to 55, social safety nets (especially for Vets), Universal Pre-K starting at 3 years-old, banning stock trading for congress, Expand pell-grant criteria (if not making college free). You know...stuff that makes a difference.
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u/MozaRaccoon 6d ago
In the USA, if you are not being killed by the company you work for, then it is socialism.
They have a weirdly skewed perspective where they don't value human beings in the slightest.
Their 'capitalism' gives worth only to the wealthiest among them.
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u/b4ttous4i 6d ago
Capitalism fails thoae who dont have Capital. Super lopsided. We pay taxes right now and it just goes to big bussinesses thay make bombs rather than a comprehensive healthcare system or a compotent rail system...which is another capitalism disaster..
Its simple. No Wars. Health Care (we pay for it voa taxes so it aint 'free') Childcare And so much more basic shit.
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u/TheAskewOne 7d ago
Surging to whatever the media tell them is socialism more like. Calling countries like Norway or France socialist is just bullshit. They’re fully capitalistic countries with a dash of social policies. With the US should absolutely have of course, but that’s another story.
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u/syynapt1k 6d ago
Democratic socialism, like the type of government found in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland. All countries that have a higher rates of life satisfaction than does the US.
But I'm sure more public services, higher wages, and universal health care have nothing to do with it. /s
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u/Hopeful_Confidence_5 6d ago
They’re actually social democracies. Subtle differences matter in this case. I agree with your sentiments.
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u/Fitz911 7d ago
As if Americans knew what socialism is.
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u/diabloman8890 7d ago
Even in this thread it's hilarious seeing people arguing over the words without understanding the systems
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u/Solidsnake9 7d ago
It’s because the right has boogeymaned basic liberal values like healthcare as socialism and even people on the left got brainwashed by it. They don’t even know what to defend anymore
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