71–80 of 84 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the reality of having a mayor who is described as socialist?
Well I guess he is "described" as a socialist in the same way the sky is "described" as blue. Your question is easy to answer...look at all of human history and around the world right now to see what you get when the far left gets their hands on the levers of power.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Socialism implies state control of the means of production. Socialism literally implies the opposite. That's why it's called social ism. Under capitalism, capitalists own the means of production. Under fascism, the government and the state collaborate to own the means of production. Under socialism, the means of production are socially (collectively) owned. In the most extreme interpretation of socialism, communism,…
Since it’s unworkable, in practice, for “everyone” to own something, socialism inevitably means state ownership. There’s no getting around this. If everyone owns something, no one owns it.
But when the monopoly on violence gets involved, socialism often gets co-opted to serve the interests of the state rather than the people. I would argue that authoritarianism and and the creation of an elite centralizing and controlling wealth and resources for itself is as much a fail state for capitalism as it is for socialism, that it's just a different bunch of pigs feeding at the trough.
And to refer to your earlier comment, socialized provision of services is absolutely a form of socialism. If those services aren't being run for a profit under market principles, made available only to consumers who can afford it, and that profit isn't being captured to increase the wealth of private ownership, then it's a form of socialism.
In the US we have Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which are ostensibly socialist programs (certainly they were denounced as such when created.) One might argue that they aren't truly socialist since they don't collectivize the means of production but they certainly aren't capitalist in principle.
Of course it also helps to remember that "socialism" encompasses a wide spectrum of ideology and theory, and that if you get five socialists in a room and ask for a definition of socialism you'll wind up with seven manifestos and a fistfight. There are socialists who will argue for Soviet and Chinese style central control, and will point out (as capitalists will about capitalism) that socialism brought those states out of grinding poverty and vastly improved their peoples' quality of life, and others who abhor the violence and oppression of authoritarian socialism, believing it can only be achieved through nonviolence and voluntarism.
Point being that absolutist phrases like "socialism inevitably means state ownership" don't work as a useful critique because they don't consider the flexibility and adaptability of socialism as a concept. They tend to be thought-terminating cliches, like "capitalism is the worst system, except for all others," which serve to to normalize the premise that criticism of capitalism is futile because no useful alternatives to capitalism can possibly exist.
Zohran's run one of the smartest, most focused campaigns Ive ever seen. Honestly at this point his competition is in a race to the bottom, I'd say most NY'ers, even the millionaires, like him. It seems most of the people with issues with him are billionaires or people that live in the suburbs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the reality of having a mayor who is described as socialist?
Well I guess he is "described" as a socialist in the same way the sky is "described" as blue. Your question is easy to answer...look at all of human history and around the world right now to see what you get when the far left gets their hands on the levers of power.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well I guess he is "described" as a socialist in the same way the sky is "described" as blue. Your question is easy to answer...look at all of human history and around the world right now to see what you get when the far left gets their hands on the levers of power.
Yeah, we were plagued by [checks notes] the New Deal followed by multiple decades of American prosperity and the growth of the middle class.
Fortunately, they failed. They tried to recruit a populist veteran into their ranks who had no particular love for a government that had abused its World War I veterans... But had less love for a bunch of (essentially) early-twentieth-century technocrats that had profited off the sacrifices of the veterans. He refused to keep the conspiracy and blew the lid off it, and his reputation was both public enough and spotless enough that the conspirators couldn't either silence him or tarnish him.
Wikipedia overview is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
There are better scholarly sources for the details, but an entertaining source for a summary is here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/behind-the-insurrectio...
(The conspirators were never prosecuted. One hypothesis as to why is that Roosevelt saw an opportunity and co-opted the plot: some of his New Deal policies were facing pushback and he might have put on the table for the conspirators "You can dodge a treason trial if you just back the new policy with your capital and your political will").
(p.s: I probably shouldn't extrapolate this historical anecdote to the modern era, but this story does give me reason to wonder if a rule like "In the industrial era, massive inequality due to under-regulated capitalism leads to attempts at reform, and those attempts breed counter-reform in the form of fascists and their sycophants formed by those who perceive they have the most to lose in reform..." might hold water).
Zohran's run one of the smartest, most focused campaigns Ive ever seen. Honestly at this point his competition is in a race to the bottom, I'd say most NY'ers, even the millionaires, like him. It seems most of the people with issues with him are billionaires or people that live in the suburbs.
+1. Philanthropist Elizabeth Simons, the daughter of Renaissance Technologies founder James Simons, gave $250,000 to a super PAC supporting Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani last week. It's nice to know there are some decent wealthy people out there still.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that California's top tax rate is 13.3% to New York City's 14.8%, I'm not sure whos supposed to be scared.
You're thinking of income tax. Wealth tax is a tax on, well, wealth, rather than just on what you earn. I don't think any US jurisdiction currently has a wealth tax.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, we were plagued by [checks notes] the New Deal followed by multiple decades of American prosperity and the growth of the middle class.
One of the more interesting parts of that story is that in that time, the fascists actually tried a takeover of the US government, executing on a plan to sideline the President and replace him with a shadow government. Fortunately, they failed. They tried to recruit a populist veteran into their ranks who had no particular love for a government that had abused its World War I veterans... But had less love for a bunch…
Just for balance here's some cherries I've picked on the left side of the political spectrum:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the reality of having a mayor who is described as socialist?
Well I guess he is "described" as a socialist in the same way the sky is "described" as blue. Your question is easy to answer...look at all of human history and around the world right now to see what you get when the far left gets their hands on the levers of power.
You argument is that this is "just generally bad"? Or somehow a socialist mayor will be the downfall of western civilization or something? It seems like if his policies are bad, he won't be reelected and you'll have a more succinct example to point to than "all of human history". The great thing about a mayor is that they have very limited ability to impact civil rights, Giuliani notwithstanding.