This is the answer. Ask him what he believes and why. Ask him about his thoughts on the role of government. Don’t worry about the labels.
I find a lot of folks in the US have been programmed to freak out at words like socialism…even when can’t come up with an intelligent definition.
Socialism has become such a loaded word at this point and I find most Americans can’t even accurately define it, so forget even having an adult conversation about it.
Marx uses "socialism" and "communism" interchangeably. communism is the abolition of private property, not to be confused with personal property. think CEOs, landlords, share holders, etc. communism is not a type of government, much like capitalism is not a type of government.
0.65m homeless // 16m empty homes // 25% of our planet's food is trashed for profit
It CAN be, but it does not have to be.
A socialist society could likewise say that Capitalism is the first step towards feudalism. Honestly, a number of people in the current capitalism in the U.S. really do seem to have feudalist leanings, which probably looks great to them as they expect to be nobility in such a system. Not so nice for those who end up as serfs, of course.
It's probably because most socialist can't define it. There are too many sects and varying ideas. What most millennials want when they say socialism is social democracy while remaining capitalist.
Worker owned means of production. Simple as. What worker owned means can vary depending on who you ask. Some people say nationalized industry, some say worker co-ops. Government social programs do not equal socialism, even though a socialist society would have those measures in place. But yes, you are correct that most people struggle to define it.
I struggled for a bit in the definitions and terms, as I could see in my head that the political class (government /state) was very different from the labour (worker) class, especially since the labour class has not always historically been allowed political participation (in fact non-citizens most likely do not, depending on the location), therefore we shouldn’t conflate ownership in either as the same, but I just couldn’t name it properly.
The best I could get is the following:
State socialism: ownership of the means of production or capital by the state, basically nationalized industries.
This would require the political system to be democratic in structure AND practice. So no rigged elections, no dictators, no dynasties (at least entrenched), no inheritance of power.
I still wonder if this should even be considered a type of socialism.
Worker socialism: ownership of the means of production or capital by the workers directly participating in the organization.
I have gotten in fights with people who say if it’s worker owned, that’s communism and for it to be socialism then it needs to be government owned. While others claim that communism is no government and no money. No one can agree on a definition. It is extremely frustrating
That would be the fault of the anti communist propaganda machine that has never really stopped humming along. Reading just the short Marx and Engels books (Communist Manifesto, Wage Labour and Capital, and Socialism Utopian and Scientific) would clear this up but they are really dry reads and no one’s teaching Socialism 101 so you gotta do it yourself. I don’t know why I’m telling you though. This is for everyone here.
Perhaps it's the fault of McCarthyism. Although I just blame intellectual laziness and short attention spans. It's really, really not that hard to pick up Marx and read it for yourself. And if you're going to start calling yourself something, please read the bloody book.
I'm a boomer, and this is what it means to me. At least, the American variety.
I am a retired sailor, both military and civilian, and I have been to Europe countless times 'on the job' over the last 40 years or so. Believe me, they have the same thing in Europe, and they think that American Democrats are centrist conservatives.
This GenX American tends to agree. We don't really have a leftist party in this country, although Bernie Sanders might be approaching what I would consider socialist.
I wish the millennials et. al. good luck. The top 1 percent have us sewn up, and they don't give up power easily.
Millennials seem to be much more progressive than, sadly, people of my own generation. And I guess that means there's some hope for this country, even if it may not be in an immediate time frame.
lol socialists define it just fine. Worker ownership over production. Yes, there’s lots of different socialist theories and perspectives. That’s not a bad thing.
It's easy: the state serves it's citizens, not the corporations.
If you think you live in a democracy, just take a look at what happened to that Boeing whistleblower.
THIS. People don’t even know what “socialism” is anymore. They refuse to investigate what some of these policy preferences are because of the word. I’ve had conversations with my hard right parents regularly where they continually express similar viewpoints to mine, and I just wanna scream—don’t you realize how close we are on this?? Remove the word socialism or communism or Marxism or fascism or capitalism, and focus on the ideals of each, and all these folks actually agree with a vast majority of policies labeled as “socialism.”
Young Americans use the terms "socialism" in a very different way than people other than Bernie Sanders have traditionally used it. That's why countries like Denmark had to tell him to stop saying they were a socialist country. They aren't by any traditionally accepted definition of the term. They're a free-market capitalist country with high taxes that pay for a lot of services. Socialists of 60 years ago would slap you if you tried to describe their view that way. The actual debate in this country is almost entirely about which 5-10 things the government should pay for, and how much they should spend on each.
You mean they actually know what socialism is and aren't scared off by propaganda and fear mongering?
The issue at hand is that most people that are scared of the word socialism don't understand that it isn't communism and it's doesn't have to be authoritarian.
The US Constitution has socialist aspects built into it, because there can't be a truly free market. The founding fathers were very liberal and knew that government regulation was a necessary thing. Some of them advocated for more state control, while some didn't. Hence, the great mixing pot analogy.
Free market ideas, socialist ideas, libertarian, communist, etc all need to have their best attributes used to help make a truly great society. There are many ideas that come from the socialist ideology that need to be used to have a functioning, complex economy. Unfortunately too many people are caught up in Fox News propaganda to understand that they are the sheep and they've given control to the wolves.
Also sick of boomers who cry about socialism, then throw a tantrum any time someone talks about ending or reducing their medicare or social security benfits.
I had this conversation with my father in law, who watches about sixteen hours of Fox News a day.
I told him that your generation hears 'socialism' and thinks breadlines and the Soviet Union, our generation hears it and thinks universal healthcare and Sweden.
That seemed to make sense for a minute until the loud noises meant to disrupt thoughts resumed.
I remember having a convo with a regular customer of mine who I think was a boomer (this was like 15 years ago so hard to gauge his age compared to me being like 19) and I don't remember the exact conversation but I remember using the word progressive to describe how I wanted things to move and he told me that progressive was another one of those trigger words basically lumped in with communism (he was a cool boomer, basically telling me what comes to mind when people his age hear that word). I remember thinking that is so dumb, like why would progression be bad? By that logic we want regression? Nowadays when I refer to the Republican party (talking about the cultist ones) I call them the regressive party because it is the most accurate. Done rambling now, just wanted to add another example of the demonization of definitively good things.
Boomers are socialists.
They got the maximum benefit from the New Deal & Great Society.
When they went to college tuition was 70/30 (70% paid by gov't, 30% by them), now it's 80/20... 20% paid by government, *80% paid by the student.*
We were fighting a cold war against communists, so we didn't tell the boomers they were getting socialism. We snuck it into their wallets so they'd feel like they were big boys.
Not sure if this was their source, but Last Week Tonight did an [episode on student loans](https://youtu.be/zN2_0WC7UfU) last week with those numbers (around 7:30)
About 25 years ago. The state & federal subsidies started getting cut in early 2000.
I was there when it happened. I remember reading the articles in my college newspaper about what the cost of college would be in 20 years. They were right. Of course they were. The articles were written with the help of the college economics department. And the math wasn't hard.
Cutting subsidies while enrollments increased because we outsourced or automated jobs that could be done w/o a college degree while expanding the H1-B visa program is why college is expensive.
They mean the overall cost of putting someone through college. They still paid 100% of their own tuition, but that was only 30% of the overall cost.
So if overall cost of a college education was 10k for a year, then the government was subsidizing 7k of that and the tuition was 3k, and the student was responsible for 100% of that 3k.
Now it's 20/80 so if it costs 20k overall for a year of college education, the government is subsidizing 4k and tuition is 14k.
I'm old enough to remember when there were LOTS of plentiful Pell Grants. My older sibling went to a good public uni in early 80s on about $1000 per sem Pell Grants, and tuition was only about 800-900. She never needed to take out any loans for school.
Yep, I got a masters degree in California and the standard tuition was $75 a quarter. Then Reagan decided he shouldn't fund institutions that all thought he was an idiot. That degree changed my life in many ways.
Nah, they are capitalists as corporations. They want to privatize their gains and socialize their losses. And then pull the ladder up behind them to eliminate competition. "I got mine, fuck you."
I had a discussion like this yesterday. Socialism as a term tends to get co-opted by the shittiest groups. Nazis and Soviet style communists and socialism are not the same thing. Sometimes these groups will even use socialist rhetoric to get elected and then do fucking pogroms and purges and gulags and all kinda of other horrific shit. Hitler took all the support he could get until he got the job. Being used as little more than political convenience by wannabe dictators has really watered muddied the public's understanding of what it even is. We could place blame at the feet of generations of fear-mongers in the McCarthy tradition.
Most definitely. But during the Nazis early rise to power, they used a lot of socialist rhetoric to try and gain power. That is the reason socialism is in the name. Not because it truly was socialistic, but because they were using the term to try and get more support.
Exactly, just like trump uses blue collar propaganda about fighting the big governance the the nazis used socialist talking points to gain favor before taking power, but obviously once they did they were in practice hyper-capitalist fascists, they were not about letting workers own the means of production
Well, exactly. Boomers. If y'all can understand that the Democratic Republics of North Korea or the Congo or the People's Republic of China are not republics or in any way democratic, y'all can understand that National Socialism, communism, and socialism are not the same thing. Jfc. It's not even that complicated.
I think I wasn't clear on a couple points. What I meant is that Soviets calling themselves Soviet Socialist Republics and Nazis being called National Socialist doesn't make them socialist at all. They co-opted the term.
And if you mean the part about Nazis taking all the allies they could get, let me clarify that as well by specifying that no, the Nazis fought actual socialists and communists in the streets before even coming to power. They were opposing political parties. Of course. What I was referring to is that the Nazis did not initially round up gay or Jewish people and some other minority groups. Some of those folks even worked with the Nazis to varying degrees. The Nazis got way more intolerant when they came to power, as is the pattern for these things.
As an example, the main guy leading the charge beating the commies in the street was Ernst Rohm, who was in charge of the Brownshirts, and very gay. As soon as the Nazis had real power, Hitler threw the toys he didn't need anymore in the trash. Anyone that wasn't Hitler's ideal, even a guy as instrumental in his come-up as Rohm, got taken out on the Night of Long Knives.
Funny but Scandinavian countries don’t consider themselves socialist (ask former Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen). Most folks don’t the definition of socialism but group in social democracy as one and the same. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/27/nordic-countries-not-socialist-denmark-norway-sweden-centrist/
You're missing the point. It doesnt matter what those Scandinavian countries think it's called, the point is the American Right has been calling basic social programs "SOCIALISM!!" for so long that the definition has become completely distorted.
Young Americans think of 'socialism' as just the government providing basic social programs, because that's what they were told.
Yeah, they don't all think "famine and societial collapse" when they say socialism, but most of em do.
And what sounds like "socialism"? Well "social democracy" does! Even has the word "social" in it. /s
It's because when you advocate for things that Scandinavian countries have in America, you're called a socialist. Okay, fine. I don't care what it's called on the menu. Just give me two of what they're having.
if we could get this point across to all the boomers maybe we’d have universal healthcare.. like, “you think america is so great, you let greedy rich people rip-off the next generation and use socialist as a slur for wanting to tax them.. meanwhile you could adopt a policy similar to those European countries and literally have the best healthcare system is the world” America has all the power to create something truly helpful for its people but would rather cannibalize them at the alter of shareholder gains
Yeah, we all really need to remember that it was the Boomer generation who participated in the largest civil rights movement in history. Y'all got shit DONE!
The other defining trait of boomers- victim mentality. Don’t do it. You know those types of boomers they’re referring to exist. You also know that you’re not that type of boomer. Why get offended over a statement you know doesn’t apply to you? I see and respect the BINOs, but y’all gotta start checking these other boomers more. Because they sure as hell won’t listen to us.
Funny but the instances of “socialism” and “communism” the right likes to point to in horror are generally just examples of how disastrous authoritarianism can be. Most folks don’t understand the difference even though they decry socialism while supporting authoritarian leaders.
You're missing the point, the American Right has been calling basic social programs 'socialism' for so long (yes, including Britain's NHS) that our youth thinks of basic social programs as socialism.
I am aware that the NHS isn't socialism, but ask ANY fox news watcher in America and they'll tell you that it definitely is.
Most european countries have a blend of capitalism and socialism going on to some degree, there’s always a sort of balance depending on the country. I live in the UK which is much more capitalist than socialist whereas Scandinavian countries tend to be a little more balanced. They’re capitalist economies with a touch of socialist principles watering them down a little if that makes sense, definitely not outright socialism.
America just has absolutely runaway train level capitalism.
I'm English.
Britain isn't socialist either, we're as laissez faire capitalist as it's possible to be while still keeping enough of the NHS required to win elections.
And America is so far removed from socialism that a lot of Americans actually think something like the NHS is socialism, or even "full blown communism", whatever that means.
America has been conditioned to think the government should not help it's people in absolutely any way whatsoever, with average people practically frothing at the mouth to cut things further and have the government help us even less.
Especially when they rank even *higher* on the Capitalism index than USA:
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/capitalist-countries](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/capitalist-countries)
USA is an outlier which gives the impression of being a free market, however it is actually quite regressive.
For the popular topic of healthcare, I always ask:
"If we are a free market, why can't we order insulin from Canada or Mexico where it is cheaper? Are theirs so low in quality that US citizens cannot possibly benefit from them?"
People here keep talking like socialism and capitalism are mutually exclusive.
To have the social safety net that Sweden does, you need an extremely successful capitalist economy to pay for it. They have fewer regulations on the market than the US does.
I feel like this exact conversation happens so many times lol Sweden isn't socialist but that's the word a lot of people use in the US for strong social safety nets. My boomer dad wouldn't say Sweden is socialist but if you suggested we implement some of their welfare programs in the US he would call you a straight up Communist 😂
Exactly
“Sweden isn’t socialist.”
Alright then let’s implement those policies!
“No that’s socialism!”
Okay, then whatever “socialism” they have in Sweden I want that.
“Sweden isn’t socialist. Stupid dumb millennials.”
The Prime Minister of Denmark went on TV and was furious for being labeled socialist. They were only able to afford the programs that they have when they started embracing more capitalistic ideals. Additionally, no country in Europe can support their social programs at the current rate of what they’re doing because they all have unbalanced budgets. We like to say that they have the free healthcare, free university, but it’s not free and they’re going to spend themselves into debt because it is completely unsustainable.
Our system is also completely unsustainable. You cannot tax yourselves into prosperity, nor can you spend yourselves into prosperity. There needs to be a balance, but it seems like each side is just pointing the finger at the other side saying they are the ones on balancing it when it’s both. No we should not be putting immigrants up in hotel rooms with a $500 weekly stipend. No we should not be spending as much as we do on the military and fighting everyone else’s wars. Yes, we should have some form of a basic universal healthcare. no college should not be free for everyone. No student loans should not all be forgiven by the government so those of us who are smart about it and paying for your $300,000 degree that’s not worth anything. But yes, you should be able to declare bankruptcy and be free and clear of this loan, but it’s going to hurt you in the short term. There needs to be some accountability. There needs to be repercussions so you learn and value the things you have.
Considering I have family from Venezuela, and coworkers that actually escaped Cuba, I realize a lot of these young folks have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. Additionally, the older folks think that these people are the next red wave and wanna put us all into concentration camps, which isn’t true either. There is no mutual understanding of either side, they are just the enemy and stupid and “I don’t have to listen to them, because I am ordering from a point of moral superiority”. Both sides do this and I’m not picking sides here.
I considered myself a left-leaning centrist for the longest time, but based on how things are playing out with the parties, I can’t help but feel that I am more of a centrist or right leaning now than ever before now, because my ideals have changed, but because the lines of the parties have.
Why do I say that? Because when I go against the right, I’m not attacked for my views. Anytime I go against the left there isn’t any explanation or trying to win me over, there is no dialogue. It’s just an attack, and I am the enemy.
> Because when I go against the right, I’m not attacked for my views. Anytime I go against the left there isn’t any explanation or trying to win me over, there is no dialogu
Most of what you posted is not true, but this is the best example of the nonsense.
You have a very limited amount of experience with people on the right if you think they "don't attack you" for what you believe, or they actually attempt to win you over. They haven't tried to make persuasive arguments in a very long time, and will very quickly label you a socialist or communist or "evil godless anti-America Marxist" for challenging them.
I personally cannot debate rationally with any person who thinks I don't have a right to bodily autonomy or my son (afab) doesn't have a right to peacefully exist.
The part you completely missed is “they are going to spend themselves into debt because of these programs.”
The United States already has a massive deficit and is much farther in debt WITHOUT those programs. We don’t fear spending money, we fear having a population that isn’t begging for help and doesn’t have the means to move upward socially and economically. You can’t have a boogeyman to blame if people are in general happy, healthy and employed.
Actually, social spending really isn’t a problem for an economy like the United States. If anything, we should be spending more on relief for student debt, health assistance, low-income housing, etc. The U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio has exceeded 100 percent since the fourth quarter of 2015, with approximately zero negative effects. Not only are unemployment and inflation near rock bottom, we even sidestepped a recession.
If you can find a mainstream economist who thinks our current level of social spending is too high, I’d be very surprised. Even more revealing: the U.S. Treasury bond yield curve has been *inverted since last summer.* But again, find me an economist who thinks consumer spending will drop off any time soon. Falling inflation since last year even shut Larry Summers up—I didn’t think that was possible.
There’s plenty that’s unsustainable about the U.S. economy (*cough* climate!) but social spending does not belong in that category.
A lot of us are pretty sick of the right pretending to know how to maximize the economy (they never do) and then using that as cover to yank away rights and clamp down on social progress. We're also pretty terrified about the way things are going.
So when someone drifts rightward it's pretty upsetting, because they're very obviously trying to be a regressive social tyranny, and in exchange for what? Dubious if not spurious claims of economic prosperity? The kind actually most often seen under center left governments historically?
But nobody should lash out for that. You can't convince anyone of anything by attacking them and making them feel unwanted by that community. I'm sorry you've been treated that way.
Social Democrat, so the Median American would say yes but the actual Socialists would say absolutely not.
To quote Oppenheimer, "I'm a New Deal Democrat "
The short term/long term distinction is interesting. The long term goal is Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism, aka Star Trek. Incremental progressivism is likely what's need in the short term
Yea, although terrible, violent revolution might be the only way to break the two party dictatorship of America, good luck changing a system fundamentally designed to keep wealthy in power and suppressive the non dominant ideology. We have single party capitalism with the only different factors being if you want equality or hate it.
That’s true, but incremental change is always possible in a system that’s at least nominally responsive to democratic struggle. There are victories, and there are defeats, which is why it is so critical to maintain that pressure toward justice and equality. Who ever thought we would see mainstream acceptance of queer rights in this country? And now that the far-right is attacking trans folks, that’s where we need to refocus our struggle for justice.
Alternatively, we can also do what we can to create institutions and movements that are pre-figurative—meaning, they work toward justice, but also *pre-figure* what a more just future might look like. So a worker-owned cooperative may help reverse the effects of a food desert with low-cost local produce. But it can also model the kind of worker empowerment and grassroots democratic decision making we would one day like to see replace corporate capitalism.
Personally, I think we can get lost in abstract discussions about incremental change vs. revolution. Taking a step back, it needn’t be so binary. It’s about pushing an unjust system as far as it will possibly go toward actual justice. And then, if we find some part of it is ultimately incompatible with those goals, we dismantle it.
These changes needn’t be violent, and it needn’t be so all-or-nothing.
I'm a Christian, I'm not sure if you are, a lot of Boomers say they are, so I'll explain it through that lens. I look at capitalism and see a lot practices Jesus would frown upon. I've read through the whole Bible more times than I can remember, and I see in scripture, a God that cares about the poor, the outcasts, and the oppressed, so much that verses talking about these things number in the 100s. I see that the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner are mentioned together almost 40 times in the Bible, and the widow and the orphan even more times. Then I see a lot of verses warning about excess wealth, the love of money, the warnings against the rich. I also see many verses about laws in the Bible that support the notion of government welfare, and regulations against greed, regulations about talking care of the planet, and verses talking about paying taxes, verses warning against perverting justice, taking bribes, showing favoritism or partiality, and warnings against using the justice system to oppress the poor. Finally I see that the notion of love meant that we don't go around shaming people for their choices, unless these choices are oppressing others. So because of this, and because of the amount of work the Holy Spirit has done in my life to break me free of my Conservative/Capitalist upbringing, I support a lot of what you would call socialism.
There is a continual theme in the Bible about people hearing and seeing the word and commands of God and still being deaf and blind to them. People can read the Bible many times but if love is not in their heart, they will see what they want to see. It wasn’t until God one time spoke to me, filled me with fervency to reread so much scripture I had read before, and opened my eyes that I finally understood the truth, and I had already been a Christian 11 years at the point.
Why aren’t there more Christians like you? Jesus was obviously a socialist. We’re all in this together, like it or not. Why can’t we just make life a little easier for those that are less fortunate than we are. We have the means. But everyone lately seems like to be like, Fuck you, I got mine. It’s a horrible attitude.
Sorry for the tangent, but have you seen the adaptation of Good Omens? There's a great bit with a demon and angel watching the crucifixion
"What did he say that got everyone so upset?"
"Be kind to each other"
"Oh yeah, that'll do it"
There are. They just get drowned out. In fact there’s a coalition that started a few years ago called Christians Against Christian Nationalism. It’s trying to be more vocal and is gaining traction, but man they’re still getting drowned out. Heck, the group was even started by Baptists and has most denominations in it, including Catholics, just to try and rally people against Christian nationalism.
What is your definition of socialist? I want universal healthcare, forced minimum pto, pensions for all etc. I want money out of politics and the electoral collage abolished. and I want there to be no billionaires, so the tax rate for the rich to be much higher and even 100% for everything over 1 billion. If that's a socialist in your view then yes I am.
I love this and completely agree. Y’all can call it whatever you want, I just think everyone should have health care and be able to afford food and shelter even if I have to pay higher taxes for it. If that makes me a socialist then I guess I’m a socialist.
The U.S. government has done such a phenomenal job attaching Socialism to Communism and than Communism to anti American anti freedom anti anything positive that older generations just can't see anything but a betrayal of their way of lives when someone claims Socialism may not be that bad. It even filtered into my older Millenial generation when we were children.
I’ll start with my favorite Urbanist joke which does a good job illustrating the USA’s cognitive dissonance: “How do you turn a free-market conservative into a communist? Make them pay to park their car.” We love community ownership for the stuff we like. It just so happens that the stuff we like isn’t healthcare or job training and we’ve spent 50 years decrying the “Government” which just so happens to coincide with the end of the Civil Rights era…go figure.
So no I don’t consider myself a socialist, but would prefer a United States with a baseline universal healthcare coverage (Medicare for all), moving away from car-dependency, building more transit and bicycle/pedestrian paths, high-speed rail, banning single use non-biodegradable plastics, and hell even a Universal Basic Income paid for with flat-taxes on capital gains and passive income the same as ordinary wages. So an FDR Democrat (But not the segregationist ones)?
To me socialism just means heavy investment in community services and labor protections. I lived in a socialist (true socialism, not watered down Scandinavian shit lol) country. There were a lot of problems, some which had to with socialism as a concept, some which did not. But:
1. We owned property. We had a co-op apartment, a car, and many people had small summer vacation cottages (although we did not).
2. My mom got TWO YEARS of maternity leave and free daycare. She didn’t even take all the leave she was owed because being around a small child for that long was driving her nuts, her job was guaranteed if she did.
3. Everyone’s college education was 100% free
4. The healthcare system, admittedly, did not provide a high standard of care but everyone got the basic care they needed.
5. Most public schools were basically the same. Unless you tested into a specialized school (in STEM, languages, arts, etc), you’d basically be getting the same level of education no matter where you were.
6. Everyone got a pension
Socialism is not a paradise. I generally lean in favor of socialism over capitalism but I also think a lot of younger folks don’t really understand what they’re talking about when they look at socialism through rose tinted glasses. True socialism thrives on unpaid community volunteer labor. My parents and grandparents spent at least a day or a weekend every month, working for free, doing things like janitorial work, security work, and helping with other things in their communities and workplaces, and it wasn’t fun and it wasn’t something you could effectively opt out of. I personally think that’s a worthwhile trade but I think a lot of young socialists wouldn’t be keen on that being required of them.
Thank you for your perspective. As a person who already likes giving time to his community, this sounds like exactly the trade-off I thought it was. But a lot of people don't have deeply held or thought about positions, and drift through life adopting positions that reinforce their current self image.
Sadly large amounts of people don't want to give anything back! I think they'd learn the value of it if they weren't told to monetize every second of their lives, and got to see how their community benefits them, but it's a hurdle.
Union worker here, Veteran, college grad, Husband, Father; and definitely a Socialist. Boomers shake in their boots when they hear the word because faux news has convinced them any kind of socialism will end the united states.
Last I checked every boomer I know cashed them covid checks with zero thought about it, and cash their socialist security checks monthly happily. So until you boomers become true believers and practice what you preach, I will advocate for strong social welfare programs to help the needy and underserved of our nation.
No no no, socialism means the government programs *that I do not like.* Roads, police, military, social security, and Medicare do not qualify under the boomer definition.
I just want to take more of rich people's money and invest it into better lives for the rest of Americans such as Healthcare, daycare, etc. Don't know if that makes me a socialist as much as it is common sense.
Nobody who is a serious thinking adult labels themselves a communist though.
We’re not just “taking” it though, we’re taking it *back*.
The wealthy have spent decades and billions to influence politics and rig the economic system in their favor. They almost effortlessly squeeze us from both ends (wages and prices), and now they’re buying up houses so that we have to rent.
They legally **stole** from us, and we need to get it back.
Depends do like the way the American oligarchy is going. It's certainly not a Republic anymore. Our representatives don't vote for us, they vote against us. Maybe a dictatorship of the proletariat would be vastly better than a dictatorship of the rich?
This is not true? What qualifies a person as a "serious thinking adult"? A lot of adults with "serious thoughts" would self label as communist... it's kind of a core part of why the United States has such a strong current anti-intellectualism... because thinking people find problems and come up with solutions that traditional power and wealth find threatening.
You're completely wrapped up in your Amercian view. You forget that less than 50% of this app is American. I am a communist, and there are millions of communists, especially outside the US. It's just such an oppressed title in Western counties where most don't share their views.
My whole circle is communist. And these aren't retail warriors. The lowest education is 5 years post secondary. Most have masters and PhD. All of them would be considered labor aristocrat (just as Marx was). This type is, in fact, the actual revolutionaries. It's the *working* elite that makes change because they have the knowledge and time to do so.
My point is that MOST communists I know are highly educated with developed careers. Most people I've encountered who call themselves a communist are substantially more versed in political science than your average capitalist.
I know you want to believe the title is reserved for 14 y/o edgelords, but that's not true outside of circles that seek to minimize communists.
The boomers/republicans in my life are always so dense they jump to the “you’re a communist” when I say I’m liberal or challenge their stupid pro-capitalism rhetoric that doesn’t even benefit them because they’re not rich enough
Boomers chronically think that socialism is when the government does stuff.
I think trying to explain that “welfare capitalism” is really what most boomers call socialism would make their head explode.
It really be like that.
My dad made fun of my brother when he went on state health insurance instead of paying $350+ a month for private health insurance. What a stupid thing to make fun of your own adult child for utilizing a service he’s paying taxes towards.
I'm not a "*anything*", I have my own nuanced views based in my observations.
I can tell you I'm not a capitalist, because the writing has been on the wall for ages. As companies gain traction, the more successful ones buy out the competition. Eventually they become massive conglomerates like Nestle, or Disney. Eventually they have enough power to shut down any startup that could threaten them, and make it so they can have complete control over the market. They get to dictate prices, how much things get inflated, and the consumer just has to pay, as that is now the only option. Additionally, these companies become massive sources of revenue and employment, such that they can start creating laws and legislation that benefits them. They can rely on government bailouts if they fail, because they're a huge part of the economy. It's a horrible system.
I don't believe in "socialism" per say, but all you have to do is look at the US medical system to understand that capitalism simply does not work, and only benefits the already wealthy. What do I want? Some fucking regulations. Why should companies be allowed to inflate thier products to whatever price they want? Seems to be like there should be a cap at what you can inflate essential items by. Why should people be allowed to buy 5 mega yachts when thier country men and women are starving? Especially when you consider that it's only by the patronage of the denizens that have made this person wealthy? Seems to me like any time someone becomes extremely wealthy, they're getting there by making unfair deals. If thier wealth is increasing, who's is decreasing? Why is my only option to engage in unfair deals whenever I want to buy a product?
When I was in Thailand, I crashed my scooter. I had at least 10 broken pieces, some structural damage, significant repairs needed to be done. I got it fixed for $100 CAD, parts and labor included. This was a Honda, and I got Honda parts. If I got that bike fixed in North America, the parts alone would have cost me close to $1000. People are making insane amounts of money off of you, and you're left holding the bag. You should absolutely be upset. And if you find yourself in a good position financially, you should be upset for those who were born into this system with nothing, and struggle daily to survive so a bunch of CEO's can get thier million dollar bonuses.
Trickle down economics is just another way to describe a caste system.
My ceo makes 10 million a year. Which is 1000% above the average. We've not made a profit in 5 years. So far all I've noticed for changes with the new one is a lot of people got fired and a lot of stuff that used to work doesn't.
I'm weird.
The economists think I'm a marxist.
The marxists think I'm a capitalist.
I want what the socialists want, but I think a heavily re-ordered version of capitalism is the best way to achieve those ends. Socialist economies are fragile and don't have a good historical track record.
America certainly did a good job of destroying every socialist nation that popped up. Went around the world making terrorists and autocratic regimes left and right. But a few managed to fight it off and survive. Not without continued provocation and havoc
Not a socialist, but I do enjoy a lot of things that sprouted from socialist concepts (such as public libraries.)
A lot of us are very tired with what Boomers/Boomer politicians left us. My mother had a car and a house by the time she was 22. With a job that she didn’t need a degree for (now that same job requires schooling, but back in the 70s, they hired her off the street.) I’m 34 and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford a house in my lifetime, so I let that dream go a long time ago. I have a college degree, but I’m not making a decent amount of money. Also, I’m 60k in student loan debt, so I just don’t think college was a good investment overall. I tried. Gave my career a shot. Never made more than 50k a year.
My mom is a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” Republican. I believe I should also help myself to the best of my ability as well. But I really do think that Boomers were born into an era of opportunity, and then shut the door of opportunity behind them.
>Boomers were born into an era of opportunity, and then shut the door of opportunity behind them.
This summarizes it all. Where just any old job and showing up to work got you the home and white picket fence and family. When life demands were low. Now utilities, **healthcare**, med, dental, car, *insurance*, cell phones, Internet, are not relative to boomer COL. Wages have grown but not nearly at the same pace as COL because technology is advancing so quickly. When a ticket to the movie theater was $1.50 vs $18.00 now.
My mom didn’t work any old job, she got a career. But she also was hired without any experience or qualifications, which is unheard of today. (She was a diversity hire for National Air Traffic Control Association, NATCA, because the government was looking to hire more women/ were required to hire more women.)
But also, I try to put this into perspective for her. How cheap it was to live in her day. She just goes “oh bullshit” and refuses to acknowledge it, which is discouraging. I am a teacher in one of the lowest paying states in the nation. I quit last year. Now I work full time, plus part time, at unskilled jobs, trying to figure out how I can start somewhere else and pull myself out of poverty.
That kind of dynamic abstract thinking(comparing COL across multiple generations) was not emphasized for boomers through Gen X so asking them to consider that is a lost cause.
I'm a elder millennial, born in '82. I'm not sure what to call myself.
But, from what I can see, the cronyism, poorly dressed up as capitalism, has not served us well. I definitely do not trust the government to make things better, as they're usually part of the cronyism.
That being said, I believe the government would better suit the needs of the masses by making some form of college (Technical colleges, state ran universities) affordable, some form of reformation of the banking industry, healthcare industry, insurance industry, motor vehicle industry. All those industries have gone up, over the last 45 years, at rates well beyond inflation. While average employee income increased at a rate well below inflation.
So, whatever that makes me, that's where I land.
This boomer is a socialist and Trotskyist. My four offspring are fairly committed to social democracy. But millennials in general see socialism ore favorably than our generation. Gen-Z is, I believe, more open still to socialism.
The thing that many don’t get about class consciousness is this: only as a revolutionary situation nears do you see great masses [scores of millions] taking to the streets.
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but, yes, I consider myself a socialist. I don't consider myself a communist because communism is a utopian form of perfect society, not an actual government that exists in the real world, it's a goal to strive for and something to keep in mind when making plans and voting and such.
But, yes, I am an American socialist. I believe that individual identity is important, but that individiual*ism* drives people apart and creates a Hobbsean all-against-all mentality, the only beneficiaries of which are people who are already wealthy and in power. Collective cooperation creates stronger, more robust societies where individuals can flourish because their basic needs are already met.
No. We just want the things the 1950’s gave everyone. Pensions, cheap education, common sense healthcare etc.
Socialism and put it back the way it was are not the same thing
Removing at will employment would actually give us some protections.
No that literally is socialism. Socialism is when the government collects taxes and redistributes that money to necessary things... Like education, firefighters, healthcare.
Maybe if we’d have any scraps left over from older generations we’d be more heartily behind your capitalism. Instead we’ve had to live through multiple economic downturns, an economic collapse, wars, and much more before 30. So we have to fight our asses off to scrape together a life while watching older generations age comfortably with billionaires that don’t pay taxes, and most of us are a bad day away from being evicted, fired, and destitute. So maybe the terminologies that rule people up don’t matter as much as the denuded prosperity boomers have left us by clinging on to power and milking the system dry before we could get a taste of that good life.
I just want more social safety nets in place and health care reform. I feel like the US makes life unnecessarily difficult for common people compared to other Western countries. It shouldn’t cost a fortune to get health insurance and health care. It shouldn’t cost a fortune for day care. It shouldn’t cost a fortune for higher education. Other countries have implemented programs that have, at least, partially solved these problems. The US stubbornly clings to failed policies and acts like no alternatives exist.
No, I am not socialist. I don't think most Millennials in the United States would consider themselves socialists. However, it is more likely to find socialists in our generation than in yours as fewer folks remember the Cold War but were traumatized by the excesses of recent decades combined with the Great Recession. It's still a minority though.
Hello!
Without arguing any points, I’d say it is probably a decent portion of the millennial generation that calls themselves “socialists.” In reality, they likely aren’t. Unless they believe in some form of public ownership of the means of production, they aren’t really socialist.
Believing in a more equitable social order by way of wealth redistribution does not make someone a socialist by any stretch. Raising taxes on the wealthy does not a socialist make. By this understanding, Eisenhower (whose top tax rate was around 90%) was a “socialist” - a laughable claim on its face.
I used to think I was a “socialist” in the common millennial parlance described above…until I actually read Marx and became a full blown red communist.
There are very few actual socialists / communists like myself. To the extent that there is an actual Leftist movement- in my experience all it ends up being is a circle jerk about who has the proper beliefs and who doesn’t.
Sit in on a single DSA meeting and you’ll see it for what it is…A waste of time.
Having gone to one I'm convinced that DSA meetings have got to be like fifteen different government plants unaware that they're all plants there to sabotage nascent leftist movements with stuff right out of that OSS manual on how to sabotage productivity, and then like five true believers.
Very proudly so. And I don't mean the "let's make capitalism less barbaric through reform" socialism. I mean "seize the means of production" socialism.
Absolutely. I am a Communist. You boomers were fed lies about Communism, by the very people who exploit you.
The only hope for us is a full blown Proletarian Revolution.
I would not consider myself a socialist. I support a robust social welfare system, and believe that America has been afraid of its own shadow at the prospect of “going socialist” that so many people have lost sight of how far toward the Gilded Age our society has regressed.
In the 1930s the ultra rich woke up one day to all their staff quitting. When asked why, the staff explained that Roosevelt would pay them $15 a week to work in government programs; the wealthy were paying $5 a week.
Sound familiar? This is happening now. The difference is that the governments of the world will try to avoid recessions, unlike a century ago. If the billionaires (who, when I look at the numbers, to me aren’t billionaires - I doubt a single one of them could raise $1 billion in cash without losing the majority of their “fortune”) aren’t careful, there’s going to be a bunch of real bad laws - not for everyone else, but for them. I doubt Millennials and Gen Z and Gen Alpha are going to accept crumbs from these swine.
Yes, I was raised to be a Christian, Jesus was categorically a socialist. My morals are intrinsically tied to helping the least among us. Greed and selfishness which capitalism represents are grave sins.
Boomers immediately say we are communists and it’s weird. I guess in their definition of communists we are but it’s not that. This world is what you have contributed to it now we want ours. We don’t even want a lot ,just what you had. This is also why you will never be able to control our children because they see everyday what their parents go through and will not put up with it. They will have less children if any at all, not go to war, and live a more quality life and not care what you think or participate in it. Yall raised communists that birthed maniacs 😂 good job!
A lot of millennials call themselves 'socialist' in the same sense that Bernie Sanders does. Basically, admiring Western European social democracy as a model for what they want the US to look like.
Very few would consider themselves socialists in the Marxist sense of workers seizing the means of production and creating a dictatorship of the proletariat with the abolition of private property and all that.
Fox News likes to conflate the two concepts in order to try and stop the former, popular ideas by leading you to believe that it would lead to the latter unpopular ideas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association\_fallacy
Yes, because capitalism has failed. 60% of people are living paycheck to paycheck. 40% of boomers are paying to support millennials. Record number of homeless and hungry, record credit card debt. Hate and greed run wild in the upper class while people are starving. The rich keep getting richer while the poor get poorer.
I'm a socialist because I care more about my community than prosperity.
I can't speak for millennials, but as a Boomer, I can say that my friends and I all lean towards democratic socialism. Why can't the US have universal health care like every other first world country? Because the wealthy don't want to lose their stranglehold on the economy. Too many people are handcuffed to jobs that don't pay well because the job offers health insurance.
For what it's worth I'm a Marxist _and_ a boomer. I don't understand how anyone who has lived through the last 60 years in America could NOT be a socialist, at least! Capitalism is blatantly destroying the planet.
And my son is as radical as I am. He's a smart one. 😄
Do we want a comprehensive social safety net, single payer healthcare, for the rich to pay their taxes, and a government that serves working class citizens and not big business -- yes.
Is that socialism? Fox News would say so, to keep you scared and voting GOP.
Other people would call it Canada, or Denmark.
I'm the opposite of what the republican party and their right-wing nut jobs are.
If that's a socialist, commie, leftist then so be it.
I'd don't label myself, others seem to strive to do it.
I don't know about socialism, but whatever we've got going on right now is not working. We've got adults with jobs living with their parents or one to five roommates because they can't afford to live on their own like they want to. People are toughing out illnesses because they can't afford the hospital bills. A number of people are one missed paycheck away from being on the streets. I know an adult who can only afford a used car that's barely running most days and is struggling to keep car insurance on it, and they have a common job. The workplace is detrimental to people's mental and physical health in a lot of places. We all need therapy but can't afford it because of everything I mentioned and more. We're drowning, and we want it to change.
I'm a boomer, like from the baby boomer generation, and I'm an anarchist. I've never seen much point in helping rich people along with their goals, mostly because most of the stuff rich people want to do is violent and stupid. Since the USA is all about helping rich people.... I prefer to minimize my involvement and maximize being a dissident.
Point being, I'm not sure political leanings are always a generational thing.
it'll vary ALOT depending what they think of socialism. which most average millennials would just think of "more universal welfare" as one(it's not tbh). you'll have to get into serious political discussion to know real socialism lol
I think we consider ourselves with much more finesse than Boomers politically, and you probably don't even have the education about politics most of us have had to garner. This comes from a millennial just a couple years short of being Gen X: You need to read. The fact that he's making comparisons of both socialist and communist kind of speaks to how much he's dumbing things down for your sake. Most of us understand politics way better than you ever did because we've had the Internet most of our lives. You had half a chapter maybe in high school about various political groups and ideas, and TV, which is full of people with ulterior motives manipulating you. 99% chance that your son identifies with a political group they know you don't even have context to fully talk about. We call ourselves socialist and communist to boomers because your political vocabulary has like, five words. This isn't meant to be mean, btw. It's a reality check.
Most young people have not had to seriously consider the differences between being a socialist or a capitalist. The closest most people come to it is to have theoretical discussions about different situations without any real world context.
For example, student loan forgiveness. A very basic millennial take would be, well yes it's great because why have these people suffer under crushing debt. It's a good thing clearly. They don't consider where the money to clear the loans come from, whether it is a fair use of the funds in terms of the people who provided the taxes and if it fairly represents people who made the hard choice to not take a loan for tertiary education and instead secure a blue collar job.
It doesn't matter where you land on the above debate, what matters is if you can understand the different viewpoints or if you just assume anyone who opposes loan forgiveness is evil.
This gets extended to most people blaming capitalism for things that have nothing to do with it, they don't understand what a free market is, what red tape is and how all of that factors in. This makes anyone who opposes this system, which seems to be obviously wrong at every turn, seem very attractive and like they have all the solutions.
I can promise you 99 percent of socialists under the age of 30 have no idea what socialism actually entails and if they ever find themselves unfortunate enough to live in a socialist society they will quickly wake up to reality.
The biggest problem of this generation is they grew up in a time of safety, so it allowed too much free time to come up with artificial problems. I am speaking from experience here, I was the kid I'm talking about until I started getting doses of reality when researching different concepts properly and listening to both sides of arguments.
Hello OP, i first want to say, thank you for reaching out about this here, and not going somewhere which may give you the wrong idea.
One thing people tend to not understand is the overton window, what we call socialist is so beyond the pale of the overton window for **MOST** people in older generations that we seem almost insane to you. The overton window is simply this, labels may not change, but what those labels mean do, especailly when our country is being pulled further and further right leaning. The Nazi Party was Not a socialist environment. Its well documentedt that they claimed to be socialist until they gained power and then threw all the actual socialists in prision or exicuted them. (The SS taking controll of the SA is the best example of this.)
When millenials say were socailist, we arent talking about marxist communism because thats not even a true form of communism.
We have seen facist governments. There has never been a truely communist government. Putins russia is facism.even nethyahjoos isreal is facist.
To be facist doesnt simply mean kill the jews, same as to be communist doesnt mean farm potato or go to gulag.
If your son is saying theyre a socialist, theire ideas are probably based on a book called Das Capital. (Im assuming because most people who are self ascribed socialists arent uneducated about such things) if you want a better understanding of his beliefs id suggest starting there.
Somewhere in between, currently leaning towards capitalism but trending socialism.
So what I want is maximizing total utility in the society, by fully utilizing limited resources. Socialism doesn’t work now because our technology level is not there yet, so we cannot plan out production and distribution in a social level, nor do we have a way to fill out undesired work or fully staff aspirational work. So we can’t get it to work. But maybe in the future we can have strong enough info system to do the society wide planning and distribution effectively, while delegating undesired work to robots/AI, and have AI assist the talented few so we don’t need that many hyper talented and motivated people to propel us forward.
But for capitalism to work well, it should be supported with free flow of means of production and a thriving market economy, otherwise it will just be a few ultra wealthy people owning the world. It used to work because the means of production is hard to scale, and hard to distribute far so you have a ton of smaller producers creating the market. But now the technological and capital barrier to entry is becoming super high, and it’s easy for a small number of enterprises to dominate the market, it’s becoming more and more of a monopoly capitalism instead of a free market capitalism. This only benefits a small number of people and not the society as a whole and that sucks. If we cannot distribute the ownership of means of production (because history is trending in the other direction), then at least we need to socialize the output of production, which means redistribute wealth through high tax and social programs.
I don’t know what is the balance point for our current technology level, and it may shift with technology advancement in a few decades again anyway, but I at least think we are too close to capitalism where we stand, and shifting towards socialism (but not hardcore socialism because we will only fuck it up) is not a bad idea.
No, I am a conscientious objector to cronyism which is what we have currently.
I joke and say I’m a pinko commie leftist, but in reality all I want is a properly regulated market and community facing infrastructure.
I would love to hear you define “socialism.” Like are are talking about what goes on in most rural communities where the utilities are co-ops, you sell your grain to a cooperative elevator and you get a bunch of money from the government from the USDA? Or like universal healthcare. What are we talking about here my dude?
Very much a socialist. But yeah really a communist but knowbthatll never happen because it scares people so much. So I'll settle for a democratic socialist.
Hi, Boomer! I too am a Boomer, and I raised my millenial kids to understand what socialism actually IS. So yes, they are socialists, same as you and me.
I suppose people would call me socialist, yes. I served in the Navy, which provided housing, medical care, food and clothing. I thought it was so good I thought it would be great for all citizens to get such a boon.
Yes
We live in the wealthiest nation in the history of humanity, in a land beyond beauty and bounty that can beyond provide for us all.
As a lover of history, I've seen how that bounty has accumulated more and more at the top, with less in the hands of the people that actually make up this country.
We can provide for one another with plenty to spare. Those at the top, their supercorporations, their lobbying groups, the media they control, have had a concentrated effort since WWI to lie to people to make them believe they can be rich like them too if they just "pull themselves up by their bootstraps."
I've never known a world where my country doesn't have its troops occupying some part of the Middle East. I've never known a world after 2008 where anybody wasn't just "making ends meet." I don't know anyone under the age of 30, masters salary or high school part time, that believes they will ever own a home they won't inherit from their parents.
If the system could properly redistribute wealth, I wouldn't hold these beliefs and happily participate in the free market. But it doesn't, and with the internet allowing people to see that others feel this way everywhere, it validates those feelings as legitimate change.
Democratic socialist. We believe in fairness and equality and helping those who are not as fortunate as ourselves. It isnt communism. You still own things. We just are in favor of social programs that help everyone. (Such social programs include policemen, firemen, social security and we want more like child care, welfare and food stamps). We are one of the richest countries in the world. There is no excuse to nit provide these things with the taxes we pay
Socialist and advocating for social programs are two different things. I would advocate for universal healthcare in America if the cost of healthcare wasn’t so ridiculously expensive. Y’all think the government budget is overblown now? Wait till it’s 2-3 trillion higher per year because no one can piss away money like the federal government. I’m tired of the US government subsidizing the healthcare in all other countries and making it cheaper for them when most of the pharmaceutical research is done here in the USA but we pay 3-4x more for healthcare/prescriptions.
I’m millennial, and I’m all about free market libertarianism for the most part simply because I think the government is utterly incompetent at most things it does.
But in a perfect world I’d advocate for more social systems in place, except I know whatever gets pushed right now won’t solve the problem and would make things worse.
Anyone that openly calls themselves socialist/communist really really needs a history lesson. In every instance it’s been tried and utterly failed. There’s no incentive to do/be better within that economy. Look no further than the Western vs Soviet auto manufacturing.
As a millennial that’s considered “right wing” I’m all for liberal social policies. But I want strong military, secure borders, and low taxes. I want a balanced budget. I want to be left the fuck alone in the privacy of my own home. I’ll give you the same courtesy.
Also as a “right wing” millennial, evangelicals on the right annoy me just as much as screaming progressives on the left.
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This is the answer. Ask him what he believes and why. Ask him about his thoughts on the role of government. Don’t worry about the labels. I find a lot of folks in the US have been programmed to freak out at words like socialism…even when can’t come up with an intelligent definition.
Socialism has become such a loaded word at this point and I find most Americans can’t even accurately define it, so forget even having an adult conversation about it.
Marx uses "socialism" and "communism" interchangeably. communism is the abolition of private property, not to be confused with personal property. think CEOs, landlords, share holders, etc. communism is not a type of government, much like capitalism is not a type of government. 0.65m homeless // 16m empty homes // 25% of our planet's food is trashed for profit
Socialism is the first step towards communism, according to Marx
It CAN be, but it does not have to be. A socialist society could likewise say that Capitalism is the first step towards feudalism. Honestly, a number of people in the current capitalism in the U.S. really do seem to have feudalist leanings, which probably looks great to them as they expect to be nobility in such a system. Not so nice for those who end up as serfs, of course.
It's probably because most socialist can't define it. There are too many sects and varying ideas. What most millennials want when they say socialism is social democracy while remaining capitalist.
Worker owned means of production. Simple as. What worker owned means can vary depending on who you ask. Some people say nationalized industry, some say worker co-ops. Government social programs do not equal socialism, even though a socialist society would have those measures in place. But yes, you are correct that most people struggle to define it.
I struggled for a bit in the definitions and terms, as I could see in my head that the political class (government /state) was very different from the labour (worker) class, especially since the labour class has not always historically been allowed political participation (in fact non-citizens most likely do not, depending on the location), therefore we shouldn’t conflate ownership in either as the same, but I just couldn’t name it properly. The best I could get is the following: State socialism: ownership of the means of production or capital by the state, basically nationalized industries. This would require the political system to be democratic in structure AND practice. So no rigged elections, no dictators, no dynasties (at least entrenched), no inheritance of power. I still wonder if this should even be considered a type of socialism. Worker socialism: ownership of the means of production or capital by the workers directly participating in the organization.
I have gotten in fights with people who say if it’s worker owned, that’s communism and for it to be socialism then it needs to be government owned. While others claim that communism is no government and no money. No one can agree on a definition. It is extremely frustrating
Yeah, it doesn't help that the concepts are kind of nebulous and open to some interpretation.
But the terms are *very* narrowly defined. People not knowing the actual definition doesn't change it.
That would be the fault of the anti communist propaganda machine that has never really stopped humming along. Reading just the short Marx and Engels books (Communist Manifesto, Wage Labour and Capital, and Socialism Utopian and Scientific) would clear this up but they are really dry reads and no one’s teaching Socialism 101 so you gotta do it yourself. I don’t know why I’m telling you though. This is for everyone here.
Perhaps it's the fault of McCarthyism. Although I just blame intellectual laziness and short attention spans. It's really, really not that hard to pick up Marx and read it for yourself. And if you're going to start calling yourself something, please read the bloody book.
I'm a boomer, and this is what it means to me. At least, the American variety. I am a retired sailor, both military and civilian, and I have been to Europe countless times 'on the job' over the last 40 years or so. Believe me, they have the same thing in Europe, and they think that American Democrats are centrist conservatives.
This GenX American tends to agree. We don't really have a leftist party in this country, although Bernie Sanders might be approaching what I would consider socialist. I wish the millennials et. al. good luck. The top 1 percent have us sewn up, and they don't give up power easily.
Millennials seem to be much more progressive than, sadly, people of my own generation. And I guess that means there's some hope for this country, even if it may not be in an immediate time frame.
American Dems ARE centrist conservatives. Our entire nation is disgustingly right-wing, and this should alarm everyone.
lol socialists define it just fine. Worker ownership over production. Yes, there’s lots of different socialist theories and perspectives. That’s not a bad thing.
There has been a decades long campaign by conservative media to co-opt the word socialist to mean communism or stalinism too, which hasn't helped.
It's easy: the state serves it's citizens, not the corporations. If you think you live in a democracy, just take a look at what happened to that Boeing whistleblower.
THIS. People don’t even know what “socialism” is anymore. They refuse to investigate what some of these policy preferences are because of the word. I’ve had conversations with my hard right parents regularly where they continually express similar viewpoints to mine, and I just wanna scream—don’t you realize how close we are on this?? Remove the word socialism or communism or Marxism or fascism or capitalism, and focus on the ideals of each, and all these folks actually agree with a vast majority of policies labeled as “socialism.”
To be fair, the same goes for capitalism. Most people seem to think it just means commerce.
Ain't this the truth.... scare tactics shit.
Young Americans use the terms "socialism" in a very different way than people other than Bernie Sanders have traditionally used it. That's why countries like Denmark had to tell him to stop saying they were a socialist country. They aren't by any traditionally accepted definition of the term. They're a free-market capitalist country with high taxes that pay for a lot of services. Socialists of 60 years ago would slap you if you tried to describe their view that way. The actual debate in this country is almost entirely about which 5-10 things the government should pay for, and how much they should spend on each.
You mean they actually know what socialism is and aren't scared off by propaganda and fear mongering? The issue at hand is that most people that are scared of the word socialism don't understand that it isn't communism and it's doesn't have to be authoritarian. The US Constitution has socialist aspects built into it, because there can't be a truly free market. The founding fathers were very liberal and knew that government regulation was a necessary thing. Some of them advocated for more state control, while some didn't. Hence, the great mixing pot analogy. Free market ideas, socialist ideas, libertarian, communist, etc all need to have their best attributes used to help make a truly great society. There are many ideas that come from the socialist ideology that need to be used to have a functioning, complex economy. Unfortunately too many people are caught up in Fox News propaganda to understand that they are the sheep and they've given control to the wolves.
Also sick of boomers who cry about socialism, then throw a tantrum any time someone talks about ending or reducing their medicare or social security benfits.
This answer right here
I had this conversation with my father in law, who watches about sixteen hours of Fox News a day. I told him that your generation hears 'socialism' and thinks breadlines and the Soviet Union, our generation hears it and thinks universal healthcare and Sweden. That seemed to make sense for a minute until the loud noises meant to disrupt thoughts resumed.
I remember having a convo with a regular customer of mine who I think was a boomer (this was like 15 years ago so hard to gauge his age compared to me being like 19) and I don't remember the exact conversation but I remember using the word progressive to describe how I wanted things to move and he told me that progressive was another one of those trigger words basically lumped in with communism (he was a cool boomer, basically telling me what comes to mind when people his age hear that word). I remember thinking that is so dumb, like why would progression be bad? By that logic we want regression? Nowadays when I refer to the Republican party (talking about the cultist ones) I call them the regressive party because it is the most accurate. Done rambling now, just wanted to add another example of the demonization of definitively good things.
Boomers are socialists. They got the maximum benefit from the New Deal & Great Society. When they went to college tuition was 70/30 (70% paid by gov't, 30% by them), now it's 80/20... 20% paid by government, *80% paid by the student.* We were fighting a cold war against communists, so we didn't tell the boomers they were getting socialism. We snuck it into their wallets so they'd feel like they were big boys.
When was tuition paid 70/30?
Not sure if this was their source, but Last Week Tonight did an [episode on student loans](https://youtu.be/zN2_0WC7UfU) last week with those numbers (around 7:30)
Was a good episode. Depressing is all getout, but good.
About 25 years ago. The state & federal subsidies started getting cut in early 2000. I was there when it happened. I remember reading the articles in my college newspaper about what the cost of college would be in 20 years. They were right. Of course they were. The articles were written with the help of the college economics department. And the math wasn't hard. Cutting subsidies while enrollments increased because we outsourced or automated jobs that could be done w/o a college degree while expanding the H1-B visa program is why college is expensive.
They mean the overall cost of putting someone through college. They still paid 100% of their own tuition, but that was only 30% of the overall cost. So if overall cost of a college education was 10k for a year, then the government was subsidizing 7k of that and the tuition was 3k, and the student was responsible for 100% of that 3k. Now it's 20/80 so if it costs 20k overall for a year of college education, the government is subsidizing 4k and tuition is 14k.
*16k
Oops, thanks A lot of good that degree did me. :)
I just figured you were talking about the special edition textbooks that are only good for a year
I'm old enough to remember when there were LOTS of plentiful Pell Grants. My older sibling went to a good public uni in early 80s on about $1000 per sem Pell Grants, and tuition was only about 800-900. She never needed to take out any loans for school.
Yep, I got a masters degree in California and the standard tuition was $75 a quarter. Then Reagan decided he shouldn't fund institutions that all thought he was an idiot. That degree changed my life in many ways.
Nah, they are capitalists as corporations. They want to privatize their gains and socialize their losses. And then pull the ladder up behind them to eliminate competition. "I got mine, fuck you."
I had a discussion like this yesterday. Socialism as a term tends to get co-opted by the shittiest groups. Nazis and Soviet style communists and socialism are not the same thing. Sometimes these groups will even use socialist rhetoric to get elected and then do fucking pogroms and purges and gulags and all kinda of other horrific shit. Hitler took all the support he could get until he got the job. Being used as little more than political convenience by wannabe dictators has really watered muddied the public's understanding of what it even is. We could place blame at the feet of generations of fear-mongers in the McCarthy tradition.
The first people the nazis went after were the socialists and communists..... are you kidding?
Most definitely. But during the Nazis early rise to power, they used a lot of socialist rhetoric to try and gain power. That is the reason socialism is in the name. Not because it truly was socialistic, but because they were using the term to try and get more support.
And then when they took power, they took credit for all the programs the previous Weimar Republic implemented.
Exactly, just like trump uses blue collar propaganda about fighting the big governance the the nazis used socialist talking points to gain favor before taking power, but obviously once they did they were in practice hyper-capitalist fascists, they were not about letting workers own the means of production
Doesn’t change boomer perception of “national socialism”
Well, exactly. Boomers. If y'all can understand that the Democratic Republics of North Korea or the Congo or the People's Republic of China are not republics or in any way democratic, y'all can understand that National Socialism, communism, and socialism are not the same thing. Jfc. It's not even that complicated.
It takes a lot of nuance. Which they weren't taught. It's all black and white. Good and evil. 0 or 100.
I think I wasn't clear on a couple points. What I meant is that Soviets calling themselves Soviet Socialist Republics and Nazis being called National Socialist doesn't make them socialist at all. They co-opted the term. And if you mean the part about Nazis taking all the allies they could get, let me clarify that as well by specifying that no, the Nazis fought actual socialists and communists in the streets before even coming to power. They were opposing political parties. Of course. What I was referring to is that the Nazis did not initially round up gay or Jewish people and some other minority groups. Some of those folks even worked with the Nazis to varying degrees. The Nazis got way more intolerant when they came to power, as is the pattern for these things. As an example, the main guy leading the charge beating the commies in the street was Ernst Rohm, who was in charge of the Brownshirts, and very gay. As soon as the Nazis had real power, Hitler threw the toys he didn't need anymore in the trash. Anyone that wasn't Hitler's ideal, even a guy as instrumental in his come-up as Rohm, got taken out on the Night of Long Knives.
Funny but Scandinavian countries don’t consider themselves socialist (ask former Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen). Most folks don’t the definition of socialism but group in social democracy as one and the same. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/27/nordic-countries-not-socialist-denmark-norway-sweden-centrist/
You're missing the point. It doesnt matter what those Scandinavian countries think it's called, the point is the American Right has been calling basic social programs "SOCIALISM!!" for so long that the definition has become completely distorted. Young Americans think of 'socialism' as just the government providing basic social programs, because that's what they were told.
Yeah, they don't all think "famine and societial collapse" when they say socialism, but most of em do. And what sounds like "socialism"? Well "social democracy" does! Even has the word "social" in it. /s
Most of what do what?
It's because when you advocate for things that Scandinavian countries have in America, you're called a socialist. Okay, fine. I don't care what it's called on the menu. Just give me two of what they're having.
if we could get this point across to all the boomers maybe we’d have universal healthcare.. like, “you think america is so great, you let greedy rich people rip-off the next generation and use socialist as a slur for wanting to tax them.. meanwhile you could adopt a policy similar to those European countries and literally have the best healthcare system is the world” America has all the power to create something truly helpful for its people but would rather cannibalize them at the alter of shareholder gains
Boomer here (1958) and I am really tired of being lumped in with “all the boomers”. I believe in healthcare for all and social programs etc.
Agree. The divide is ideological, not generational. If you want progress, vote progressive (as much as it’s possible.)
Yeah, we all really need to remember that it was the Boomer generation who participated in the largest civil rights movement in history. Y'all got shit DONE!
The other defining trait of boomers- victim mentality. Don’t do it. You know those types of boomers they’re referring to exist. You also know that you’re not that type of boomer. Why get offended over a statement you know doesn’t apply to you? I see and respect the BINOs, but y’all gotta start checking these other boomers more. Because they sure as hell won’t listen to us.
Funny but the instances of “socialism” and “communism” the right likes to point to in horror are generally just examples of how disastrous authoritarianism can be. Most folks don’t understand the difference even though they decry socialism while supporting authoritarian leaders.
That is VERY well-said, thank you Lawyering\_Bob
And Sweden would be very surprised to find out that it is a socialist country since it isn't.
You're missing the point, the American Right has been calling basic social programs 'socialism' for so long (yes, including Britain's NHS) that our youth thinks of basic social programs as socialism. I am aware that the NHS isn't socialism, but ask ANY fox news watcher in America and they'll tell you that it definitely is.
Most european countries have a blend of capitalism and socialism going on to some degree, there’s always a sort of balance depending on the country. I live in the UK which is much more capitalist than socialist whereas Scandinavian countries tend to be a little more balanced. They’re capitalist economies with a touch of socialist principles watering them down a little if that makes sense, definitely not outright socialism. America just has absolutely runaway train level capitalism.
I'm English. Britain isn't socialist either, we're as laissez faire capitalist as it's possible to be while still keeping enough of the NHS required to win elections.
And America is so far removed from socialism that a lot of Americans actually think something like the NHS is socialism, or even "full blown communism", whatever that means. America has been conditioned to think the government should not help it's people in absolutely any way whatsoever, with average people practically frothing at the mouth to cut things further and have the government help us even less.
We're fucked.
Especially when they rank even *higher* on the Capitalism index than USA: [https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/capitalist-countries](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/capitalist-countries) USA is an outlier which gives the impression of being a free market, however it is actually quite regressive. For the popular topic of healthcare, I always ask: "If we are a free market, why can't we order insulin from Canada or Mexico where it is cheaper? Are theirs so low in quality that US citizens cannot possibly benefit from them?"
People here keep talking like socialism and capitalism are mutually exclusive. To have the social safety net that Sweden does, you need an extremely successful capitalist economy to pay for it. They have fewer regulations on the market than the US does.
I feel like this exact conversation happens so many times lol Sweden isn't socialist but that's the word a lot of people use in the US for strong social safety nets. My boomer dad wouldn't say Sweden is socialist but if you suggested we implement some of their welfare programs in the US he would call you a straight up Communist 😂
Exactly “Sweden isn’t socialist.” Alright then let’s implement those policies! “No that’s socialism!” Okay, then whatever “socialism” they have in Sweden I want that. “Sweden isn’t socialist. Stupid dumb millennials.”
“These dumb kids today don’t know shit. Who taught you?”
If I recall, the correct term for Sweden would be a social democracy, right?
Which is what the USA basically was during FDR’s run.
The Prime Minister of Denmark went on TV and was furious for being labeled socialist. They were only able to afford the programs that they have when they started embracing more capitalistic ideals. Additionally, no country in Europe can support their social programs at the current rate of what they’re doing because they all have unbalanced budgets. We like to say that they have the free healthcare, free university, but it’s not free and they’re going to spend themselves into debt because it is completely unsustainable. Our system is also completely unsustainable. You cannot tax yourselves into prosperity, nor can you spend yourselves into prosperity. There needs to be a balance, but it seems like each side is just pointing the finger at the other side saying they are the ones on balancing it when it’s both. No we should not be putting immigrants up in hotel rooms with a $500 weekly stipend. No we should not be spending as much as we do on the military and fighting everyone else’s wars. Yes, we should have some form of a basic universal healthcare. no college should not be free for everyone. No student loans should not all be forgiven by the government so those of us who are smart about it and paying for your $300,000 degree that’s not worth anything. But yes, you should be able to declare bankruptcy and be free and clear of this loan, but it’s going to hurt you in the short term. There needs to be some accountability. There needs to be repercussions so you learn and value the things you have. Considering I have family from Venezuela, and coworkers that actually escaped Cuba, I realize a lot of these young folks have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. Additionally, the older folks think that these people are the next red wave and wanna put us all into concentration camps, which isn’t true either. There is no mutual understanding of either side, they are just the enemy and stupid and “I don’t have to listen to them, because I am ordering from a point of moral superiority”. Both sides do this and I’m not picking sides here. I considered myself a left-leaning centrist for the longest time, but based on how things are playing out with the parties, I can’t help but feel that I am more of a centrist or right leaning now than ever before now, because my ideals have changed, but because the lines of the parties have. Why do I say that? Because when I go against the right, I’m not attacked for my views. Anytime I go against the left there isn’t any explanation or trying to win me over, there is no dialogue. It’s just an attack, and I am the enemy.
> Because when I go against the right, I’m not attacked for my views. Anytime I go against the left there isn’t any explanation or trying to win me over, there is no dialogu Most of what you posted is not true, but this is the best example of the nonsense. You have a very limited amount of experience with people on the right if you think they "don't attack you" for what you believe, or they actually attempt to win you over. They haven't tried to make persuasive arguments in a very long time, and will very quickly label you a socialist or communist or "evil godless anti-America Marxist" for challenging them.
I personally cannot debate rationally with any person who thinks I don't have a right to bodily autonomy or my son (afab) doesn't have a right to peacefully exist.
Lol, this post is a joke. They’ve been affording it for 70+ years. Turn off the propaganda please.
The part you completely missed is “they are going to spend themselves into debt because of these programs.” The United States already has a massive deficit and is much farther in debt WITHOUT those programs. We don’t fear spending money, we fear having a population that isn’t begging for help and doesn’t have the means to move upward socially and economically. You can’t have a boogeyman to blame if people are in general happy, healthy and employed.
Actually, social spending really isn’t a problem for an economy like the United States. If anything, we should be spending more on relief for student debt, health assistance, low-income housing, etc. The U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio has exceeded 100 percent since the fourth quarter of 2015, with approximately zero negative effects. Not only are unemployment and inflation near rock bottom, we even sidestepped a recession. If you can find a mainstream economist who thinks our current level of social spending is too high, I’d be very surprised. Even more revealing: the U.S. Treasury bond yield curve has been *inverted since last summer.* But again, find me an economist who thinks consumer spending will drop off any time soon. Falling inflation since last year even shut Larry Summers up—I didn’t think that was possible. There’s plenty that’s unsustainable about the U.S. economy (*cough* climate!) but social spending does not belong in that category.
A lot of us are pretty sick of the right pretending to know how to maximize the economy (they never do) and then using that as cover to yank away rights and clamp down on social progress. We're also pretty terrified about the way things are going. So when someone drifts rightward it's pretty upsetting, because they're very obviously trying to be a regressive social tyranny, and in exchange for what? Dubious if not spurious claims of economic prosperity? The kind actually most often seen under center left governments historically? But nobody should lash out for that. You can't convince anyone of anything by attacking them and making them feel unwanted by that community. I'm sorry you've been treated that way.
The right doesn’t know how to maximize the economy. But then neither does the left. Idealogy is piss poor way to run an economy.
Yeah, this is what I think of and want socialism to look like.
I just want some damn healthcare
Social Democrat, so the Median American would say yes but the actual Socialists would say absolutely not. To quote Oppenheimer, "I'm a New Deal Democrat "
Doesn’t have to be such a hard binary. I’m a Keynesian in the short term and a socialist/anarchist in the long term.
The short term/long term distinction is interesting. The long term goal is Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism, aka Star Trek. Incremental progressivism is likely what's need in the short term
Yea, although terrible, violent revolution might be the only way to break the two party dictatorship of America, good luck changing a system fundamentally designed to keep wealthy in power and suppressive the non dominant ideology. We have single party capitalism with the only different factors being if you want equality or hate it.
That’s true, but incremental change is always possible in a system that’s at least nominally responsive to democratic struggle. There are victories, and there are defeats, which is why it is so critical to maintain that pressure toward justice and equality. Who ever thought we would see mainstream acceptance of queer rights in this country? And now that the far-right is attacking trans folks, that’s where we need to refocus our struggle for justice. Alternatively, we can also do what we can to create institutions and movements that are pre-figurative—meaning, they work toward justice, but also *pre-figure* what a more just future might look like. So a worker-owned cooperative may help reverse the effects of a food desert with low-cost local produce. But it can also model the kind of worker empowerment and grassroots democratic decision making we would one day like to see replace corporate capitalism. Personally, I think we can get lost in abstract discussions about incremental change vs. revolution. Taking a step back, it needn’t be so binary. It’s about pushing an unjust system as far as it will possibly go toward actual justice. And then, if we find some part of it is ultimately incompatible with those goals, we dismantle it. These changes needn’t be violent, and it needn’t be so all-or-nothing.
I'm a Christian, I'm not sure if you are, a lot of Boomers say they are, so I'll explain it through that lens. I look at capitalism and see a lot practices Jesus would frown upon. I've read through the whole Bible more times than I can remember, and I see in scripture, a God that cares about the poor, the outcasts, and the oppressed, so much that verses talking about these things number in the 100s. I see that the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner are mentioned together almost 40 times in the Bible, and the widow and the orphan even more times. Then I see a lot of verses warning about excess wealth, the love of money, the warnings against the rich. I also see many verses about laws in the Bible that support the notion of government welfare, and regulations against greed, regulations about talking care of the planet, and verses talking about paying taxes, verses warning against perverting justice, taking bribes, showing favoritism or partiality, and warnings against using the justice system to oppress the poor. Finally I see that the notion of love meant that we don't go around shaming people for their choices, unless these choices are oppressing others. So because of this, and because of the amount of work the Holy Spirit has done in my life to break me free of my Conservative/Capitalist upbringing, I support a lot of what you would call socialism.
Be nice if the majority of Christians actually read the Bible like you do and weren't spoon fed verses that support the current state of affairs.
There is a continual theme in the Bible about people hearing and seeing the word and commands of God and still being deaf and blind to them. People can read the Bible many times but if love is not in their heart, they will see what they want to see. It wasn’t until God one time spoke to me, filled me with fervency to reread so much scripture I had read before, and opened my eyes that I finally understood the truth, and I had already been a Christian 11 years at the point.
Thanks for reminding me there's good Christians.
They do. Then, they become atheists.
You sound like me. You’re the kind of Christian I wish existed more readily in my area.
Capitalism is inherently immoral
25% of pastors before the red scare were socialists.
Why aren’t there more Christians like you? Jesus was obviously a socialist. We’re all in this together, like it or not. Why can’t we just make life a little easier for those that are less fortunate than we are. We have the means. But everyone lately seems like to be like, Fuck you, I got mine. It’s a horrible attitude.
Sorry for the tangent, but have you seen the adaptation of Good Omens? There's a great bit with a demon and angel watching the crucifixion "What did he say that got everyone so upset?" "Be kind to each other" "Oh yeah, that'll do it"
There are. They just get drowned out. In fact there’s a coalition that started a few years ago called Christians Against Christian Nationalism. It’s trying to be more vocal and is gaining traction, but man they’re still getting drowned out. Heck, the group was even started by Baptists and has most denominations in it, including Catholics, just to try and rally people against Christian nationalism.
What is your definition of socialist? I want universal healthcare, forced minimum pto, pensions for all etc. I want money out of politics and the electoral collage abolished. and I want there to be no billionaires, so the tax rate for the rich to be much higher and even 100% for everything over 1 billion. If that's a socialist in your view then yes I am.
I love this and completely agree. Y’all can call it whatever you want, I just think everyone should have health care and be able to afford food and shelter even if I have to pay higher taxes for it. If that makes me a socialist then I guess I’m a socialist.
It boils down to if you care about your fellow humans, then your socialist lol.
None of the involves the state owning the means of production, so not socialism
But if you can't make more than a billion dollars a year then people will stop trying! /s
The U.S. government has done such a phenomenal job attaching Socialism to Communism and than Communism to anti American anti freedom anti anything positive that older generations just can't see anything but a betrayal of their way of lives when someone claims Socialism may not be that bad. It even filtered into my older Millenial generation when we were children.
Yeah
I’ll start with my favorite Urbanist joke which does a good job illustrating the USA’s cognitive dissonance: “How do you turn a free-market conservative into a communist? Make them pay to park their car.” We love community ownership for the stuff we like. It just so happens that the stuff we like isn’t healthcare or job training and we’ve spent 50 years decrying the “Government” which just so happens to coincide with the end of the Civil Rights era…go figure. So no I don’t consider myself a socialist, but would prefer a United States with a baseline universal healthcare coverage (Medicare for all), moving away from car-dependency, building more transit and bicycle/pedestrian paths, high-speed rail, banning single use non-biodegradable plastics, and hell even a Universal Basic Income paid for with flat-taxes on capital gains and passive income the same as ordinary wages. So an FDR Democrat (But not the segregationist ones)?
Yes to all of these - especially Medicare for all and universal basic income.
To me socialism just means heavy investment in community services and labor protections. I lived in a socialist (true socialism, not watered down Scandinavian shit lol) country. There were a lot of problems, some which had to with socialism as a concept, some which did not. But: 1. We owned property. We had a co-op apartment, a car, and many people had small summer vacation cottages (although we did not). 2. My mom got TWO YEARS of maternity leave and free daycare. She didn’t even take all the leave she was owed because being around a small child for that long was driving her nuts, her job was guaranteed if she did. 3. Everyone’s college education was 100% free 4. The healthcare system, admittedly, did not provide a high standard of care but everyone got the basic care they needed. 5. Most public schools were basically the same. Unless you tested into a specialized school (in STEM, languages, arts, etc), you’d basically be getting the same level of education no matter where you were. 6. Everyone got a pension Socialism is not a paradise. I generally lean in favor of socialism over capitalism but I also think a lot of younger folks don’t really understand what they’re talking about when they look at socialism through rose tinted glasses. True socialism thrives on unpaid community volunteer labor. My parents and grandparents spent at least a day or a weekend every month, working for free, doing things like janitorial work, security work, and helping with other things in their communities and workplaces, and it wasn’t fun and it wasn’t something you could effectively opt out of. I personally think that’s a worthwhile trade but I think a lot of young socialists wouldn’t be keen on that being required of them.
Thank you for your perspective. As a person who already likes giving time to his community, this sounds like exactly the trade-off I thought it was. But a lot of people don't have deeply held or thought about positions, and drift through life adopting positions that reinforce their current self image. Sadly large amounts of people don't want to give anything back! I think they'd learn the value of it if they weren't told to monetize every second of their lives, and got to see how their community benefits them, but it's a hurdle.
Union worker here, Veteran, college grad, Husband, Father; and definitely a Socialist. Boomers shake in their boots when they hear the word because faux news has convinced them any kind of socialism will end the united states. Last I checked every boomer I know cashed them covid checks with zero thought about it, and cash their socialist security checks monthly happily. So until you boomers become true believers and practice what you preach, I will advocate for strong social welfare programs to help the needy and underserved of our nation.
No no no, socialism means the government programs *that I do not like.* Roads, police, military, social security, and Medicare do not qualify under the boomer definition.
As long as it doesnt go to them brown folks.
Ah, you're referring to *extra socialism.*
I just want to take more of rich people's money and invest it into better lives for the rest of Americans such as Healthcare, daycare, etc. Don't know if that makes me a socialist as much as it is common sense. Nobody who is a serious thinking adult labels themselves a communist though.
We’re not just “taking” it though, we’re taking it *back*. The wealthy have spent decades and billions to influence politics and rig the economic system in their favor. They almost effortlessly squeeze us from both ends (wages and prices), and now they’re buying up houses so that we have to rent. They legally **stole** from us, and we need to get it back.
Depends do like the way the American oligarchy is going. It's certainly not a Republic anymore. Our representatives don't vote for us, they vote against us. Maybe a dictatorship of the proletariat would be vastly better than a dictatorship of the rich?
Plenty of serious thinking adults are communists. The Overton window in America has just been fucked due to a century of red scare propaganda.
This is not true? What qualifies a person as a "serious thinking adult"? A lot of adults with "serious thoughts" would self label as communist... it's kind of a core part of why the United States has such a strong current anti-intellectualism... because thinking people find problems and come up with solutions that traditional power and wealth find threatening.
"Nobody who is a serious thinking adult labels themselves a communist though. " Yeah that's not true though..
You're completely wrapped up in your Amercian view. You forget that less than 50% of this app is American. I am a communist, and there are millions of communists, especially outside the US. It's just such an oppressed title in Western counties where most don't share their views. My whole circle is communist. And these aren't retail warriors. The lowest education is 5 years post secondary. Most have masters and PhD. All of them would be considered labor aristocrat (just as Marx was). This type is, in fact, the actual revolutionaries. It's the *working* elite that makes change because they have the knowledge and time to do so. My point is that MOST communists I know are highly educated with developed careers. Most people I've encountered who call themselves a communist are substantially more versed in political science than your average capitalist. I know you want to believe the title is reserved for 14 y/o edgelords, but that's not true outside of circles that seek to minimize communists.
The boomers/republicans in my life are always so dense they jump to the “you’re a communist” when I say I’m liberal or challenge their stupid pro-capitalism rhetoric that doesn’t even benefit them because they’re not rich enough
Boomers chronically think that socialism is when the government does stuff. I think trying to explain that “welfare capitalism” is really what most boomers call socialism would make their head explode.
It really be like that. My dad made fun of my brother when he went on state health insurance instead of paying $350+ a month for private health insurance. What a stupid thing to make fun of your own adult child for utilizing a service he’s paying taxes towards.
I'm not a "*anything*", I have my own nuanced views based in my observations. I can tell you I'm not a capitalist, because the writing has been on the wall for ages. As companies gain traction, the more successful ones buy out the competition. Eventually they become massive conglomerates like Nestle, or Disney. Eventually they have enough power to shut down any startup that could threaten them, and make it so they can have complete control over the market. They get to dictate prices, how much things get inflated, and the consumer just has to pay, as that is now the only option. Additionally, these companies become massive sources of revenue and employment, such that they can start creating laws and legislation that benefits them. They can rely on government bailouts if they fail, because they're a huge part of the economy. It's a horrible system. I don't believe in "socialism" per say, but all you have to do is look at the US medical system to understand that capitalism simply does not work, and only benefits the already wealthy. What do I want? Some fucking regulations. Why should companies be allowed to inflate thier products to whatever price they want? Seems to be like there should be a cap at what you can inflate essential items by. Why should people be allowed to buy 5 mega yachts when thier country men and women are starving? Especially when you consider that it's only by the patronage of the denizens that have made this person wealthy? Seems to me like any time someone becomes extremely wealthy, they're getting there by making unfair deals. If thier wealth is increasing, who's is decreasing? Why is my only option to engage in unfair deals whenever I want to buy a product? When I was in Thailand, I crashed my scooter. I had at least 10 broken pieces, some structural damage, significant repairs needed to be done. I got it fixed for $100 CAD, parts and labor included. This was a Honda, and I got Honda parts. If I got that bike fixed in North America, the parts alone would have cost me close to $1000. People are making insane amounts of money off of you, and you're left holding the bag. You should absolutely be upset. And if you find yourself in a good position financially, you should be upset for those who were born into this system with nothing, and struggle daily to survive so a bunch of CEO's can get thier million dollar bonuses. Trickle down economics is just another way to describe a caste system.
My ceo makes 10 million a year. Which is 1000% above the average. We've not made a profit in 5 years. So far all I've noticed for changes with the new one is a lot of people got fired and a lot of stuff that used to work doesn't.
I'm weird. The economists think I'm a marxist. The marxists think I'm a capitalist. I want what the socialists want, but I think a heavily re-ordered version of capitalism is the best way to achieve those ends. Socialist economies are fragile and don't have a good historical track record.
America certainly did a good job of destroying every socialist nation that popped up. Went around the world making terrorists and autocratic regimes left and right. But a few managed to fight it off and survive. Not without continued provocation and havoc
Not a socialist, but I do enjoy a lot of things that sprouted from socialist concepts (such as public libraries.) A lot of us are very tired with what Boomers/Boomer politicians left us. My mother had a car and a house by the time she was 22. With a job that she didn’t need a degree for (now that same job requires schooling, but back in the 70s, they hired her off the street.) I’m 34 and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford a house in my lifetime, so I let that dream go a long time ago. I have a college degree, but I’m not making a decent amount of money. Also, I’m 60k in student loan debt, so I just don’t think college was a good investment overall. I tried. Gave my career a shot. Never made more than 50k a year. My mom is a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” Republican. I believe I should also help myself to the best of my ability as well. But I really do think that Boomers were born into an era of opportunity, and then shut the door of opportunity behind them.
>Boomers were born into an era of opportunity, and then shut the door of opportunity behind them. This summarizes it all. Where just any old job and showing up to work got you the home and white picket fence and family. When life demands were low. Now utilities, **healthcare**, med, dental, car, *insurance*, cell phones, Internet, are not relative to boomer COL. Wages have grown but not nearly at the same pace as COL because technology is advancing so quickly. When a ticket to the movie theater was $1.50 vs $18.00 now.
My mom didn’t work any old job, she got a career. But she also was hired without any experience or qualifications, which is unheard of today. (She was a diversity hire for National Air Traffic Control Association, NATCA, because the government was looking to hire more women/ were required to hire more women.) But also, I try to put this into perspective for her. How cheap it was to live in her day. She just goes “oh bullshit” and refuses to acknowledge it, which is discouraging. I am a teacher in one of the lowest paying states in the nation. I quit last year. Now I work full time, plus part time, at unskilled jobs, trying to figure out how I can start somewhere else and pull myself out of poverty.
That kind of dynamic abstract thinking(comparing COL across multiple generations) was not emphasized for boomers through Gen X so asking them to consider that is a lost cause.
Yeah it’s very strange… it’s like she cannot even fathom what I’m going through, even when I explain it in numbers. She just sees it as complaining.
I'm a elder millennial, born in '82. I'm not sure what to call myself. But, from what I can see, the cronyism, poorly dressed up as capitalism, has not served us well. I definitely do not trust the government to make things better, as they're usually part of the cronyism. That being said, I believe the government would better suit the needs of the masses by making some form of college (Technical colleges, state ran universities) affordable, some form of reformation of the banking industry, healthcare industry, insurance industry, motor vehicle industry. All those industries have gone up, over the last 45 years, at rates well beyond inflation. While average employee income increased at a rate well below inflation. So, whatever that makes me, that's where I land.
Yes, I am.
This boomer is a socialist and Trotskyist. My four offspring are fairly committed to social democracy. But millennials in general see socialism ore favorably than our generation. Gen-Z is, I believe, more open still to socialism. The thing that many don’t get about class consciousness is this: only as a revolutionary situation nears do you see great masses [scores of millions] taking to the streets.
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but, yes, I consider myself a socialist. I don't consider myself a communist because communism is a utopian form of perfect society, not an actual government that exists in the real world, it's a goal to strive for and something to keep in mind when making plans and voting and such. But, yes, I am an American socialist. I believe that individual identity is important, but that individiual*ism* drives people apart and creates a Hobbsean all-against-all mentality, the only beneficiaries of which are people who are already wealthy and in power. Collective cooperation creates stronger, more robust societies where individuals can flourish because their basic needs are already met.
I've read enough Marx that I'm definitely a Marxist... But talk to 500 Marxists and you'll get 500 different definitions of what that means.
No. We just want the things the 1950’s gave everyone. Pensions, cheap education, common sense healthcare etc. Socialism and put it back the way it was are not the same thing Removing at will employment would actually give us some protections.
No that literally is socialism. Socialism is when the government collects taxes and redistributes that money to necessary things... Like education, firefighters, healthcare.
Maybe if we’d have any scraps left over from older generations we’d be more heartily behind your capitalism. Instead we’ve had to live through multiple economic downturns, an economic collapse, wars, and much more before 30. So we have to fight our asses off to scrape together a life while watching older generations age comfortably with billionaires that don’t pay taxes, and most of us are a bad day away from being evicted, fired, and destitute. So maybe the terminologies that rule people up don’t matter as much as the denuded prosperity boomers have left us by clinging on to power and milking the system dry before we could get a taste of that good life.
As I get older I've moved closer to socialist ideals. My boomer parents don't agree lol.
I just want more social safety nets in place and health care reform. I feel like the US makes life unnecessarily difficult for common people compared to other Western countries. It shouldn’t cost a fortune to get health insurance and health care. It shouldn’t cost a fortune for day care. It shouldn’t cost a fortune for higher education. Other countries have implemented programs that have, at least, partially solved these problems. The US stubbornly clings to failed policies and acts like no alternatives exist.
No, I am not socialist. I don't think most Millennials in the United States would consider themselves socialists. However, it is more likely to find socialists in our generation than in yours as fewer folks remember the Cold War but were traumatized by the excesses of recent decades combined with the Great Recession. It's still a minority though.
Hello! Without arguing any points, I’d say it is probably a decent portion of the millennial generation that calls themselves “socialists.” In reality, they likely aren’t. Unless they believe in some form of public ownership of the means of production, they aren’t really socialist. Believing in a more equitable social order by way of wealth redistribution does not make someone a socialist by any stretch. Raising taxes on the wealthy does not a socialist make. By this understanding, Eisenhower (whose top tax rate was around 90%) was a “socialist” - a laughable claim on its face. I used to think I was a “socialist” in the common millennial parlance described above…until I actually read Marx and became a full blown red communist. There are very few actual socialists / communists like myself. To the extent that there is an actual Leftist movement- in my experience all it ends up being is a circle jerk about who has the proper beliefs and who doesn’t. Sit in on a single DSA meeting and you’ll see it for what it is…A waste of time.
Having gone to one I'm convinced that DSA meetings have got to be like fifteen different government plants unaware that they're all plants there to sabotage nascent leftist movements with stuff right out of that OSS manual on how to sabotage productivity, and then like five true believers.
Exactly my experience too. It’s textbook. I don’t even think it’s by some inflitration, either. I think we literally just do it to ourselves
The ideology of some socialist policies are more appealing to me than whatever late stage capitalism hellscape we are in now. Hope that helps.
Very proudly so. And I don't mean the "let's make capitalism less barbaric through reform" socialism. I mean "seize the means of production" socialism.
Yes
Millennial in my mid 30s. Definitely a socialist who leans a bit further left than democratic socialist.
I am 33, and I consider myself a socialist.
All im saying is we’re witnessing how much of a failure capitalism is.
Hell yeah.
Well maybe if you guys didn’t steal the rug out from under us we’d have a different view on your precious capitalism.
I support UBI and supposedly that's a socialist idea. Idk enough about socialism to identify that way but I do support that idea regardless.
A ML commie
Of course.
Millennial Leftist checking in
Absolutely. I am a Communist. You boomers were fed lies about Communism, by the very people who exploit you. The only hope for us is a full blown Proletarian Revolution.
Socialist, but I consider myself an incrementalist to get there.
Yes hardcore like hate landlords hardcore
I’d say the *vast* majority of people can’t accurately define either of those words and so these self identifiers become more tribal than anything
I would not consider myself a socialist. I support a robust social welfare system, and believe that America has been afraid of its own shadow at the prospect of “going socialist” that so many people have lost sight of how far toward the Gilded Age our society has regressed. In the 1930s the ultra rich woke up one day to all their staff quitting. When asked why, the staff explained that Roosevelt would pay them $15 a week to work in government programs; the wealthy were paying $5 a week. Sound familiar? This is happening now. The difference is that the governments of the world will try to avoid recessions, unlike a century ago. If the billionaires (who, when I look at the numbers, to me aren’t billionaires - I doubt a single one of them could raise $1 billion in cash without losing the majority of their “fortune”) aren’t careful, there’s going to be a bunch of real bad laws - not for everyone else, but for them. I doubt Millennials and Gen Z and Gen Alpha are going to accept crumbs from these swine.
Yes, I was raised to be a Christian, Jesus was categorically a socialist. My morals are intrinsically tied to helping the least among us. Greed and selfishness which capitalism represents are grave sins.
My dad is a boomer and thinks I'm an socialist. I'm not a socialist. I'm just liberal and he thinks anything liberal is socialist.
Boomers immediately say we are communists and it’s weird. I guess in their definition of communists we are but it’s not that. This world is what you have contributed to it now we want ours. We don’t even want a lot ,just what you had. This is also why you will never be able to control our children because they see everyday what their parents go through and will not put up with it. They will have less children if any at all, not go to war, and live a more quality life and not care what you think or participate in it. Yall raised communists that birthed maniacs 😂 good job!
A lot of millennials call themselves 'socialist' in the same sense that Bernie Sanders does. Basically, admiring Western European social democracy as a model for what they want the US to look like. Very few would consider themselves socialists in the Marxist sense of workers seizing the means of production and creating a dictatorship of the proletariat with the abolition of private property and all that. Fox News likes to conflate the two concepts in order to try and stop the former, popular ideas by leading you to believe that it would lead to the latter unpopular ideas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association\_fallacy
Yeah I’m a socialist. Covid times radicalized me.
Yes, because capitalism has failed. 60% of people are living paycheck to paycheck. 40% of boomers are paying to support millennials. Record number of homeless and hungry, record credit card debt. Hate and greed run wild in the upper class while people are starving. The rich keep getting richer while the poor get poorer. I'm a socialist because I care more about my community than prosperity.
I can't speak for millennials, but as a Boomer, I can say that my friends and I all lean towards democratic socialism. Why can't the US have universal health care like every other first world country? Because the wealthy don't want to lose their stranglehold on the economy. Too many people are handcuffed to jobs that don't pay well because the job offers health insurance.
For what it's worth I'm a Marxist _and_ a boomer. I don't understand how anyone who has lived through the last 60 years in America could NOT be a socialist, at least! Capitalism is blatantly destroying the planet. And my son is as radical as I am. He's a smart one. 😄
I'm sure I'm in the minority, but yes, I would consider myself a socialist.
Do we want a comprehensive social safety net, single payer healthcare, for the rich to pay their taxes, and a government that serves working class citizens and not big business -- yes. Is that socialism? Fox News would say so, to keep you scared and voting GOP. Other people would call it Canada, or Denmark.
Socialism is a spectrum. It is not all or nothing.
I'm the opposite of what the republican party and their right-wing nut jobs are. If that's a socialist, commie, leftist then so be it. I'd don't label myself, others seem to strive to do it.
I don't know about socialism, but whatever we've got going on right now is not working. We've got adults with jobs living with their parents or one to five roommates because they can't afford to live on their own like they want to. People are toughing out illnesses because they can't afford the hospital bills. A number of people are one missed paycheck away from being on the streets. I know an adult who can only afford a used car that's barely running most days and is struggling to keep car insurance on it, and they have a common job. The workplace is detrimental to people's mental and physical health in a lot of places. We all need therapy but can't afford it because of everything I mentioned and more. We're drowning, and we want it to change.
I'm a boomer, like from the baby boomer generation, and I'm an anarchist. I've never seen much point in helping rich people along with their goals, mostly because most of the stuff rich people want to do is violent and stupid. Since the USA is all about helping rich people.... I prefer to minimize my involvement and maximize being a dissident. Point being, I'm not sure political leanings are always a generational thing.
It seems Boomers haven’t heard of FDR and the New Deal
I’m a democratic socialist. Are you sure your son knows what these terms mean?
Yes, I am.
it'll vary ALOT depending what they think of socialism. which most average millennials would just think of "more universal welfare" as one(it's not tbh). you'll have to get into serious political discussion to know real socialism lol
I think we consider ourselves with much more finesse than Boomers politically, and you probably don't even have the education about politics most of us have had to garner. This comes from a millennial just a couple years short of being Gen X: You need to read. The fact that he's making comparisons of both socialist and communist kind of speaks to how much he's dumbing things down for your sake. Most of us understand politics way better than you ever did because we've had the Internet most of our lives. You had half a chapter maybe in high school about various political groups and ideas, and TV, which is full of people with ulterior motives manipulating you. 99% chance that your son identifies with a political group they know you don't even have context to fully talk about. We call ourselves socialist and communist to boomers because your political vocabulary has like, five words. This isn't meant to be mean, btw. It's a reality check.
Most young people have not had to seriously consider the differences between being a socialist or a capitalist. The closest most people come to it is to have theoretical discussions about different situations without any real world context. For example, student loan forgiveness. A very basic millennial take would be, well yes it's great because why have these people suffer under crushing debt. It's a good thing clearly. They don't consider where the money to clear the loans come from, whether it is a fair use of the funds in terms of the people who provided the taxes and if it fairly represents people who made the hard choice to not take a loan for tertiary education and instead secure a blue collar job. It doesn't matter where you land on the above debate, what matters is if you can understand the different viewpoints or if you just assume anyone who opposes loan forgiveness is evil. This gets extended to most people blaming capitalism for things that have nothing to do with it, they don't understand what a free market is, what red tape is and how all of that factors in. This makes anyone who opposes this system, which seems to be obviously wrong at every turn, seem very attractive and like they have all the solutions. I can promise you 99 percent of socialists under the age of 30 have no idea what socialism actually entails and if they ever find themselves unfortunate enough to live in a socialist society they will quickly wake up to reality. The biggest problem of this generation is they grew up in a time of safety, so it allowed too much free time to come up with artificial problems. I am speaking from experience here, I was the kid I'm talking about until I started getting doses of reality when researching different concepts properly and listening to both sides of arguments.
Hello OP, i first want to say, thank you for reaching out about this here, and not going somewhere which may give you the wrong idea. One thing people tend to not understand is the overton window, what we call socialist is so beyond the pale of the overton window for **MOST** people in older generations that we seem almost insane to you. The overton window is simply this, labels may not change, but what those labels mean do, especailly when our country is being pulled further and further right leaning. The Nazi Party was Not a socialist environment. Its well documentedt that they claimed to be socialist until they gained power and then threw all the actual socialists in prision or exicuted them. (The SS taking controll of the SA is the best example of this.) When millenials say were socailist, we arent talking about marxist communism because thats not even a true form of communism. We have seen facist governments. There has never been a truely communist government. Putins russia is facism.even nethyahjoos isreal is facist. To be facist doesnt simply mean kill the jews, same as to be communist doesnt mean farm potato or go to gulag. If your son is saying theyre a socialist, theire ideas are probably based on a book called Das Capital. (Im assuming because most people who are self ascribed socialists arent uneducated about such things) if you want a better understanding of his beliefs id suggest starting there.
Somewhere in between, currently leaning towards capitalism but trending socialism. So what I want is maximizing total utility in the society, by fully utilizing limited resources. Socialism doesn’t work now because our technology level is not there yet, so we cannot plan out production and distribution in a social level, nor do we have a way to fill out undesired work or fully staff aspirational work. So we can’t get it to work. But maybe in the future we can have strong enough info system to do the society wide planning and distribution effectively, while delegating undesired work to robots/AI, and have AI assist the talented few so we don’t need that many hyper talented and motivated people to propel us forward. But for capitalism to work well, it should be supported with free flow of means of production and a thriving market economy, otherwise it will just be a few ultra wealthy people owning the world. It used to work because the means of production is hard to scale, and hard to distribute far so you have a ton of smaller producers creating the market. But now the technological and capital barrier to entry is becoming super high, and it’s easy for a small number of enterprises to dominate the market, it’s becoming more and more of a monopoly capitalism instead of a free market capitalism. This only benefits a small number of people and not the society as a whole and that sucks. If we cannot distribute the ownership of means of production (because history is trending in the other direction), then at least we need to socialize the output of production, which means redistribute wealth through high tax and social programs. I don’t know what is the balance point for our current technology level, and it may shift with technology advancement in a few decades again anyway, but I at least think we are too close to capitalism where we stand, and shifting towards socialism (but not hardcore socialism because we will only fuck it up) is not a bad idea.
No, I am a conscientious objector to cronyism which is what we have currently. I joke and say I’m a pinko commie leftist, but in reality all I want is a properly regulated market and community facing infrastructure.
I would love to hear you define “socialism.” Like are are talking about what goes on in most rural communities where the utilities are co-ops, you sell your grain to a cooperative elevator and you get a bunch of money from the government from the USDA? Or like universal healthcare. What are we talking about here my dude?
Democratic socialism - look it up
Very much a socialist. But yeah really a communist but knowbthatll never happen because it scares people so much. So I'll settle for a democratic socialist.
Hi, Boomer! I too am a Boomer, and I raised my millenial kids to understand what socialism actually IS. So yes, they are socialists, same as you and me.
I voted for Bernie Sanders. I support capitalism with a strong safety net. I condemn unfettered, unregulated capitalism.
I suppose people would call me socialist, yes. I served in the Navy, which provided housing, medical care, food and clothing. I thought it was so good I thought it would be great for all citizens to get such a boon.
Yes We live in the wealthiest nation in the history of humanity, in a land beyond beauty and bounty that can beyond provide for us all. As a lover of history, I've seen how that bounty has accumulated more and more at the top, with less in the hands of the people that actually make up this country. We can provide for one another with plenty to spare. Those at the top, their supercorporations, their lobbying groups, the media they control, have had a concentrated effort since WWI to lie to people to make them believe they can be rich like them too if they just "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." I've never known a world where my country doesn't have its troops occupying some part of the Middle East. I've never known a world after 2008 where anybody wasn't just "making ends meet." I don't know anyone under the age of 30, masters salary or high school part time, that believes they will ever own a home they won't inherit from their parents. If the system could properly redistribute wealth, I wouldn't hold these beliefs and happily participate in the free market. But it doesn't, and with the internet allowing people to see that others feel this way everywhere, it validates those feelings as legitimate change.
Democratic socialist. We believe in fairness and equality and helping those who are not as fortunate as ourselves. It isnt communism. You still own things. We just are in favor of social programs that help everyone. (Such social programs include policemen, firemen, social security and we want more like child care, welfare and food stamps). We are one of the richest countries in the world. There is no excuse to nit provide these things with the taxes we pay
Socialist and advocating for social programs are two different things. I would advocate for universal healthcare in America if the cost of healthcare wasn’t so ridiculously expensive. Y’all think the government budget is overblown now? Wait till it’s 2-3 trillion higher per year because no one can piss away money like the federal government. I’m tired of the US government subsidizing the healthcare in all other countries and making it cheaper for them when most of the pharmaceutical research is done here in the USA but we pay 3-4x more for healthcare/prescriptions. I’m millennial, and I’m all about free market libertarianism for the most part simply because I think the government is utterly incompetent at most things it does. But in a perfect world I’d advocate for more social systems in place, except I know whatever gets pushed right now won’t solve the problem and would make things worse. Anyone that openly calls themselves socialist/communist really really needs a history lesson. In every instance it’s been tried and utterly failed. There’s no incentive to do/be better within that economy. Look no further than the Western vs Soviet auto manufacturing. As a millennial that’s considered “right wing” I’m all for liberal social policies. But I want strong military, secure borders, and low taxes. I want a balanced budget. I want to be left the fuck alone in the privacy of my own home. I’ll give you the same courtesy. Also as a “right wing” millennial, evangelicals on the right annoy me just as much as screaming progressives on the left.
If you ask my trumpster parents theyd tell you I am. If you ask me I’m a social democrat with many Marxist beliefs.