• Move to lemm.ee
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    21 year ago

    At no point did I generalise. Capitalist society is a bourgeoise dictatorship. In socialist terms we don’t mean an individual rules, what we mean is that it is a class dictatorship. The ruling class is the bourgeoisie. They hold all the power, by design, so that they can implement the policies that benefit their class rule. The bourgeoise-democracy provides the outcomes that the bourgeoisie want, because it was built that way from the ground up when they took power during the various revolutions that ended feudalism and brought about the beginnings of capitalism.

    What socialists seek is revolutions led by the proletariat to overthrow the bourgeoisie, installing a dictatorship of the proletariat and thus socialist society. This new proletarian led society will then provide the outcomes that are most beneficial to the proletariat instead.

    These are all specific and absolute things. There is no generalisation here, I am being extremely specific, you just aren’t familiar with the terms or what they mean. If you have questions I am very willing to answer. If you need more specificity about what these classes are I recommend: https://reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/class. I wrote the first iteration of that page when I was a mod there. If you need more answers about what the institutional structure of socialism looks like I am happy to answer, you aren’t asking any questions though and you aren’t pointing out what you claim I am generalising on.

    • @Phlogiston
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      11 year ago

      This new proletarian led society will then provide the outcomes that are most beneficial to the proletariat instead.

      This is not very specific.

      What does this look like? Is it 100% communist, 100% socialism or…. what? Maybe some sort of regulated market with very high tax rates like during the “golden age” of capitalism (post world war 2).

      Personally, I think I’d enjoy a capitalist society with high tax rates and a strong safety net. Some sort of middle ground.

      • Move to lemm.ee
        link
        21 year ago

        The immediate new society is political socialism as soon as you kick out the bougies and redesign the institutions to ensure proletarian outcomes. I think what you’re asking is what it would economically look like, and that is a question that would differ depending on the national conditions. What I mean by that is that ultimately what is possible is determined by many factors, assuming that much of the world remains capitalist the newly socialist country would need to integrate into the global market in some way. This would likely mean taking over strategic national industries while leaving consumer sectors to private industry. You’d have a planned economy while maintaining enough for international investors to prevent isolation (like north korea). This would look something like Vietnam, Cuba or China’s combination of private and state industry.

        At a later date this would transition to something more and more socialist as and when the national conditions allow for it. Most likely as less and less of the world is capitalist.

        Personally, I think I’d enjoy a capitalist society with high tax rates and a strong safety net. Some sort of middle ground.

        That’s just a capitalist society ruled by the bourgeoisie, with welfare tacked on. We’re talking about what is necessary here to stop the world from boiling to death, that doesn’t achieve that.