Do you think people misunderstand what socialist democracies look like?
2026-05-15 06:39 UTC
Replies (12)
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@undrwater@lemmy.world 2026-05-15 06:52
Great discussion! First order of business; let’s define “socialism”, or “Democratic socialism”, because as a citizen of the US, this (these) terms have been bastardized beyond recognition. Second order of business; the term “left” is also muddled (certainly in my country, but also in the global context). Historically it’s those who are nationalist (don’t want external rule). Modern usage seems less concrete. I like the idea of MRP for staple goods. Are there any producers that make the cost of products below the MRP?
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@fatur0000new@lemmy.ml 2026-05-15 07:07
If you want to ask about socialism, lemmygrad.ml is the right place. Firstly, a subtle one, existence of MRP, maximum retail price, on everything you buy. Packet of lays, coke, medicine, everything has an MRP, over which you cannot sell the product for. Enforcement had been weak historically, but even then you would only see people selling above MRP in amusement parks or movie theatres, for everyday shopping, you are almost always likely to pay the MRP price. I was surprised to know that such law doesn’t exist in the west, though feel free to correct me. Second, India’s medicine patent laws. India has strict ‘non evergreening’ laws, which means a patent of a medicine cannot be extended unless you made the medicine better. Also government can give orders to bypass medicine patents if deemed necessary. Plenty of examples, but just these few I could think of. Infact MRP does not even exist in China, so in that policy, India is literally more left than China. Market interventionism (example: price control) isn’t leftism. Paternalistic conservatism is rightist ideology that uses market interventionism. Third the farming in India. A nice rabbithole to dig in, but I am picking one example, Amul, the most popular brand of milk in India, is less like a company and more like a co-operative society, where they co-operate with regional dairy farms. Most of the money made by selling the milk actually goes back to the farmers. Nice information. I am sorry if my english is bad.
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@Telemachus93@slrpnk.net 2026-05-15 07:18
Is what you describe really socialism though? Western leftists would probably call these policies social democracy. And yes, they make the life of people in that country better! Relatively high minimum wages, limits on prices (or price increases) for certain things (especially housing), mandatory paid sick leave, mandatory unemployment insurance, and so on are all things that some European countries have in some form or another. And yes, that makes most of our lives (I’m German) relatively great. However, most of the housing, factories and land are still owned by capitalists. They still exploit their workers and tenants, the policies only soften the blows. In recent decades, the concentration of capital in a few families’ hands has also skyrocketed here, which gives them political power (sometimes openly, sometimes covertly) and led to the erosion of many of these social democratic benefits. Also, a lot of the high social security in the west in the past century was only possible thanks to exploitation of people and nature in the global south. That’s why many leftists, at least in the west, don’t think that social democracy is enough in the long term. Many even see social democrats as stabilizing the fundamentally corrupt capitalist system by covering up that corruption. For most of us, socialism would mean that, at the very least, big corporations are owned and lead by the workers themselves. That could be cooperatives in markets (market socialism) or that could be some kind of planned economy (not only state central planning, there’s also proposals for somewhat or even totally distributed/decentralized schemes). The point here is that there are no more owners of productive forces, who don’t participate themselves in production, i.e. capitalists. The existence of a separate capitalist class with a lot of power and opposed to the workers is a common denominator for unneccessary misery in this world. Eliminating that class (that doesn’t mean eliminating the people, only expropriating them) would not magically solve all problems in the world, but it would make us freer to seek effective measures.
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@random_character_a@lemmy.world 2026-05-15 08:05
Most of fennoscandia (skandinavia + Finland) think of themselves as socialist democracies. Although political power of big companies and right wing parties they control has been eroding government ownership of large business, public education system and healthcare system for decades. Not sure if they are that anymore.
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@mitram@sopuli.xyz 2026-05-15 08:26
Socialism is defined by “the ownership of the means of production by the working class, in a transition to communism”. There’s some debate about whether cooperatives satisfy this criteria. What you seem to be describing is a social-democracy, where there’s still the common capitalist dynamics and class interest contradictions, but with the conflict reduced somewhat by appeasing the majority with a social safety net.
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@Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2026-05-15 09:19
India is not a socialist democracy, the working classes do not control the state and private ownership is the principal aspect of the economy. Modern socialist states include the PRC, Cuba, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, and partially Venezuela. Former socialist states include the USSR, and the various Warsaw Pact countries.
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@FireRetardant@lemmy.world 2026-05-15 11:04
Many people like Canada compared to the USA for its more socialist policies like healthcare and social safety nets. These systems aren’t perfect in Canada but are certainly better than not having them. The problem is we can’t call it socialism because many on our far right will twist anything with socialism included in it to equal literal nazis. A lot of those same far right also push for more police power, deportation, and overall a national “white Canadians” world view. Its fucking stupid.
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@folaht@lemmy.ml 2026-05-15 11:54
Socialist democracies look like capitalist democracies that fear socialist revolutions. Even the US was one until the 1970’s.
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@yermaw@sh.itjust.works 2026-05-15 16:57
Can we just have the bread and circuses back please? Common people weren’t talking like this when we could afford to do shit and lives were worth living. Fuck should I care what Indias socio-economic policies are? We’re plebs and proles we shouldn’t be concerned about shit like this. Im supposed to be learning to drive so I can take my sweetheart to the movies not learning and comparing different government styles.
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@comfy@lemmy.ml 2026-05-15 21:32
Any more examples of socialist democracies? Since you mentioned India, Kerala is does not currently have a socialist mode of production (that’s a specific way of saying, their economy isn’t socialism) but they have been led by socialist parties (parties which are trying to implement a socialist mode of production), and it shows.
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@daannii@lemmy.world 2026-05-17 01:04
Based on friends Ive met at university, who were from India, it sounds like your school systems are better designed as well. Also every Indian I’ve met (at university) has really high math skills compared to an average American college student. I even was trying to do this optics calculation for a project and couldn’t find any professor that was familiar with it but my friend from India who had a background in medical device engineering and psychology was like “oh yeah I’ve done those types of calculations” and she knew right away what I was trying to do. She told me that math is incorporated into multiple subjects even at a young grade level. It’s not studied isolated like it is in Western schools. She also told me that, at least in her school, spoken english was common so pretty much everyone knew how to speak it fluently. I can’t recall what part of India she is from specifically. And I also admit that graduate students like her, often come from more affluent families so maybe her experience isn’t average. But she implied that it was.
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@allywilson@lemmy.ml 2026-05-15 07:00
The UK has [RRP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_price) as an equivalent, but they address the problem differently really. MRP is stop price gauging I think, whereas RRP is there to incentivise retailers to offer discounts to lure more customers. We also have co-op's that run supermarkets and banks, but they compete against private companies. I think Europe is fairly social in its services (healthcare, pensions, etc.).