What does the socialist utopia look like?

People often seem to point to the Scandinavian countries as good examples but to me they appear to be predominately capitalist countries just with a higher emphasis on social welfare.

Social Democracy.

To my mind a country should be run/managed/ administrated/ruled (choose your own) for the benefit of the population. I have no problem with capitalism as a monetary model (let’s face it we are all a bit/lot capitalist – nicer house/car/bike etc.) but measures need to be in place to protect the population as a whole, not just to benefit a small section.

Capitalism is awful but works really well for a small number of people. The same sort that **** up genuine attempts at socialism. The greedy who think the rules don’t apply. Hence why it forever goes around in circles.

Hell

OP – how would you define ‘ socialism’ and ‘socialist’?

It’s always helpful to be clear about what you’re asking.

With unlimited free energy, any member of the society can have almost anything they want. Therefore money loses all value as everyone has their needs met. There is no need for the socialist redistribution of wealth because everyone already has the things that wealth is needed for.

There is no socialism or capitalism.

So the world  in Star Trek is communist! Sounds reasonable to me. But why would an extraordinarily popular American movie/TV franchise depict an idealistic future world as communist?

Although the most important question of all is why hasn’t it provoked outrage for glorifying communism?

To answer my own question there is imo an inherent if subconscious belief of the superiority of communism over other social orders.

It (capitalism) bounces back pretty well on its own. If enough people feel they benefit from the system then it keeps going. If socialism is so great why do so few people vote for it?

The problem with socialism for most people is the extent to which it seeks to interfere with people’s lives. If you are at the bottom of society they may feel like a price worth paying, but for a significant portion of society, the perception that capitalism works well enough even it it is imperfect, is the reason why socialism has been in retreat for decades.

Capitalism isn’t exactly doing well at the moment.

Yes. At the moment. It goes in cycles.
Yet even in this particular moment there doesn’t seem to be a countrywide outcry for a socialist future.

Dogs. Where do they stand in all this?

The problem with socialism for most people is the extent to which it seeks to interfere with people’s lives.

The problem is a cursory look at the most strong advocates of “capitalism” also show a strong habit of messing around with peoples lives.  If you want petty rule heaven just go the USA and deal with the local housing associations or dare to walk somewhere.

but for a significant portion of society, the perception that capitalism works well enough even it it is imperfect

Aside from it doesnt work well. Countries which have gone for unrestrained capitalism have failed just as severely as the communist dictatorships. Mixed economies are the most successful by far although admittedly they are under pressure at the moment by those who want unrestrained capitalism.

Aside from it doesnt work well. Countries which have gone for unrestrained capitalism have failed just as severely as the communist dictatorships

To be clear here, I am not advocating unrestrained capitalism, I’m not advocating anything at all in fact. Part of the problem is what people seek to define as ‘socialism’ & seeing as the op is talking about a ‘socialist utopia’ I’m kinda assuming that in this context we are talking about a full blown socialist state. That would be one governed by :

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

lot of assumptions there. I think ye olde definition of socialism as espoused by Marx has changed somewhat for most people. Quite well outlined in the first few posts of this thread. The original ideal can’t apply to countries like ours. We no longer produce anything to take control of.

Capitalism is definitely in trouble. The US, the paragon of capitalism ain’t looking too rosy. ImI believe a broadly socialist democracy would be best. One where people and planet over profit are the key goals. Never going to happen in my lifetime though.

Dogs. Where do they stand in all this?

Anywhere other than restaurants or on chairs I think. I’d take a benevolent dictatorship ruled by a Labrador.

I’d go for a border collie – always bringing everyone together although you might get nipped if you’re slow

A quick glance at any local facebook group or the daily mail comments page will show all but the most idealistic that socialism can now only commence through a benign dictatorship.

aren’t most of the comments in the daily mail comments the work of (hostile) state funded bots and trolls? Their aim is to stop us being content and to create divisions in society.

I’d take a benevolent dictatorship ruled by a Labrador.

but could you trust a Labrador to share the food?

” I’d take a benevolent dictatorship ruled by a Labrador.”

Too easily bribed…

Hard to say no to though.

I’d take a benevolent dictatorship ruled by a Labrador.

It’s a fact that Labs are genetically predisposed to need to keep eating, so long as there’s a plate in front of them with food in, they’ll let everyone else do whatever the hell they want!

People often seem to point to the Scandinavian countries as good examples but to me they appear to be predominately capitalist countries just with a higher emphasis on social welfare.

They aren’t socialist, they are liberal with regulated capitalism and welfare safety nets. The core idea of socialism is that the means of production should be communally owned – if you accept private ownership of capital, you are not a socialist.

Socialism is monocausal, or one-dimensional (as all ideologies are). Humans are seen as creative beings and being alienated from the means of production is seen as the cause of all injustice. The problem is that the true socialist economies all failed because the world is much more complex than monocausal models can account for. The democracies abandoned socialism in favour of regulated capitalism and the non-democratic socialist countries either adopted liberal democratic systems or became increasingly autocratic and ended up as economic basket cases.

So what we have now (illustrated by this thread) are people who have forgotten what socialism actually means and are really just liberals who favour regulation of markets and welfare safety nets, but assume that anyone who isn’t a free-market fundamentalist is a socialist. Politically, it’s a terrible mistake – people who actually remember how badly socialism turned out do not want to return to those days, even though they probably agree with the actual policies that today’s faux-socialists actually want.

Socialism, when done right in a democratic way, can help balance the economy and social welfare, like in Scandinavia, without meaning everything is owned by the government.

What people are referring to is a Social Democratic country rather than out and out socialism.

What it would look like is equality would be better, lots of things would be provided to all as basic things for living and disparity between wages would be much smaller.

That only works if everyone wants that which is the problem.  The theory is that once people were living in the society they would see it as better but that is difficult to sell to people who have lived under capitalism all their lives and were born into a selfish and greedy society.

It is the opposite of what the tories want yet there are a lot of tory thinking people so how do you get them to be part of it or do you just kill them off (see the dictator comments!)

There seems to be a good few people on here who would describe themselves as socialist

They may describe themselves as such but only one stwer is to my knowledge.   Most of the rest are centerists .

Socialism, when done right in a democratic way, can help balance the economy and social welfare, like in Scandinavia, without meaning everything is owned by the government.

The definition of socialism is the public ownership of the means of production. Scandinavia is not socialist, it’s capitalist, the means of production is privately owned.

Free sausage rolls and pies for everyone !!

Binnerism?

To me, socialism would mean mostly co-operative form of business. Every participant in a business owns an equal share of it, and has an equal say in running said business, and an equal share of the profits.

And co-operatives have a long history of working well in the real world, even when having to operate together with pure capitalist systems. In my country the largest groceries chain is a coop, with millions of members, my bank is a co-operative, as is my insurance company.

Owning an equal share of the business also gives people incentive to work for the good of the business – in co-operatives shareholder profit is not the driving force, but a coop exists to produce goods or services that the members / owners need, and the excess profits are shared equally between all members. No one can come and say “I own 51% of the shares so I call all the shots”.

In my dream society, co-operatives would be the only legal form for companies. No limited-liability corporations where the profit motive (aka cancer – limitless growth in a limited space) runs things. And a co-op is also not “publicly owned” – people are free to start their own together, for whatever they need done. They are collectively owned and democratic. Just yesterday I voted in an election of my groceries coop (“S-ryhmä” in Finland – 2.4 million members, consisting of 19 regional co-operatives, sales 46% of total in the sector) to select the people to run it.

In todays society, we do not really have democracy, because businesses are outside of the democratic process. They are in function dictatorships, where the largest owners have all the say, and where it is normal to not consider much anything besides bringing in as much money as possible to shareholders, overriding all social and environmental concerns. And workers have no say in how things are done.

As others have pointed out, there are lots of different definitions of socialism in play here and it’s even become a pejorative term for some.

I say we should forget about the idea of capitalism v socialism  and instead concentrate on creating a fairer, more equal society by whatever means works best.

I’m a big fan of John Rawls on this and I think his difference principle is particularly relevant here and now.

Roughly speaking it states that all differences in wealth and income, all social and economic inequalities, should work for the good of the least favoured in society.

It seems to me that as a society the UK took some pretty big steps in the right direction on this but that in recent years (particularly with all the austerity and public sector cuts) we’ve been moving the other way, back towards a system that benefits the most advantaged over the least.

As an example, consider the differences between an affluent family and a less affluent  one both of whom have a child with an identified educational need. There’s never been a time when both of those children would have had equal opportunities but 20 years ago the differences between their experiences and opportunities would have been less as the public sector services which the less affluent family relied upon were far better funded and staffed.

The definition of socialism is the public ownership of the means of production.

Not quite. The definition says that there should be public ownership or regulation of production.

Italics for emphasis.

I think that the last 40 years have shown that unregulated production (free-market economics) to also be problematic, such as inequality in the economy, public transport, the water utilities, energy production etc.

To me it seems that there is almost no area of the economy that doesn’t benefit us all better by at least being somewhat regulated.

As for what the Socialist Utopia looks like, almost any other Western European country, where the quality of life for most people seems to be better than ours.

perhaps socialism has a PR problem

It definitely does, more so in the US than here (although the Tories & Daily Mail etc. do keep trying to demonise it). In the US the right-wing media (owned by billionaires) has convinced a large swathe of the population that socialism means the government taking all your money and giving it to immigrants or drug addicts. It’s a bid sad that for the vast majority of them it would actually improve their lives.

So the world  in Star Trek is communist!

There’s always been loads of debate about the politics in Star Trek, and the general consensus is that Marxist Communism is the closest model. To each according to his needs, from each according to their ability seems to match Trek pretty closely. Anarchists don’t seem to like it on account of Starfleet being a quasi-military dictatorship but then if they didn’t exist earth would be overrun by the Klingons or Romulans so maybe the political theorists of the trek world concluded that anarchist pacifism wasn’t a good idea. Interesting also how different alien societies have different politics. The Ferengi are cutthroat capitalists living by the rules of acquisition. The Vulcans are something of a scientific/engineering dictatorship who prize cultural purity (like China I guess), and the Klingons power crazed militarists like the wartime Japanese.  I also never got my head around the interstellar economics of Star Trek. They have a currency in the form of Latinum but it’s not clear how they trade with other civilisations.

As for what the Socialist Utopia looks like, almost any other Western European country, where the quality of life for most people seems to be better than ours.

I think we need to be careful about this sort of assumption. Other countries are better in some ways and worse in others. The grass isn’t always greener.

Having said that, I had an interesting discussion recently with a French friend who lives in Scotland. He was raging about the roads being dug up and poorly re-laid by a private broadband company. The improved broadband was a paid for service from which they would obviously profit but the disruption was shared by all and the inevitable road repairs would be paid for by the council. He seemed to think things would be different in France and I have to say I share his anger at this sort of private profit, public cost system we have in the UK.

Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is a good example. The government made a positive intervention to legislate that the natural resources of the country should be for the benefit of the many not the few. Currently nearing two trillion dollars, will realistically never run out and will benefit every member of Norwegian society for the foreseeable future and is enshrined in law.

vs Selling BP to the highest bidder and using the cash within an electoral cycle.

It’s worth remembering that Marx wasn’t the first to espouse socialism, or attempt to define it. For example Robert Owen (the cooperative movement).

mint tea because all proper tea is theft

lower case post, anything else involves Capitalism; timba, ernielynch and tjagain are off to a good start 🙂

Socialism is complete fantasy and has never been a success anywhere ever. I have noticed that they’re very good at spending other peoples money, but rarely generate any.

Capitalism isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we have at the moment.

I have noticed that they’re very good at spending other peoples money, but rarely generate any.

Don’t even know where to start. Please explain how capitalists ‘generate’ money.

in the US “socialism” mean not going bankrupt if you get seriously ill as that’d be a curtailment of freedom.

I’d personally not get too bothered about semantics, but if you want, we can talk about socialist principles of say giving all kids a fair chance.

Sounds easy but has implications for childcare and child poverty, parenting, education standards and whether to have a two tier system for the wealthy, rules on inheritance etc etc. All these things lead to policy decisions and implementation challenges – the how you do it – and sooo much opportunity for argument. And unlikely to be absolutes, lots of fuzzy lines

So yeah, socialist principles ->  neoliberal centrism on the politics threads.

Dogs are not very interested in redistribution.

it’s the best we have at the moment.

So we just need to wait?

The last labour govt wasn’t perfect in many ways but large parts of the vision were quite decent IMO.

Those with memories longer than a goldfish might remember the minimum wage (that the tories screamed would destroy the economy) and an NHS that actually worked for the most part. Sure Start is another initiative that was in the news recently (because its gutting by the tories had provably done so much harm). I could go on, but those with closed minds wouldn’t listen anyway.

Of course they could have done more, and iraq blah blah PFI waffle blether. As I said, it wasn’t all perfect, or even good. But it was certainly better than what went before, and unimaginably better than what came after.

Socialism is complete fantasy and has never been a success anywhere ever. I have noticed that they’re very good at spending other peoples money, but rarely generate any.

Capitalism isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we have at the moment.

One huge reason why Socialism hasn’t worked in a lot of places (South/Central America) is because the US (capitalists) directly intervened and overthrew democratically elected left leaning governments and replaced them with right wing capitalist authoritarians because they didn’t want Socialism to succeed.

It’s funny that when people say capitalism is the best we have at the moment, they completely ignore the fact that at the current moment, capitalism doesn’t work. The only reason it keeps going is because the ruling classes capitalise the profits, but socialise the losses – see 2008 financial crisis, every time a private rail company goes bankrupt and gets a bailout from the government, energy company bailouts etc etc. If they were true capitalists, they’d let those companies fail because that’s what the free market determined.

Capitalism isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we have at the moment.

Yes, because the search for endless growth to further enrich a very small number of already insanely wealthy people is going so well for the planet. I can’t even begin to imagine a better option.

I’ve voting Labrador before it’s all too late.