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inglor_czyesterday at 12:03 PM1 replyview on HN

" no socialist or communist nation has been allowed to exist without interference from the US through oppressive economic sanctions that would cripple and destroy any economy regardless of its economic system"

That is what COMECON was supposed to solve, but if you aggregate a heap of losers, you won't create a winning team.

"Socialism is not synonymous with Marxist-Leninist doctrine. It's a fairly simple core idea that has an infinite number of possible implementations, one of them being market socialism with worker cooperatives."

Of that infinite number, the violent Soviet-like version became the most widespread because it was the only one that was somewhat stable when implemented on a countrywide scale. That stability was bought by blood, of course.

No one is sabotaging worker cooperatives in Europe and lefty parties used to given them extra support, but they just don't seem to be able to grow well. The largest one is located in Basque Country and it is debatable if its size is partly caused by Basque nationalism, which is not a very socialist idea. Aside from that one, worker cooperatives of more than 1000 people are rare birds.

"The system has been teaching and conditioning people to do that for decades, but we should really be more conscious and stop doing that."

No one in the former socialist bloc will experiment with that quagmire again. For some reason, socialism is a catnip of intellectuals who continue to defend it, but real-world workers dislike it and defect from various attempts to build it at every opportunity.

We should stop trying to ride dead horses. Collective ownership of means of production on a macro scale is every bit as dead as divine right of kings to rule. There are still Curtis Yarvin types of intellectual who subscribe to the latter idea, but it is pining for the fjords. So is socialism.


Replies

dns_snekyesterday at 4:20 PM

> That is what COMECON was supposed to solve, but if you aggregate a heap of losers, you won't create a winning team.

What kind of disingenuous argument is that? Existence of COMECON doesn't neutralize the enormous disadvantage and economic pressure of having sanctioned imposed on you.

> Of that infinite number

I'm glad we agree that Soviet communism is not synonymous with "socialism".

> Aside from that one, worker cooperatives of more than 1000 people are rare birds.

You're applying pointless capitalist metrics to non-capitalist organizations and moralizing about how they don't live up to them.

> No one in the former socialist bloc will experiment with that quagmire again.

You're experimenting with socialist policies and values right now, you just don't want to call it by that name because of your weird fixation. Do public healthcare, transport, education, social security benefits ring any bells?

If you talked to people from ex-Yugoslavia, you'd know that many would be happy to return to that time.

> We should stop trying to ride dead horses.

We should stop declaring horses extinct when it's just your own horse that has died.