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by astine 3559 days ago
"It's a bit of a straw man to present failed socialist-in-name-only states when critiquing socialism. If someone were to bring up the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea as an attempt to critique democracy you'd rightly scoff."

It's a bit of a straw man to present failed attempts at cold fusion when critiquing cold fusion itself.

Communist revolutionaries genuinely did attempt to implement socialism. The fact that so many failed should make one question the wisdom of attempting their approach. Perhaps the fatal flaw in socialism is only in it's revolutionary nature and a more conservative approach in it's implementation is warranted? Interesting hypothesis, but I'd like to see more data.

"Imagine you tried to have a capitalist revolution in feudal Europe. Can you imagine that would go very well? "

I dunno, I believe that's usually called the Industrial Revolution.
1 comments
currysoup_t 3559 days ago
Your point about referencing socialist revolutionaries is indeed part of what I'm going for, and is why I'm very reluctant to align myself with vanguardists, but we're not discussing the efficacy of revolutionary socialist parties. I meant precisely what I said, if a state is socialist-in-name-only, then how can you compare it to an actual socialist economic model. If these countries we're discussing ran a system of worker ownership, that I'm simply unaware of, then I'd love to be provided with some names so I can study their history.

European feudalism was over by about ~1500, the Industrial Revolution started in about ~1750, but it certainly makes for a cute soundbite. People on the left often cite the enclosures[1] in England as the beginnings of capitalism. Laws such as vagrancy[2] laws were in place to force people to work, land which was previously agreed to be communal was taken into private hands. If you consider this to be a 'capitalist revolution' then it could easily be argued

[1] This has a lot to do with the lefts definition of capitalism, which I recognise is not universal so enclosures being the origin of capitalism isn't an argument which is likely to be fruitful, especially on HN.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagrancy_(people)#United_Kingd...

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