The differences between Socialism & Communism

[SunSeeker]

13. Bullshit. She does a terrible job of explaining what socialism and communism are, let alone their differences.

Instead, she resorts to silly propaganda, claiming socialism is "early stage" communism and that communism is the "most successful" system ever to exist. And all this will wearing the Soviet hammer and sickle on her beret. What a joke. I don't know who she is, but she is an idiot. How can you post this crap here?

First of all, let's get our definitions straight. Socialism is a political and economic system where the means of production, such as factories and land, are owned and controlled by the community as a whole, rather than by private individuals or corporations. Communism is a political and economic ideology that aims for a stateless, classless society with common ownership of the means of production and equal distribution of resources. It envisions a society where the state controls key resources like property, production, education, agriculture, and transportation. This system seeks to eliminate social classes and the concept of private property, ultimately aiming for a society where everyone shares the benefits of labor equally. 

There have been NO successful communist governments, nor any successful socialist governments. They either dissolved completely, like the USSR, or devolved into an oppressive government dictatorship with no respect for individual rights, like China, Cuba, or the USSR before it dissolved, or the former Yuogslavia before it fell apart.

What Zohran Mamdani and Bernie and AOC are talking about is not communism or even socialism. They are not advocating for the state to own all the means of production, nor are they saying there should be no private ownership of property. They describe themselves as democratic socialists, and what they are really talking about is regulated capitalism with a fully robust safety net like the Scandinavian countries. None of the Scandinavian countries are socialist, let alone communist.

Here's Bernie in his own words:

You can have Medicare for All without socialism. You can have a living wage and paid parental leave and childcare without socialism. And you can have it while still respecting voting rights, private property rights and a regulated capitalism. The Scandinavian countries, and indeed many European countries, are doing all of that right now. They're doing it by TAXING CAPITALISTS. It's not rocket science and it does not require a new system. It just requires more robust regulation of capitalism. And we've ALWAYS regulated capitalism.

It is unfortunate that AOC, Bernie and Mamdani have chosen to use the term democratic socialist to describe themselves, since they are not actual socialists. It allows the right to smear them as "socialists" while also allowing fringe lunatics like the USSR loving dishonest dipshit in the OP video to claim that socialism is not so bad if relatively mainstream politicians like AOC, Bernie and Mamdani use the "s word" to describe themselves.