Socialism debate with Erik Engheim

What is this

This is a copy of my entire exchange with Erik Engheim on socialism.

Original Post

If you are not a socialist already, then the Epstein files and what they uncover should seriously make you consider becoming one.

These files exposed how the billionaire class can corrupt, distort and manipulate everything through the whole democratic system. There are so many people here in high positions which have been used and manipulate through the wealth of Epstein.

He built a vast network of contacts that was enabled through his wealth. He built that wealth through sex trafficking of underaged girls. They were used for blackmail and leverage against other rich people, politicians and other of influence.

Socialism is the ideology that has always identify this deep problem. No other ideology recognizes this fundamental problem: That money is power. And money corrupts. Hence socialism deliberately seeks to reduce the power of the moneyed elite.

Liberalism for instance care nothing about this. Liberalism will just talk about democracy, individual rights etc. But liberalism in its analysis of society entirely ignores the corrupting power of extreme wealth concentration. It ignores how that wealth can be used to manipulate and subvert the system.

That is also why socialism is so profoundly misrepresented in the world. Ask yourself if you truly have the full story of socialism or if a profound wealthy elite has seen as its interest to use its wealth and influence to completely distort what socialism is about or even the history of it.

I was a big capitalism fanboy mocking socialism for years. It took me quite some time that I had the wrong story. And I believe many of you got the wrong idea still. For me the enlightenment was from reading the history of democratic socialism in Scandinavia and its impact.

And that is what I advice many of you to do. Stop reading about China and the Soviet Union to understand socialism. Yes, it is part of the story as well, but it gives a very skewed perspective. Instead start reading about socialism in democratic countries and its influence and results.

We must tackle the problem at its root.

My response (1)

No, you don't have to become a socialist because of the Epstein Files. You can easily implement policies against concentration of power and wealth inside a liberal democracy, it does not require associating with some of the most horrific regimes in human history.

Liberalism doesn't have an "analysis of society", it is a system of governance that recognizes different interests and provides a framework for resolving them. Unlike socialism, it doesn't assign all the blame in the world to rich people, but understands that different complex issues require a multitude of targeted measures to counteract them.

I don't understand why socialists don't just advocate for their goals inside the existing structure instead of pressuring everyone to convert to their belief system. We get that you have ideas, and policy focuses, just understand that people might disagree with them or have other priorities.

Erik response (1)

Thanks for engaging that is why I wanted to raise this issue, to create more awareness about what socialism actually is. Many people have swallowed the propaganda from the Epstein style billionaire class about what socialism is about. Of course they want to present socialism as some kind of Stalinist hellhole, because Socialism is directly criticizing capitalism.

So what I will say about your characterization is that it is misconception of what socialism is and what socialist advance. You don’t need to be a socialist but if you are going to criticize us socialists for what we advocate they at least know what we stand for.

We are not advocating Stalinism. Socialism is not a single thing. There are many schools of thought. The Soviet model game about by Communists, which is a branch of socialism seeking radical transformation through revolution. But that was a necessity in those countries for socialist as liberal democracy did not exit there.

It is unfair to attack socialist for not working within the framework of liberal democracy, when liberal democracy did not exit in those countries.

In the countries that have liberal democracy, socialists have always worked within that framework. Have had over 40 years of socialist governments here in Norway. All within the framework of liberal democracy. So your accusation that socialists don’t want to work within the framework of liberal democracy is simply. not true. We have done that all across Europe in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, France, Spain, Portugal, the UK an many other countries that have had socialist governments.

The question is not about whether we should work within liberal democracy or not. Socialist opposing that represent a minuscule fringe. All large socialist parties in the West today are firmly committed to liberal democracy and have so for most of their existence.

In other words given we are in a democracy, the question between socialism and liberalism has to do with what you see as overall goal of society and how you analyze society.

Liberalism as such only concerns itself with limiting poverty. Other than that it is an individualist ideology focused on liberty and individual freedoms. But at its heart liberalism is a pro-capitalism ideology. It is not an ideology opposed to the concentration of economic power.

So if you think that concentrating economic power within a small capitalist elite is bad and you think economic power should be democratized and more distributed among the common people and that capitalists should have a smaller role, then you are a socialist my friend. Then you are not a liberal.

Sure you may not like that label because socialism as an ideology has been tainted by the likes of Stalin and Mao. But lets us not forget the reign of terror by Robs Pierre in France after the revolution. Liberals can also taint their ideology. But we live in democracies so let us judge ideologies by how they manifest themselves here and not in underdeveloped third world dictatorships.

You can create liberalism concerned with democratization of the economy but all you are really doing is re-inventing democratic socialism under a different name. And what is the point? If you push that, sooner or later they will call you a socialist. It is better to simple reclaim and restore the label.

Democratic socialists in Europe have nothing to be ashamed of. They have promoted democracy and equality over many decades. They have never installed dictators.

My response (2)

feel like there are like 20 different debates on different meta-layers going on, so I'm going to try to structure my response.

The first, most important point is a working definition of socialist:

"So if you think that concentrating economic power within a small capitalist elite is bad and you think economic power should be democratized and more distributed among the common people and that capitalists should have a smaller role, then you are a socialist my friend. Then you are not a liberal."

I disagree strongly. Thinking that capitalism should not be unrestrained does not make you a socialist. My understanding of a socialism is a system that replaces capitalism, so free markets and private property, with an economy controlled by the state and public ownership of the means of production. You can easily advocate for more government involvement in the economy and social safety nets without meeting that definition. You are of course free to dispute my definition, but that's what I'm operating on.

The second claim is that socialism and liberal democracy are compatible. That is true, with some caveats. I fully agree that I can't criticize older socialist movements for not operating within the liberal democratic framework. In fact, I have much more sympathy for their critiques because they were very reasonable in their time period. My issue is that some movements haven't stopped advocating for radical change even though the situation has completely changed since then.

I also agree that there is a history of European "socialists" that have thrived under liberal democracy. I would argue that they do not fit my definition of socialism and are rejected by more radical parts of their movement (including major figures in media and public discourse).

That is because the more radical parts of the movement share my definition, and don't see a way to punch through a complete reshuffle of the economy and ownership in a democracy. There is no sufficient demand for that in the public, and there are too many guardrails in place to meaningfully fulfill that goal.

On the question of labels, I'd say that as people participating in public discourse, we should orient ourselves after major media figures. I concede the point about historical usages of the word, though I think that socialism has a far more recent and bloody connotation.

When we look to media figures though, especially in the US, the self described socialists use the label in the way that I do, and fervently oppose liberals that don't have that end goal in mind. People like Yanis Varoufakis, Hasan or Second Thought are very comfortable with saying that people that don't want to abolish capitalism are their enemies, in some cases even saying that in their ideal world, they would be sent to re-education camps. I'm sorry, but I just don't want to be near anything like that.

Erik Response (2)

People can of course use any definition for any words they like. This isn’t mathematics as such, but we when arguing with someone, you have to know their definition. If you oppose socialists, then it is kind of irrelevant how you define socialism because you are not the one advocating that system.

What matters in the end is how those advocating a system defines it. Since those of us who are socialists are the one who would be implementing it and not its detractors.

Those of us who are democratic socialists have a long political tradition here in Europe. We have held government power for many decades. We have part programs. We have pushed specific policies through.

And it simply isn’t what you describe it as. Sure you can claim that isn’t true socialism and “true” socialism needs to be some kind of Stalinist dystopia.

But that seems like a brilliant way of making it impossible for people to discuss politics if we are to redefine the actual policies and ideologies of our ideological opponents. We must judge ideologies by how they are actually formulated and practiced.

You seem to suggest we are again liberal democracy because we oppose capitalism. Again you hit on the problem that we simply do not define capitalism the way you do. So before rejecting our criticism of capitalism, at least know how we define capitalism.

Capitalism in the socialist tradition is not free market economics. While I am not a fan of Karl Marx at all, he basically coined the term capitalism and the way he described it was focused on how we went from a free market system of small business to a free market system of large enterprises controlled by capitalist class.

He was explicitly not calling the earlier system of small workshops, bakeries, family farms, shoemakers etc for capitalism. It is in the word itself “capital”. It is a system where capital has pre-eminence. Large factories are possible because someone controls large quantities of capital. These operations are possible more due to capital than skills of an earlier era workshops.

It is this system of a small elite of filthy rich people that is capitalism to socialists. Not the existence of markets. You may have heard of market socialism e.g.

A reason this is conflated is that socialists have historically not have a specific dedication to free market economics. We do not see free market as a goal onto itself The belief in the past was simply that planned economics could bring faster growth. And there was some logic to that. But you should not confuse a tool used by socialists as socialism itself.

Modern day socialist parties do not have this belief in planned economics. Technically speaking the Soviet Union was just a planned economics dictatorship. That is not the same as socialism. That socialist though planned economics was a good idea doesn’t mean that is socialism as a system.

The fundamental concern with socialist is democratization of the economy. That can happen in many ways. And you can see that at play in Nordic countries today as it is a hybrid approach. My native Norway was run by socialists for over 40 years. We are still a liberal democracy with market economics. If socialism had been state control of everything then Norway would have markets today and private property.

So you can define socialism whatever way you like, but your definition is simply not how socialism has been practiced in liberal democracies in the West. It just isn’t. And I don’t see why third world dictatorships should have monopoly on the definition of socialism. They weren’t even socialist. Only by their own propaganda, and capitalists in the West were happy to “agree”.

My response (3)

I didn't just "pick a definition", I argued my reasoning behind it. Perhaps I should have made it more clear, but I think that we (participants in public discourse) should use the term socialism to describe the preferred political and economic system of major media figures and pundits that call themselves socialist. It's fine to say that's stupid or wrong, but you completely bypassed that.

I already agreed with you about democratic socialists having a record of respecting liberal democracy in Europe, but I clarified that I don't think that matters because they aren't regarded as socialist by major media figures that identify as socialist. Also, if we judge ideologies by their implementation, we can't just leave out the huge number of socialist dictatorships because they are inconvenient.

At no point did I make it impossible to discuss politics by redefining terms, I simply offered my understanding of the term and even clarified that it's my attempt at a working definition which can be disputed, I didn't sneakily obfuscate for my own benefit.

I also wasn't saying that opposing capitalism is the same as opposing liberal democracy. I said that the abolition of capitalism cannot be implemented in the constraints of liberal democracy.

On the definition of capitalism, you are doing exactly what you accuse me of doing. You can't just define capitalism as the negative aspects and then pretend that everyone who opposes that is socialist. By that definition, all of Europe, the democratic party of the US and everyone who isn't a libertarian is socialist. That is not common usage of that word.

Planned economies are central to socialism because you need to have a grip on the distribution of goods to achieve final equality.

The democratization of the economy as I understand it is an abolition of private property in favor of public property.

On Norway, you are also supporting my perspective. As you describe, it is a hybrid system which means that it incorporates socialist policies into a capitalist economy. That is exactly what I'm advocating for: there is no need for complete socialism, you can just combine the best of both systems in a liberal democracy.

As a last point, I don't understand why you keep accusing me of being influenced by propaganda. Associating socialism with the countries that most loudly proclaim/ed they are/were socialist and who major socialists uphold as socialist success stories doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me.

Erik Response (3)

Definition of socialism

First of all the major pundits on socialism would not agree with your definition. The only ones agreeing would be capitalists, conservatives and libertarians.

Secondly it doesn't agree with the definition used by actual socialist parties. I think parties with actual party programs and representation in parliament should have significant weight to how you define socialism.

I am sorry but I don't think a random loud mouth on Twitter counts much compared to people actually elected into office on a platform of socialism.

Actual elected representatives in the US who are self-declared socialists such as AOC or Bernie Sanders would not agree with your definition of socialism. So even in the US your definition doesn't fly.

Yes, planned economics is important in socialism, but socialism as such is not defined by it. It is not a goal of socialsits that the government shall own and operate all business.

You cannot insist planned economics is socialism when no socialist party in parliament advocates that. For socialists it is much more akin to what China does, which means state control of key industries such as energy, banking, construction etc.

How China operates today is also very much how Norway operated under expicit socialist government in the postwar years. Government primarily controlled the key inputs such as energy and finance. Like China we had 5 year plans based on what industrial sector got financing, not based on actually running all those businesses.

But what makes China not really socialist is that the core idea is economic democracy and you cannot have any kind of democracy in a dictatorship. Workers have no say in China. In a sense China today operates in a way that is very similar to Imperial China. It also has extensive state operations in the government. But to be something beyond government running large businesses to socialism you need actual democratic control, otherwise the working class doesn't have any power.

Definitions of capitalism

I am defining capitalism much as Karl Marx did and what has been a long common understanding of capitalism in socialist circles.

But of course different schools of thought exist. Some socialists are more radical than others, just as some capitalists are more radical than others.

But if we are to take the core ideas that is believed across all schools of socialism it is that capitalism is about concentrated economic power within a small economic elite called the capitalists. But it also includes a definition that the modes of production is capital heavy.

Hence the historical workshop and family farm style economies could be free market but not capitalist.

The issue isn't that us socialists or I have invented som new crazy definition of capitalism. We are just sticking with the original definition.

Capitalism fanboys have instead shifted the definition of capitalism to what you use because it favors their ideology. Hence capitalism today get defined in the mainstream as simple market economics and private property.

By excluding the the wealth and power concentration from the definition, capitalists can more easily escape criticism.

But as socialists we cannot use this definition because it excludes the very thing we have always opposed. We could create a new word since the existing word has gotten redefined in the public, but I think the pragmatic choice is simply that we clarify what we mean by capitalism. You have to do that anyway with so many thing because so many words have different definitions used by different people.

I reject your claim that I have labled everyone socialist. The Democratic party does not have a core political goal to democratize the economy. Social liberalism is concerned with individual choice and freedom and has provisions for eradicating povery. They also want equal opportunities for all. That isn't socialism.

To be a socialist, shifting power away from capitalist to the people has to be a central goal. That means things like corporate board representation for workers. It means strategic industries nationalized or with controlling stake from government. It means promoting worker cooperatives, housing cooperatives etc. The Democratic party isn't doing any of this.

In socialism there is also a strong idea around common good and solidarity. It is a very comunal and group oriented ideology unlike liberalism which is all about the individual. So a liberal would means test social welfare. E.g. if you cannot afford school, health care, etc they may pay for you.

Socialism instead is more about the idea of everyone having the same core goods like healthcare, education etc available regardless of income. Not means tested. Even a billionaire would have access to the same public healthcare.

So I strongly reject the idea that I have somehow labled everyone a socialist. I am simply pointing out that if economic democracy is central to our ideological think then you are most likely a socialist rather than a liberal.

My response (4)

Definitions of Socialism

I guess we just disagree on major media figures advocating for socialism. For me it's obvious that the entire socialist media sphere from streamers like Hasan Piker, to content creators like Second Thought, to more mainstream people like Owen Jones and Yanis Varoufakis all use something similar to my definition.

If we go by parties, it gets far more complicated because you have the more radical ones with no political power and the pragmatic ones with political power. There are enormous differences between these that often get sidelined in such discussions.

The reason why I'm using this definition is that we are in the arena of public discourse, not policy-making. These are entirely different in terms of motives, incentives and purposes.

That ties into your point with Bernie and AOC. Both came in more radical and then started doing compromises to achieve political goals. Now large sections of the socialist movement in the US hate them because they have become too "establishment", and don't directly work on abolishing capitalism. This is exactly what I was describing previously.

When one takes the definition that I just defended using, I can only see very limited ways of not getting rid of free markets and no way to exclude the dismantling of private property.

I don’t really see the relevance of your point about China, but I do think it illustrates the problem. How do you force full economic democratization in a liberal democracy? You can’t, because of the guardrails that exist to protect individual rights and property. In this situation imposing the system forcefully becomes the only remaining option.

As I said previously, it is entirely possible to advocate for some socialist policies without fully endorsing the complete economic model behind it. Your own examples like Norway are mixed systems with a capitalist foundations such as free markets and private property. I don't understand why it is so hard to just abandon the maximalist model and thereby distance yourself from people literally advocating for reeducation camps.

Definitions of capitalism

Here, I'll cite yourself back to you:

"People can of course use any definition for any words they like. This isn’t mathematics as such, but we when arguing with someone, you have to know their definition. If you oppose socialists, then it is kind of irrelevant how you define socialism because you are not the one advocating that system."

Just replace socialists with capitalists and socialism with capitalism. Defining capitalism primarily as “concentrated economic power within a small elite” isn’t the essence of the system. It’s a tendency, not a core principle. By that definition, the Soviet Union, China, and even Norway could all count as capitalist because all have concentrated economic power in small groups. That makes the definition useless for actual analysis.

The thing that actually sets capitalism apart, is that it has private property as a core tenet. Unlike in feudalist societies where all the land and property belonged to the feudal lord to a hierarchy justified by god, you could now own your property and commodities through contracts.

It is also what sets it apart from socialism, where the "means of production" are owned by the public.

I can easily grant you that capitalism includes the centralization of wealth, but you can implement socialist-type policies inside that system that can counterbalance that.

You are doing exactly what you accuse capitalists of doing, you shift the definition of capitalism so that it excludes everything you like and includes everything you don't like. That is completely senseless, as it makes us unable to appreciate the genuine benefits of capitalism (of which there are many).

The reason why I told you that you included everyone in the label socialist is that you said:

Which is so broad that you could argue that most European countries and the Democrats are socialist. Most people are in favor of distributing economic power and limiting elites.

Now, you have concretized what you meant. I do agree that the Democratic party isn't socialist under that definition.

I guess one way to streamline the debate is to just ask whether private property would still exist under your socialism.

If yes, then I would just classify you as a social democrat advocating for progressive policy reform, not necessarily a socialist

If no, then you're antithetical to my preferred political project and I don't want to be in associated with your movement. My primary value is the sustenance of liberal democracy. I don't see socialism possibly co-existing with that value, as you can't force everyone to give up their private property forever without violating it's core principles.

Erik response (4)

The No True Scotsman Definition of Socialism

I think you engage in a no true Scotsman type argument here. You insist on very fringe definitions of socialism to fit with some kind of impossible definition you make, while totally ignoring socialism as it exist today across Europe.

And by "as it exists" I mean actual political parties, actual politicians, voters and representatives.

It seems utterly bizzare to me to claim some fringe is the true definition while parties with actual following and power are just dismissed as not being socialist.

I think you are in a Anglo echo chamber my friend. American social media personalities is all you see because the US has no actual socialist party in power and represented in US congress. The closest would be AOC and Bernie. But you are going "no true Scotsman" on them.

But the broader point is that your claims about media personalities just isn't true either. If you look at very influential and popular speakers on socialism in the US, you can look at Richard Wolff. And his definition of socialism is absolutely not what you define it as. It is more of what I describe.

That is someone who actually wrote books on socialism and has a PhD in economics. I honestly think if we sat down with these guys you think advocate for some kind of Soviet System, they would loudly reject your claim.

Again you can define socialism in whatever you you feel like. I cannot stop you. But I will claim that there is not a single high profile socialist with significant support that supports you. And I challenge you to find such a person and have him or her agree with you. I am willing to bet money you will not succeed doing that.

Also pundits are kind of irrelevant. When we actually go and vote, what matters is actual parties and their platforms. And there are no socialist parities in Europe that defines socialism as you do or have the goal you lay out for socialism.

So this is in a way pointless theoretical excercise.

Democratizing

How do you democratize an Economy within a liberal Democracy

How do you democratize an economy? It is kind of ironic that you describe creating more democracy as a form ot totalitarianism. Imagine describing democracy as forcing a dictatorship into democracy.

I think that framing is a bit silly.

Look we have lots of experience with this. You are basically saying sociaism and bad and unworkable because I don't know much of anything about it.

We have years of practice of this in many European countries.

Here are some ways of democratizing an economy:

Sectorial bargain systems with regulations to promote workers unions. Nordics is an example with high unionization rates within a sectorial bargain system where unions set minimum wages for individual industrial sectors.

Worker representation on corproate boards. In Germany they have had 50% of the board member selected by workers for many decades and it has been that way while Germany rose to a major dominant industrial nation. In other words not at odds with economic and technological development.

Various forms of cooperatives such as worker cooperatives. You have large worker cooperatives such as Mondrogan in Spain. In Israel you have the Kibbutzim which are examples of the same idea.

The other is housing cooperatives, consumer cooperatives and farming cooperatives. We have extensive experience with that in Norway. Norwegian farming is dominated by cooperatives. Perhaps the biggest supermarket chain is a cooperative.

Over half of Oslo has been built by housing cooperatives. All of this is possible within a market system, something you seem to think is impossible. Well we proven you wrong on that.

And something like 37% for the Norwegian stock exchange is owned by the government. Within banking, energy, defense and telecoms there is extensive state ownership, just as in China. But because the government is democratically elected these companies are indirectly controlled by the Norwegian voters as opposed to an unelected party elite as in China. Remember there is no socialism without democracy. Socialism is "party elite runs economy." Socialism is "workers control the economy." Ideally that control is direct, but it could also be indirect through state ownership but then you need democratically elected governments.

We are not advocating your fictional “socialism”

You keep arguing against socialism based on your definition, but what is the point of that? I am not advocating the thing you call socialism. I am advocating the socialism that actual socialist parties in Europe stand for.

We are not trying to end private property. And that is a typical misunderstanding of socialism. When socialists historically spoke of private property they did not mean stuff like your house and car. They meant actual large factories and similar. The idea was that workers controlled the factories together.

And even if I accepted your idea that somehow you cannot have private property, that doesn't stop markets. China got private property in 2007. By the definition you use for capitalism, I am pretty sure you would have called China in 2006 capitalist. Even I would have called China capitailst because it didn't have worker control of the means of production. But clearly it had many socialist inspired policies. But then again so does plenty of European countries.

I don't know who I am supposed to distance myself from. I made it clear that I am advocating the kind of socialism that is actually represented in parliament here. As I already said I am opposed to the thing you call socialism. Which btw I don't think anyone calling themselves socialist supports today.

Norwegian mixed Economy and the way forward for Socialism

Yes, Norway is a mixed economy with capitalists, markets, and varous socialist systems such as cooperatives, SOEs, sectorial bargain system for wage formation and worklife regulations, and workers on corproate boards participating in running corporations. In other words companies are not fully capitalist controlled here. Meaning Norway has a more democratic economy than say the US or the UK. But as a socialst my goal is of course further democratization of the economy. That means more cooperatives, higher worker representation on the boards, and more government control over key parts of the economy.

Most socialist today here talk about socialism as a direction rather than an end station. Your idea of socialism as a end station is really outdated. The way we think about it is a direction towards more people power. A society putting people more at the center and a lower emphasis on profits and capitalist power.

Nobody is advocatign re-education camps. That is absurd. There is no such tradition in democratic socialism. You argue based on imaginary fantasy.

You cannot ask me to defend somethign I don't support or that no socialist in democratic Europe has ever advocated.

Definitions of Capitalism and Socialism and On Private Property and Socialism

Definitions of Capitalism and Socialism

Yes, we do regard China, Norway etc as variants of capitalism. I would say China is far more capitalist than Norway as it has far more concentration of economic power.

But that is perhaps what you miss. No mainstream European socialist today would regard any country as socialist. Socialism in our view has never been achieved as such. But there are countries closer to socialism than others.

I would argue the Nordics is the closet real world example to socialism, in the sense that they are capitalist countries that have most democratized economies. Basically the more democratic your economy is the more socialist.

You keep reverting to highly theoratical forms of socialism. Yes, the original idea was the means of production is owned or controlled by the public. But that is an aspiration. Modern day socialist are pragmatists and reckognize that private property has to remain and even some degree of capitalists.

The point is rather that we want to see how far we can minimize this. We want to get the economy as democratic as pratically possible. Hence we define sociaism as a direction rather than a endpoint.

But that is no different from capitalism. Completely pure capitalism doesn't exist either. Everything isn't solved by market mechanisms. Everyhting isn't privately onwed and operated. Does that somehow stop a system from being capitalist? What matters is about what idea or organization dominates in the economy.

We want to take a system where private capital dominates to one where the people dominates. That doesn't mean a complete abolishment of private capital.

As to your final question. Do I support private property. Yes, and I would argue most socialists do.

On Private Property and Socialism

The question of private property is not binary. Most places you cannot do whatever you want with private property. You may not have minieral rights for instance or own all the water that falls on it e.g.

Here in Norway you cannot hinder someone from hiking, camping and enjoying nature even if it is your property. The rules are such that you can keep people away from your house. But you cannot keep people out of a larger forest, beach etc. That is a fundamental right akin to the 1st amendment in the US to Norwegians.

In other words the notion of private property is false. All land is owned by the state in principle. When you buy land you are really buying the right to dispose and utilize that land in spefici ways that the laws of the land allows you to. That could be farming, building a house, a factory or whatever.

As socialists we would simply not give as many liberties to do whatever you want with a land as conservative or libertarian would. E.g. if you run a larger corporation we will require you to share power with workers such as allowing them to vote in a number of the board representatives.

In Norway natural resources has significant restrictions and always has. A private company can only own a waterfall for a limited time period before ownership is reverted to the local government. If you drill for oil, then you do not own the oil extracted. That oil is government property. The government essentially allow you to keep a finders fee for that oil.

If you farm, you have to actualy live there. You cannot buy up and create vast factory farm estates. In this regard there are limitations on private property in Norway.

In other words as socialist we do not seek a straight out ban on priate propety and we never have. Owning your house, car etc is totally uncontroversial. But of course we want to see more socialized ownership. That means we want more housing cooperatives, consumer cooperatives, worker cooperatives etc.

It seems to me that you demand that us socialist are extremists with no pratical sense or we don't get to call ourselves socialists, but you don't make that demand of capitalists. Plenty of capitalits support public education, public sector poice and fire departments. Are they then not allowed to call themselves capitalists?

Why must socialism be something extreme and rigid while capitalism is allowed to be pragmatic and flexible?

My response (5)

No true Scotsman

I mean "No true Scotsman" isn't applicable here because my claims and definitions stand unchanged and consistent. At no point did I switch around to avoid your examples defeating my point. From the very beginning, I stated my definition and then just rolled with it.

It's your right to see my reasoning behind my definition of socialism as "utterly bizarre", but it is absolutely non-responsive.

Richard Wolff doesn't help your case either. In this random article I found with a cursory google search, he advocates for "abolishing the distinction between bosses and employees", so a private person could definitely not own a company. If mandated by the state (which I will presume), this would entail the rollback of core freedoms inside a liberal democracy.

Of course none of my or your examples would just agree that they are arguing for a Soviet system. But most right-wing extremist would also loudly reject any association with Nazi Germany, even though their end vision has unsettling similarities.

Pundits aren't irrelevant. They shape how the masses see political concepts. If I say that I'm a socialists in the arena of public discourse, in their head, I am in the same camp as Hasan, Second Thought and Yanis Varoufakis, and cosign their beliefs. I'm not in that camp, these people's beliefs elicit disgust reactions from me, and I don't want to further them.

This discussion was pointless because you tried to explain socialism to someone who has a concept of that word and couldn't back down an inch when he communicated that to you. Just to be clear, I have great biases against socialism, my parents lived in socialist Czechoslovakia, maybe I wasn't being understanding either, but you can't just overwrite someone's understanding of a concept while not engaging with their reasoning.

Democratizing

You're not responding to my question. Would there be private ownership in your socialism? I've already sketched out how I would respond to either answer, you're just filibustering in text somehow.

From flying over your text, you're a social democrat in my book. Good luck in advocating for your policies, I literally have no principal issue with them, I'm not an economist.

I'm approaching this from a lense of political movements and coalitions. I have already explained my rationale for my definition of socialism in that context, I hope I don't have to repeat myself. From that perspective, I can only give you some advice:

First, don't talk down to people who have direct or indirect experience with something that calls itself socialism. It comes off as incredibly obnoxious and as if you're trying to deny their perspective entirely.

Second, don't underestimate the chimeras in your camp. You can tell me that I'm hallucinating about reeducation camps all you want, but the biggest socialist political streamer does openly talk about that. If you think that has no impact, then I can once again only wish the best of luck to your movement.

Erik's Response (5)

Not back down? I accept that you have your idea of socialism. I cannot claim ownership of the word. But what I can say is what democratic socialists in the West stand for. What actual parties advocate.

You cannot demand that we stand for something different than we do just to placate your sensibilities.

I think the one who is not willing to back down inch here is you. I am not denying you your definition, but you are denying those of us that are actually socialists in the West to believe in what we actually believe.

You insist we must abolish all private property. That that the government must own everything etc. But that isn’t what we want. You cannot demand that we believe that.

And you are in an Anglo bubble by insisting on these YouTubers. These are not the people that define party programs of socialist parties across Europe. Voters are selecting parties based on those party programs and based on what those socialist representatives and party members express.

Listen I have a great analogy for you. In Norway in the 1970s there was a radical socialist party called AKP-ml. They seemed to be everywhere. In all the debates. Had you been around at that time, you would have claimed based on punditry that they were the actual face of socialism.

What do you think happened during elections? They got max 1% of the vote. Mainstream socialist parties in contrast had close to 50% of the vote in total. But you probably couldn’t tell if you just looked at the media and who was shouting the loudest.

And that is the issue you have here. You are defining socialism by 1% pundits while ignoring mainstream socialism as it exists. It is akin to claiming feminism is about cutting up men or something. Sure people who said stuff like that got a lot of media attention but that doesn’t mean that is what the majority of feminists believed.

As for the Czech Republic. That explain a lot of your hard nosed opinions I guess. Because your parents lived in a oppressive dictatorship you have a emotional investment in this debate. But I think it is unfair of you to insist on some horror version of socialism because your family lived in a system forced upon you by Stalin. How can you equate that with people freely electing socialists to power within a democracy?

I do not consider the Czech Republic to have ever been a socialist state. Because it fails the fundamental requirement: There was no worker control of the means of production. It was dictatorship. Those in power just called in socialist. Just as they called DDR a democracy. Why should anyone care what labels tyrants use?

I am advocating socialism in the Western European tradition, not the tyranny forced upon you by Stalin. Insisting that is true socialism is like insisting Nazi Germany was true capitalism.

My response (6)

My point was that you didn't, and still can't for a moment consider my reasoning behind my definition. I can't demand that of you, but it made it hard to continue in dialogue.

I didn't demand you stand for something different, I tried to locate you on an ideological map, and eventually succeeded. You are not a socialist under my definition, that's partly what I was trying to figure out.

Look man, I can't change you ignoring the political dangers of taking socialism as your label, I can only reiterate my previous plea. If you think that political pundits have no impact on political movements, I literally don't know how I could convince you otherwise.

The correct analogue to draw with feminism would be if there had large sections of the world calling themselves "feminist" and cutting up men, and now some of the largest feminist political figures were hyping these regimes up and talking about maybe doing that.

In fact, I have a better analogy. Do you think the MAGA movement is defined more by Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes or Curtis Yarvin and Yoram Hazony? Extended to socialism, you seem to be arguing the second case which I just find delusional.

If that won't change your mind, nothing will.

Erik's response (6)

You are wrong. I understand perfectly well your reasoning. I just don’t agree with it.

And I also think it is kind of arrogant. I say I am advocating socialism. I clarify what I mean by socialism. And I base my definition on it as it has been practiced here in Norway, specifically but the Nordic more generally. I base that on the policies pushed, the party programs etc.

Then you come along and say “No, you are not allowed to think that is socialism. This is the correct definition as defined by me.”

I am like excuse me? Why should I give a shit about what a dictatorship called socialism many decades ago? In a country I don’t live in. I must define it from my context which is a democratic nation where socialists are elected not installed as puppets by one of the worst tyrants of modern European history.

Next you are basically tell me, how we see socialism in Scandinavia. Like those of us actually part of real socialist parties is wrong and I must define is as some loud mouth anglo-saxon on Twitter? Do you not see how arrogant your perspective is?

That is like say capitalism must be defined as what some crazy anarcho capitalist says on Twitter. Who gives a shit? Social media by definition is all about extremism and ampllifyng extremists. As I said before. We had people like that in Norway in the 1970s. They represented a measly 1% of the electorate. You seem to think the loudest person in the room defined what everyone in that room is thinking.

Who defines MAGA? You cannot easily transfer from US to Europe in that way as the US doesn’t have party politics in the same way. I the US each representative tends to define their platform. It is very personalized.

But in Europe politicians follow the party program and platform. They don’t make their own personal variants.

But okay lets us roll with it. I would say MAGA is first and foremost define by MAGA politicians who have won seats. Those who win says something about what the MAGA voters actually want. Someone loud on YouTube doesn’t necessarily define that.

A reason it is difficult to compare is because the US has a two-party system, so that makes it impossible for each ideological grouping to create their own party to express their politics. Hence you end up with lots of movements within a party. It becomes a big tent which makes it much harder to pin down what a party stands for by simply looking at party platforms.

So I think a key problem here is that you are trying to force an American reality on Europe that just doesn’t fit. Politics just don’t work that way in Europe. And I am talking socialism from a European perspective. Particularly with a Nordic emphasis.

So trying to extrapolate from American punditry is kind of meaningless. Our political debate doesn’t work that way.

My response (7)

Dude, I'm European, why are you trying to explain European politics to me?

If you think that an entire media ecosystem of socialists with a huge amount of following is completely irrelevant, I don't know what to tell you. Like, the amount of people on social media is now higher than ever and it has enormous effects on politics. Politicians do huge social media tours before elections, even in Europe. Some Greek guy got elected to the European parliament simply by virtue of being a popular influencer. In the Czech Republic, a podcaster got the most preferential votes in the elections to the European parliament.

But I don't think that I'll now magically change your entire concept of socialism, so I'll leave it at that. My only hope is that you'll reconsider one day, and that this debate was more thought-provoking than ripping MAGA to shreds.