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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   28440 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025

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Let's talk socialism and the NYC mayoral race. Apparently the All-in podcast people think it's a sweeping wave that will drown out Progress with a capital P. London, Vienna, Chicago, and of course the California cities have already had socialist mayors for a while. Why not New York?

Honestly despite being a "conservative" I am broadly quite sympathetic to socialist arguments. I do think free markets actually kind of suck, inasmuch as we can even have free markets. Personally I think free markets don't really exist when you take into account that power abhors a vacuum, but they are a fiction with extremely high utility to create material goods.

Anyway, socialism seems like a fair response to the complete ineptitude of our political class. It's weary writing and thinking about politics when even the best laid plans seem to inevitably just get ground down by the dumbest things. I can completely understand why young folks want to just socialize everything.

Not that I agree with them, but hey, sometimes I wish I were still naive enough to think socialism or any -ism could fix the ills of our society. I sadly am not that optimistic.

That being said, I don't think society is unfixable. I just think that political solutions are pointless. We need what has always been the core of strong societies - a culture that promotes and encourages personal virtue. Without that, you have nothing.

The upswing in "socialism"* of late is largely a reaction to the perceived failure of political systems to address socio-economic problems. In particular, the GFC, the failure of the ACA to address the capriciousness of the American healthcare system, climate change, and a general inability to hold economic elites to account for anti-social-but-legal behavior. The price of housing hasn't helped either.

Unfortunately, when people get mad, they often vote for stupid and/or self-destructive policies.

*I use scare quotes because to a large degree modern American socialism is simply a middle class left-populist movement. There are genuine exceptions, but when you press for policy details you'll generally find something that is not in any meaningful sense a break from the past 70 years of left-liberalism. A backlash against decades of "socialism is when the government does stuff" has greatly attenuated the negative connotations of the label.

And when you look under the hood, a lot of it is about laundering handouts to the middle class in the class sense, if not in the material sense. It’s downstream of the class entitlement to a middle class lifestyle without much hard work, from holding a college degree.

Don’t get me wrong, lots of people do this too. Notably seniors. But it is mathematically impossible for everyone to be entitled to an above average standard of living.

Yes and no. The GFC left a lot of college grads with a mountain of debt, short-circuited career prospects, and a sense that they'd been sold a bill of goods. But this sentiment is not limited to middle class dropouts. It is also widespread among the professionally successful. As has been noted, Mamdani did his best with upper middle class white people. These are not just career NGO types anxious to keep the taps open. They are lawyers, engineers, doctors, etc... They are the sorts of people you would expect to be most "pro-system", but they're not. They're increasingly skeptical of it.

Economic precarity is a factor - most are acutely aware of what falling off the white collar wagon would mean for their lifestyle - but the points of highest contention don't fit this pattern. Rather, you have a collapse of faith in the ability of US political systems to solve important problems in a just manner (if at all).

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘falling off the wagon’- they’re already doctors and lawyers(who, I’ll note, have from an objective perspective made large sacrifices to their standard of living to dwell in NYC, doctors in flyover live in mansions not apartments).

Maybe this is one of those things I don’t get and won’t get, like why neurotic strivers think they’re better than me without having the pedigree to back it up, or why people live together for five years without getting married.

Losing a white collar professional job at the wrong time can make it very hard to get back your career back on track. Far less of an issue for doctors than most, but most white collar jobs don't have the same level of stability.

Regardless, my point was the opposite: that by and large economic precarity doesn't explain the growth of left-wing populism amongst college grads. In many respects it is a mirror of Trumpism, being driven largely by cultural grievances around the distribution of prestige and a general lack of faith in the political system (albeit without quite the same degree of authoritarian propensities).

Maybe this is one of those things I don’t get and won’t get, like why neurotic strivers think they’re better than me without having the pedigree to back it up

Neurotic strivers don't think about you at all.

In many respects it is a mirror of Trumpism, being driven largely by cultural grievances around the distribution of prestige

But they have the prestige? What are these middle managers and lawyers expecting?

I think political solutions can encourage personal/political virtue. Imagine a really intense anti-corruption campaign, where high ranking people were actually given long prison sentences or executed for corruption? Wouldn't that work on the simple, clear level of 'cant commit crime if dead'? China has become less corrupt since the mid 2000s after pursuing this approach.

How does a culture become virtuous in the first place if not severe punishment crushing the bad elements? If the bottom-up anti-corruption from virtue angle isn't working, then one may as well try top-down. In the US this kind of approach is complicated because there are certain groups that are innately clannish and corrupt or so inclined in that direction that it's nigh-impossible to correct. I don't know why anyone expects West Africans to perform well in anything. You can look at West Africans in West Africa and uniformly it's a mess, regardless of history or laws (Liberia stands out here). You can look at West Africans in Haiti - standard West African demographics and outcomes but in the Western Hemisphere instead. And you can look at West Africans with a non-trivial amount of white admixture in the US, plus a constant inflow of white money - much less of a mess but still a mess. Certain parts of Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, even areas of Washington DC... these are not places one wants to be!

If you don't want a bloated, grossly inefficient, corrupt government, don't let them have any political power.

To clarify - 'them' in the last sentence means West Africans? Politically empowered West Africans means a bloated and corrupt government, you think?

Do you think the US should aim to disempower West Africans? What would that mean? Banning them from running for office? Banning them from voting?

The US can clearly do fine with a modest number of West Africans dragging it down. But if you want first-world performance... If you want safe, efficient, orderly public transport... If you want a lower burden of progressive taxation and affirmative action... If you want crime at civilized, first world levels...

Then you need to address the problem at the root cause. If you let them have political power they'll cause all kinds of problems, they'll West Africanize the country to a lesser or greater extent based on their number, admixture and so on. Bloated and corrupt government is just one and not even the worst problem necessarily.

Consider a thought experiment - what if all the politicians and powerful officials in America had to be black? Give it 20 years for the effects to settle. What do you expect the outcome would be in terms of performance? Would it look more like a high performance country (Japan, Switzerland) or a low performance country like South Africa? Naturally the US has plenty of capable demographics to squander so the decline wouldn't be as severe as South Africa, whose murder rate is actually comparable to the death toll in the Russia-Ukraine war. Nevertheless, there are no white poor performance countries and no black high performance countries. Even on a city level one can observe that having politics dominated by blacks is not a recipe for good outcomes: Detroit.

Now consider the reverse. All the politicians and powerful officials in America have to be non-black. Give it 20 years. Would the outcome be better than the alternate? Is the US really losing much by banning them from office? All that would happen is some rioting, which can be quickly and easily put down with a little effort. West Africans are notoriously bad at fighting, disorganized and inaccurate marksmen. Of course it's a totally moot point since as bad as West Africans are at fighting, US whites are even less willing to force the issue.

I don't care how utopian your proposed society would supposedly be. I'm not going to let anyone take away my political rights under any circumstances. I won't be a subaltern or slave

there are no white poor performance countries

Argentina, Colombia, Moldova, Ukraine, are all poorer than Russia, which itself is not conventionally considered a ‘high performer’. Indeed, thé entirety of the Balkans generates little ambition in its denizens except to leave the Balkans, and the nice white parts of Latin America are still nothing to write home about.

Russia is a high performer, not the best but still clearly in the top category. The US was relying on their spacecraft for the ISS at one point (which Russia helped to make) plus they produce a wide range of advanced technological products - drones, jets, tanks, warships, nuclear reactors. There are little robots transporting food and parcels on the streets of Moscow. Ukraine is similarly a high performer, also possessing advanced industry, they exported an aircraft carrier to China back in the day.

The whole 'Nigeria with snow' argument is profoundly silly. How hard would it be for the US or any major power to wreck Nigeria? Is anyone really worried about Nigeria? How do Nigerian industries affect the world, what ramifications do decisions in Lagos have on anything? Now, how about Russia?

Colombia is not white, it's 50% mestizo, 26% white, the rest being black or indigenous according to estimates.

entirety of the Balkans

Not amazing but still pretty rich and capable all things considered. Serbia is fine, they manufacture cars and pharmaceuticals. The whole 'former Ottoman Empire' part of Europe is less developed and orderly than one might expect from Europeans but it's not a barren gulf of civilization. That's what happens if you have non-European input into a country, you get less European output.

Depends how you're defining poor performance. Poor relative to other European or East Asian countries, sure. Poor compared to subsaharan Africa? Not really. The average GDP per capita south of the Sahara is $1500. Ukraine is $5000

That’s why I noted ‘doing worse than Russia’ which is crappy by white country standards but able to attract immigration from truly bottom of the barrel countries.

I don’t think this is an exhaustive list, at all. Just that crappy middle income countries are totally a thing that comes in white versions, even if truly awful undeveloped places are mostly restricted to blacks(although Afghanistan is racially white).

The richest black countries (the Seychelles, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Kitts and Nevis) are wealthier than the poorest white countries (Ukraine, Kosovo, Iran, Moldova). The poorest country is Arab (South Sudan).

South Sudan is literally not Arab(thats regular Sudan, and the ethnic difference is the entire reason for the split). The poorest Arab country is Yemen.

Trinidad: Half the people are indian, half the gdp is oil and gas

Seychelles : island micronation(120k souls) living off tourism

St kitts: island femtonation (50k)

The poorest country is Arab (South Sudan).

The south sudan massacres, war and subsequent independence was fought between the muslim arab north and the mostly christian non-arab south. The name Sudan comes from the Arabic bilād as-sūdān or the "Land of the Blacks".

The poorest country is Arab (South Sudan).

South Sudan is black and Christian, not Arab or Muslim.

Nevertheless, there are no white poor performance countries and no black high performance countries.

Argentina?

Low murder rate, relatively rich. HDI is 'very high' what are you complaining about?

I admit that I didn't define the difference between low and high performance but I do strongly think there's a difference between more or less rich, developed countries and places (like South Africa) where the health minister might declare that HIV vaccines are some kind of imperialist plot, or where raping virgins to cure aids is widespread. You can have bad economic policies but still be high performance, all that means is that your abilities are hampered like taking an exam in a loud room. And accordingly Argentina is still decent and safe, they score OK on the test, could be better. The retarded students though, it doesn't matter if the room is loud or quiet, the results aren't going to be good.

I asked a second question as well. To repeat:

Do you think the US should aim to disempower West Africans? What would that mean? Banning them from running for office? Banning them from voting?

Okay, I've processed that you think that West Africans are inherently destructive to national health. Sure. So, you say, you must not "let them have political power". Can you translate that for me into a practical programme? What do you think the US should do?

Is the US really losing much by banning them from office? All that would happen is some rioting, which can be quickly and easily put down with a little effort. West Africans are notoriously bad at fighting, disorganized and inaccurate marksmen. Of course it's a totally moot point since as bad as West Africans are at fighting, US whites are even less willing to force the issue.

I already answered this. There's no practical program because you'd need a game-changing event for this to be possible. We may as well theorize about the balance of power between Earth and Mars or how to restore the Bourbon Dynasty to the throne of France. Maybe I think the Bourbons would be amazing for France. But I obviously have no practical idea to make this happen because it's impractical and would require an incredible turn of fortune to be even conceivable.

Really don't understand the point of trying to get these 'damning' confessions of wrongthink out of me.

I'm not angling for a confession of wrongthink - I'm angling to translate either feeling or theory into practicable action. A political platform naturally requires some sort of plan for implementation. That plan doesn't have to be constrained by the Overton Window. A Yarvin-esque plan to build a shadow regime and step into power when the inevitable crisis of legitimacy comes is a valid answer; likewise a postliberal-esque plan to slowly build intellectual credibility while developing a new consensus in the shell of the old is a valid answer.

But in this case, if I'm reading you rightly, what you've got is basically "West Africans are really bad, and there's nothing that can be done about it".

Okay, so, what's the practical takeaway from that? It can just be "well, the United States is screwed", at which point the next question is, "given that, what do you plan to do, or recommend that others do?" Prepare to leave the US, so that if/when continuing to live there is untenable, you can get out? Build some sort of resilient, presumably West-African-free, community in some part of the US and focus on local welfare? Something else entirely?

It's not unreasonable or searching for gotchas to probe someone as to the practical implications of their politics. I'm not arguing with you in this thread! I haven't contradicted you or challenged any of your points! I'm asking you to elaborate on their practical implications because I'm interested in where they lead you.

Well I have a vague theory that China will demolish the US military in Asia and create the actual conditions for real political change in the US and elsewhere (military defeat + huge economic crisis are a tried and tested combo), whereupon previously unthinkable options become possible.

But the problem with basing a theory on a hypothetical is that it feels like wishing, the infamous 'my ideology will be the one to arise from the ashes'. Trying to predict the world after an epoch-changing event is like trying to look inside or beyond a singularity. Maybe Trump gets the blame for fooling around and the old regime capitalizes it. Maybe the military gets blamed for losing and the US doubles down on democratic-socialist isolationism. Maybe there's a nuclear exchange. Maybe there's an AI singularity. Nothing is inevitable, even assuming a contested hypothetical.

Of course it'd be good to have more accurate, adaptive ideas flowing more widely. The US does not, in my opinion, need more Haitians, quite the opposite. The US shouldn't be spreading multicultural propaganda around the world, that's not a recipe for good outcomes. America isn't screwed, it's powerful and innovative in many areas. But it's running well below peak performance, there are fractures and internal weaknesses based on unsound ideas of human equality.

As for personal advice, well I've read Nightmare Vision's Rosedale thread https://x.com/GodCloseMyEyes/status/1414619671056297984 and 'Don't make the Black kids angry', it seems pretty clear that black parts of the US, London and elsewhere are dangerous and one shouldn't go there or live there. The author of the latter has seemingly been driven into this state of insanity where he just goes on and on, listing all these grievous attacks and perverse instances where white racism gets blamed for black misbehaviour, one after another after another.

How do you change this state of mind, where people speak in code to realtors because they're not allowed to ask about crime, because it's too racist and discriminatory? Who knows, it's bizarre and weird.

I'm not even American and so my theories about US politics are really limited in skin-in-the-game beyond having a lot of money tied up in US shares. Lots of cool stuff is happening in America, it's a country of contradictions.

But the problem with basing a theory on a hypothetical is that it feels like wishing, the infamous 'my ideology will be the one to arise from the ashes'. Trying to predict the world after an epoch-changing event is like trying to look inside or beyond a singularity.

Well, I think it's reasonable to take a position like, "the current order cannot or will not hold, massive changes are likely to come, therefore I/we should try to be resilient for now while being flexible to changing possibilities". If the political order is likely to radically change, in ways you cannot predict but which change the space of what's possible, then it makes sense to avoid investing too much in the current order while remaining open to the winds of change.

That said, oops, I had assumed you were American. Presumably you would need to adapt your specific concerns to your particular country.

Thank you for the serious answer, though. I appreciate it.

Sure but they're the best of the lot (still no STEM Nobels though). It's not that easy to get to the US from West Africa.

I don't deny that whites who voted for this guy are fools but there is at least potential for good things amongst a broad, non-cherrypicked white population. Build up a power base of elite West Africans at your peril, see what happens if they get you to open the floodgates.

There may be some actions being taken that contribute to affirming the success of West African immigrants, over and above similar things for other groups, especially since they are not held back by ADOS culture.

That being said, urban Whites are cooked, this has been a reactionary belief for a while.

I see it more as a rejection of Cuomo than any great socialist uprising.

My takeaway is that it's just over for white boomer Democrats. They can keep their current jobs but won't be able to win nominations for any new office.

Ezra Klein had some good articles talking about the progressive theory of power and how it causes problems for city administration.

These are more for background than supporting my argument.

https://archive.ph/E6p6W

https://archive.ph/jNDlC

Basically the problem is that progressives are completely dedicated to the idea that billionaires and greedy corporations are the ones causing all of the problems.

However at the city level the problems tend to stem from:

  • Disorderly elements. eg low level criminals like shoplifters, people with sever substance abuse problems, or severe mental illness.

  • Left wing organizations trying to tack on fees to everything to get paid.

Progressives are completely unable to acknowledge that either of those groups cause problems. The idea that left wing groups are just being greedy rent seekers goes against their whole world view.

So you get ideas like government owned grocery stores. During a past attempt to tackle "food deserts", in I think Detroit, a grocery store complained that shoplifting was putting them out of business. A city councillor told them that lossage was just part of the price of doing business in Detroit. So the grocery store shut down the location.

I don't think the solution is really any fundamental social change. The issue is that people on the center left like to play defence for the farther left and hide the crazier elements of their philosophy from the general public. The progressives think that the media hides their beliefs out of some conspiracy against them instead of an attempt to protect them.

There needs to be a documentary series on a major streaming service that, as fairly and calmly as possible, shows what progressive populists believe and what the problems with it are. Right now it's being taught in colleges as the absolute truth with no analysis.

There needs to be a documentary series on a major streaming service that, as fairly and calmly as possible, shows what progressive populists believe and what the problems with it are.

First time? Best case scenario is that this documentary series would be dismissed on sight as right-wing propaganda, worst case scenario is that people making it will have their lives ruined.

Politics is war by peaceful means, you don't win by "calmly explaining", and much more straightforward issues, that would cost a lot less to concede than this, have been a decade long slog of an uphill battle, you have no chance moving people on their fundamental beliefs.

That being said, I don't think society is unfixable. I just think that political solutions are pointless. We need what has always been the core of strong societies - a culture that promotes and encourages personal virtue. Without that, you have nothing.

This is why our politics is broken. The political machine has borged almost everything, and thus the other rival institutions have become rumps of what they would be in a healthy society. Education has been swallowed by the state in the form of mandated curriculum and state testing. Churches have little influence on culture as they have been mostly reduced to the few things that don’t touch politics and then trying to avoid the IRS crackdown for even broaching the subject of some politicized issue. Families are weakened because now that mom works 9 hours and commutes for 1 hour, her children are raised by daycares and the school system, with the parents as minor players in their kid’s lives mostly for a couple hours on weekdays and then on weekends. When politics is everywhere and running everything and no other institutions can match it, people hyperfixate on politics. When it’s not something most people deal with, nobody but us nerds care.

At the end of the day thriving cities need to produce strong middle class families if they want to remain democracies; otherwise it's all about looting.

Thats not democracy, it’s stability. And I agree. I don’t necessarily put democracy on a pedestal as though it’s automatically and axiomatically the best form of government you could have. It’s a social technology much like anything else humans have developed to create orderly societies. I think I’m personally much more interested in the meta part of the question of government— what produces the kind of society where the majority prosper, where the rule of law is more or less kept, and where people are generally left alone to enjoy life. A lot of times, that’s democracy. On the other hand, sometimes it’s something else. The high Roman Empire probably was a pretty good place to live, some of the better monarchies did quite well. On the other hand, there are lots of failed democratic societies as well.

Let's talk socialism and the NYC mayoral race

Why?

The primary reason Zohran won in the primary is Andrew Cuomo, the secondary reason that he won in the primary is anti-Zionism and the anti-idpol populist backlash that comes when outside forces try to tell local people who to vote for.

Andrew Cuomo was the candidate the establishment and the financial industry rallied behind in the primary, despite the fact he hasn't lived in the city in years, was covered in scandal on his way to resigning from the governor's mansion, and really didn't have a great record as governor to run on to begin with. There was no good reason for Andrew Cuomo to run for mayor of NYC.

Then the campaign begins and they go after Zohran for his supposed anti-Semitism. Twitter was filled with jokes about Israelis speaking out on the NYC mayoral race from their bunkers in Tel Aviv, and Andrew Cuomo swears allegiance to Israel. Zohran's enemies successfully made the most interesting and present aspect of the race the question of supporting or opposing Israel.

What this tells us is that accusations of racism on IdPol lines are not going to be enough, going forward, to decide elections. The antisemitism stick has been wielded so carelessly, that even cowardly urban Democrats are no longer cringing under the whip.

It tells us that accusations of antisemitism aren't enough to decide dem primaries. It doesn't tell us that racism isn't still a potent political accusation.

As ever, we won't really know the answer until after the question is irrelevant. But we saw the 2024 elections already.

Nit: when did our definition of socialism become so drowned-down? Is anything that's not free (free-as-in-captured) market capitalism now considered socialism? The only "means of production" that Mamdani is suggesting be owned publicly are a few grocery stores, no? That's hardly a "seizure" of means.

Is FoxNews blocking the term DemSoc from taking off in the US?

when did our definition of socialism become so drowned-down?

The second half of the 20th century. Expansion of the welfare state and government programs are attacked as socialist. The meaning gets diluted through the 90's after the Cold War. In the 2000s-2010s the meaning continues to change rapidly as progressives claim much of socialism for themselves.

Is FoxNews blocking the term DemSoc from taking off in the US?

I doubt it. Mamdani has not, as far as I know, gone to any great lengths to explain what a democratic socialist is or why he is not a socialist. Did Bernie even bother with this in his 2016 bid? That kind of distinction does nothing for Mamdani's campaign. The public does not have that demand for accuracy or nuance if it actually matters or is real. Plus, I suspect the well off progressive base of NYC quite likes voting for a socialist more than they do not-really-a-socialist. A diffuse contempt for capitalism is a popular meme that can be harnessed. No reason to put a damper on that for the sake of centuries old ideological accuracy.

I think if you're going to demand consistency here, then you should do so consistently. Are these capitalist policies he is proposing?

Mamdani has not, as far as I know, gone to any great lengths to explain what a democratic socialist is or why he is not a socialist.

Weird requirement imo. He at least distinguishes himself as DemSoc:

Zohran Kwame Mamdani is a New York State Assemblymember and democratic socialist running for Mayor.

It seems to be conservatives that omit the Democratic half of the moniker Democratic Socialist way more than progressives, but that's just my impression that prompted me to say "Is FoxNews blocking the term..."

I think if you're going to demand consistency here, then you should do so consistently. Are these capitalist policies he is proposing?

I mean, that's a bit of moving the goalposts, no? The argument is that his policies aren't strictly socialist, therefore his policies aren't evidence that he's secretly a socialist despite calling himself a democratic socialist. Why would his policies need to be capitalist in order for him to not be socialist? It's not as if all policies can be neatly placed a spectrum from socialist to capitalist - I don't even think that it's useful for a society to try to think of things in that dichotomy, but it sure is useful for propaganda if that's the way the discussion is forced.

Aside from that, can you name a policy that is purely capitalist? To get ahead of what your answer may be, I would argue that "deregulation" that is often cited as "capitalist" is simply rent-seeking cronyism. As Adam Smith said:

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords... love to reap where they never sowed.

  • Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter VI

Democratic Socialists are the vehicle for socialism in America. They develop relations with leftists, organize them, use them for elections, and seek to implement socialist policy. Solidarity is praxis.

Differentiating is not a requirement, it's a method to clarify ones own position from another related position. You want Democratic Socialists to stand on their own two legs in America and be less open to smears for bad(?) socialism. I might call it socialism lite or entry-level socialism. Another idea might be for an organization like the DSA -- which Mamdani contributes to and has used to seek power -- to police and toss out the revolutionaries. Truly be a Democratic Socialist organization instead of the place for leftists. I suspect neither of these things will occur. Mamdani is more interested in winning office than standing up for Democratic Socialism. He likely appreciates the fact Fox News will lambast him as a Socialist.

It seems to be conservatives that omit the Democratic half of the moniker Democratic Socialist way more than progressives

It is not unique to conservatives. Parents that object to teacher-student confidentiality are far right. Canadian truckers are far right. J.K. Rowling is far right. Elon Musk is far right and an extremist. All those individuals are probably Islamophobic and racist, too. Many words are unfair. I wish people would be more noble and curious, but this is politics. Being far right is bad. Being a socialist is bad. Being a leftist is bad. There are no goal posts or purity. It is what it is. Don't watch Fox News.

Mamdani has a campaign platform that lists some policy ideas. Several I consider to be bad ideas regardless of how socialist they are. They do appear to be broadly popular among leftists. He also doesn't appear to have an issue using propaganda. Cable news networks are imprecise in their opposition to Bad Ideas from Bad People. That they're imprecise due to a definitional standard that doesn't meet yours or mine is not of consequence. In Bizarro world, Mamdani is a Democratic National Socialist and there's a whole lot of focus on the National Socialist part. Some of it is fair, some not so much.

would argue that "deregulation" that is often cited as "capitalist" is simply rent-seeking cronyism

I share the understanding that, as a general rule of thumb, a more laissez-faire policy is more capitalism. Nuance can be found in every crevice.

The second half of the 20th century. Expansion of the welfare state and government programs are attacked as socialist.

Both sides are to blame here. Socialists were, and still are, marketing their economic system as "let's do what Denmark did".

Tony Blair, Nicolas Maduro, Pol Pot, and Castro walk into a bar...

To be clear, you think it is unfair to apply the label "socialist" to a guy who spoke at the Democratic Socialists of America about the "end goal of seizing the means of production"?

I was judging him by his campaign, not by a speech while he was still in his 20s that I wasn't even aware of. Does seem to be a nice gotcha, though. Kudos.

If he brings up any more seizure rhetoric I'll adjust my priors, but for now I'll file it away in "Young politician says something strategically embarrassing to signal being in-group".

It was only 4 years ago. That's hardly an eternity. Is there some evidence he has seen the errors of his ways?

Here's what you actually said

Nit: when did our definition of socialism become so drowned-down? Is anything that's not free (free-as-in-captured) market capitalism now considered socialism? The only "means of production" that Mamdani is suggesting be owned publicly are a few grocery stores, no? That's hardly a "seizure" of means.

Implication is that it's somehow unfair for people to be identifying this guy as a socialist. Given that he has called himself a socialist and he addressed a significant group dedicated to socialism where he quoted approvingly from the Communist Manifesto, seems like they got it right. At the very least, the burden of evidence is on the side that wants to claim he's seen the error of his ways.

If some people were able to determine this just from his campaign rhetoric, all the better for them! They made a correct prediction! The evidence is that their definition of socialism is accurate, not "drowned-down." You should be asking why you weren't able to see it was obvious to them.

If our core criterion for epithets was "one time said something in a speech" then we would be quite exhausted by the amount of "fascist", "Nazi", "communist", "socialist", etc. being thrown around.

Come to think of it, I am quite exhausted by the amount those terms are being thrown around. Maybe we shouldn't use "one time said something in a speech" as a criterion? Maybe we should judge people by what they're campaigning on, and their actions in office?

Edit:

he has called himself a socialist

Does he call himself a socialist now? I see "Democratic Socialist" on his webpage, which is distinct from other types of socialism (e.g. the flavors of authoritarian socialism that are the boogeymen).

You are misconstruing

Given that he has called himself a socialist and he addressed a significant group dedicated to socialism where he quoted approvingly from the Communist Manifesto, seems like they got it right.

as

one time said something in a speech

If Mamdani did actually did actually give a speech at an event for socialism, in which he described himself as a socialist, while approvingly quoting foundational socialist texts - that is very obviously not "one time said something in a speech".

"socialism" = "liberal policies I dislike, the more I dislike them, the more socialist they are"

"Far right" = "conservative groups I dislike, the more I dislike them, the more far right they are"

"Neoliberalism" = "things about capitalism I dislike, the more I dislike them, the more neoliberal they are"

Western political discourse is stupid and getting stupider, because we are becoming stupider

Socialist is also a bit of a reclaimed term. Republicans in the Bush era constantly argued against policies like universal healthcare by proclaiming them socialism as an argument ender. That resulted in people who wanted that and other policies claiming the label.

It’s stupid because nobody really bothers to argue policy (and probably never really did, unless you’re a policy nerd), they’re arguing on the basis of propaganda and vibes. Tge West and especially America are absolutely soaked in propaganda all day everyday and don’t even realize it. Name any issue, and people will be able to quote various talking points for what they want to be true, but won’t understand it. Get them off into the woods where there are no talking points or standard arguments available and people will absolutely sputter trying to come up with any sort of argument or explanation of what they actually want or how the policies they say they want will get them there.

But until people actually see themselves as embedded in the machine they won’t even understand that they understand nothing about the world. So they argue about it and spend a lot of time trying to convince others they’re right. And each set of propaganda has the same feel good stuff in them. My side is the educated side and if the other side wasn’t so uneducated and stupid, they’d agree. My side is the moral side, they’re evil.

I like to use neoliberal to refer to things about the establishment domestic policy I don't like, and the more I dislike them the more neoliberal they are. For the establishment foreign policy I use neoconservative.

Based

You can read the guy's program yourself

https://www.zohranfornyc.com/

rent freeze, state built housing, free public transport, state owned grocery stores, free childcare, - all of this paid by wishful thinking and unicorn dust. Close enough to socialism. His tax plan is for 10 billion from my understanding for his whole term mostly by the rich.

I really wish he will win. And I really wish he succeeds in implementing his program, just so that USA will see first hand the results of those policies.

I really wish he will win. And I really wish he succeeds in implementing his program, just so that USA will see first hand the results of those policies.

I thought this too at first, but let's be honest. It's really, really difficult to reason one's way into socialism, and that says all there is to say about the prospects of reasoning them out of it by adding one more stone to the mountain of its failures. We are not half a century from the collapse of the USSR and yet its example is not a factor in any of the socialist's consideration. Every failure can be decried as either not real communism or a result of treacherous interference from outside influences - we'll succeed if only we conquer those, too. I really don't think a bad example will teach anyone a lesson on this kind of thing. All they hear is "Free public transit" and they think "That sounds so cool!" without the slightest consideration of where the money comes from.

Close enough to socialism.

I guess this is the issue lol. Point-by-point, why none of this is particularly radical in most societies that people don't consider "socialist":

rent freeze

Rent freezes are controversial cart-before-the-horse band-aid solution to a problem that may or may not be caused NIMBYism. The proposed rent freeze is for rent-stabilized tenants, a specific class of asset. So hopefully you weren't trying to paint this as a city-wide rent freeze, which would never pass anyway. But also not specifically socialist, at all. Very much no means of production being seized.

state built housing

Hardly uniquely socialist. They used to be called "projects". Also controversial because it tends to have extremely high per-unit costs vs. market rent ROI, but that may or may not be attributable to not being able to just build housing, and more to needing to be state-of-the-art energy efficient, fully ADA compliant, up-to-code, etc. etc.

Better than "company towns" imo.

free public transport

Another exaggeration. The free part is for buses only. As someone who's taken a lot of public transit in many different cities, buses are frequently used by more blue collar / "barista" type workers, whereas light rail is more often used by professionals. It's a pragmatically progressive (in the sense of: tax those who can afford it) solution to the problem of rising fare prices, imo.

Also: no one bats an eye about free public roads. Damage to roads is quadratic to the weight of the load: we all subsidize the trailer truck shipping industry with our gas prices and taxes that build our roads. This lowers prices at every checkout, at the cost of an anemic rail system.

state owned grocery stores

Obviously an experimental / pilot project. Curious to see if there's a nice food distribution middle ground between "soup kitchen" and "Whole Foods" that a city government can occupy. An ideal implementation of this looks more like a 7-days-a-week farmer's market to me than a crumbling Aldi with yellowed fluorescent lights and grimey 90s tiles.

free childcare

Are grade school, middle school, and high school not "free childcare"?

The most ambitious and least achievable point in his agenda. To someone completely removed from the situation, I think expanding pre-K and early childhood programs is the more pragmatic way to go about effecting change - but that doesn't pop on a web page meant to excite people about an election campaign.

all of this paid by wishful thinking and unicorn dust.

Along with everything else the government has spent money on. At least these things are attempting to have a positive impact on working class families as opposed to ammunition for a genocide on the other side of the world.

You would better serve yourself and your arguments by affirming rather than downplaying their leftism. I'll also here not take the euphemism, socialism is communism's beachhead in capitalism.

Redistribution of wealth is communist. It cuts both ways, your list includes instances where the primary beneficiaries are corporations, the policies remain communist.

I guess this is the issue lol. Point-by-point, why none of this is particularly radical in most societies that people don't consider "socialist":

Communists, as masters of duplicitous rhetoric, have done an expectedly superb job propagandizing leftist policy objectives as "common sense" and especially as "not communist" or "not socialist." They are not considered radical today because it is the way of things, but those fears named in opposition to, e.g. compulsory education, have been justified. We can't go back, so there's not a real use in invoking either their past appraisal as radical or their current view as normal.

But also not specifically socialist, at all. Very much no means of production being seized.

I would agree directionally, in very strict terms. The concept of regulation is not inherently redistributive, and even in practice I don't know that many examples are redistributive, but they do often impair the market from competition and there corporations benefit.

Another exaggeration. The free part is for buses only. As someone who's taken a lot of public transit in many different cities, buses are frequently used by more blue collar / "barista" type workers, whereas light rail is more often used by professionals. It's a pragmatically progressive (in the sense of: tax those who can afford it) solution to the problem of rising fare prices, imo.

Strictly redistributive. Communist.

Obviously an experimental / pilot project. Curious to see if there's a nice food distribution middle ground between "soup kitchen" and "Whole Foods" that a city government can occupy. An ideal implementation of this looks more like a 7-days-a-week farmer's market to me than a crumbling Aldi with yellowed fluorescent lights and grimey 90s tiles.

The experiment was run for decades and it failed. Communist.

Are grade school, middle school, and high school not "free childcare"?

Compulsory education is indeed free childcare, and it is the perfect example of the myriad failures of ideology in communism:

  1. That inequality in outcome can be solved through money; here school funding
  2. That effective systems create effective people; here that good schools make good students
  3. That a bureaucracy can be trusted with considerable power; here that teachers are broadly competent and judicious
  4. That the system will fulfill its primary objective rather than be co-opted or brought to heel by superior agents; here a minor rehashing of #2, but specifically that the school exists to educate

Compulsory education as the public school doesn't actually exist to educate. It educates incidentally, just as a little less incidentally it incorporates students into the cult of the state. Its function is redistributing wealth to the bourgeoise so they don't have to either pay for childcare, accommodate flexible hours for their laborers, or worst of all, have to deal with a 50% smaller workforce and the massive leverage the laborers would gain in negotiations. All to say, the classic example of bad actors prospering from exploiting the system, here capitalism's maybe third-worst practice.

Where I would say today communist ideology has strength is cynicism toward the bourgeoise, where it fails is not showing enough, as even with the means of production seized, the bourgeoise are not made but born, agnostic to actually being of class "bourgeoise," and a communist system will inevitably be controlled by them. The best system accounts for their chronic existence and allows them to flourish in dozens of lanes of competition with each other, while exerting just enough regulation to prevent their exploitation of the commons. Communism reduces that competition to a single lane, and for that it will necessarily and always fail.

Nothing would help the working class more than our economy returning to one where only a single parent needs to draw a salary to support their spouse and children. To that end, anything Mamdani does that increases or keeps static the supply of labor will have harms outweighing all other benefits, and that's even granting that all of his other policies achieve their stated goals.

They are definitely leftist. But they are not that radical and not even close to abolishing capitalism and to be clear I think a few of these are horrible policy. Namely rent control and free buses but I don't consider these policies communist/socialist. They are common and not terribly radical bad urban policy.

The proposed rent freeze is for rent-stabilized tenants, a specific class of asset. So hopefully you weren't trying to paint this as a city-wide rent freeze, which would never pass anyway.

You're right, it's not all NYC apartments, just half of them.

I really wish he will win. And I really wish he succeeds in implementing his program, just so that USA will see first hand the results of those policies.

Doesn't work. First because he'll declare it worked even if it didn't, and the media will back him up. Second, because "the Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire"

Yes. Anything that can be spun as controversial means no revelation. Even something like bankruptcy can be spun as a cumulative problem that [current mayor] merely had set on their plate. Lag time also plays a role. Costs may only become become apparent after a term is over and he's off to Congress or wherever. Barring an Escape from New York level of catastrophe, then one should expect to fight free stuff in the immediate future forever regardless of results.

As an alternative to the expectation voters learn -- which voters are bad at -- they are pretty good at forgetting. They'll forget the last time it didn't work out, they'll forget why, but if a party wins enough times they might forget about bad ideas. Win so hard, so often, that the bad ideas become foreign. Then there is less voter recognition which creates an additional hurdle for advocates. NYC can still partly do this by embarrassing Mamdani in the general.

NYC can still partly do this by embarrassing Mamdani in the general.

I think the only way that happens is if Cuomo yields to Adams and Bloomberg (or someone of equally high stature) backs him. Which ain't going to happen.

Yeah. If the results were marked objectively it'd be one thing, but combination of the media and some thinktanks declaring a resounding success on the topic will just perpetuate more silliness.

He's at least said for the grocery stores that if they don't work they don't work, and he'll walk away

They won't work, so we'll see if he actually walks away

  1. Government creates problem
  2. People ask for more government to fix the problem.
  3. Problem gets worse

Many such cases.

Which problems are you referring to here?

Because the big NYC ones are:

Housing, which is entirely the fault of local voters using government to prevent more building. I blame the voters for this, not the politicians responding to their voters (selfish) wishes.

Public safety, voters hate all functional solutions to drugs/homeless because they feel "gross" (bleeding heart libtards hate enforcement, delusional rightoids hate proven solutions like SIS, no one wants to pay for more rehab centers).

Traffic/transit efficacy. See the huge backlash to congestion pricing, despite it being an economically sound and obviously beneficial policy. Also note that absolutely no one wants to give the MTA money despite it falling apart all the time (because preventative maintenance is expensive and boring). Admittedly it does seem like the MTA admin is a bit of a shitshow, so I guess we can blame government for that one. Although I've worked for large oligopolistic corporations and their admin was also an inefficient shitshow.

More broadly, in every western nation absolutely every citizen wants more gibs, and absolutely none of them want to pay more taxes to fund the gibs. So they mortgage the future instead.

I find it hard to blame government for all of this, as any politician who actually tried to take action to fix any of this would immediately lose their next election.

SIS

Sorry, but what is SIS? Neither a search for "SIS homelessness" nor "SIS NYC" turned up anything related.

Safe injection sites

They reduce overdoses and time wasted by paramedics/hospitals treating the same 100 people over and over again.

They clearly don't make less people use drugs.

Their biggest issue imo, is that the Venn diagram of people who implement SIS and people who also implement the more draconian measures for the un-savable drug addicts are two different circles. And then the awful addicts are left to ruin it for everyone.

Safe Injection Sites. And the provenness of their effectiveness is certainly disputed. As is that of enforcement, as the 80s drug war showed. And rehab is a joke.

I think it's pretty clear they reduce overdoses and the waste of paramedic/hospital resources.

It's also incredibly clear that alone they do nothing to actually fix anything. They're a Band-Aid for symptom management as we treat the underlying issue. Problem is, we don't bother to treat any of the underlying issues.

I think it's pretty clear they reduce overdoses...

They may reduce overdoses, but I think that's far from clear.

As a (sort of) counterexample, "...B.C. has implemented every harm-reduction program that has been proposed, from safe-injection sites to safe supply and effectively making all drugs legal. As each new measure has been introduced, drug overdose deaths have increased, except for a brief drop in 2019."

The toy model is that they would otherwise stop (often from from death), but instead they continue for longer before stopping (slightly less often from death), and the time they spend doing drugs is higher and therefore the social cost is higher as well.

I agree. SIS reduce overdoses, but don't make anyone stop doing drugs. And people who implement SIS also refuse to make people stop doing drugs.

We should have SIS, voluntary rehab, and institutions for those who can't stop themselves

So we don’t actually know that they reduce overdoses either. There is a plausible mechanism for them to do so, but there are also a few mechanisms in which they could not.

  1. It is possible that fatal overdoses are reduced, which would allow the individual in question to overdose in the future again.
  2. It is possible that SIS increases the number of people who get addicted to drugs (in BC in particular, there is an ongoing controversy where safe supply drugs are sold to get funds for fentanyl, which leads to more people having drugs than would otherwise; although I realize this is not quite the same thing as SIS, the SIS are responsible for the distribution of the safe supply, so I think the consequences apply here too).

I would also caution in believing that the three items in your list can exist simultaneously - although there is no physical reason that they cannot, there are political reasons they will not, and that is much harder to change.

More comments

The "underlying issues" are that your same 100 people want to keep taking drugs to the exclusion of everything else.

Yes and we should institutionalize them forever

  1. Government solves problem
  2. Rent seekers are inconvenienced, lobbyists are deployed
  3. Problem comes back with a vengeance

Many such cases.

That's...this is bait, right?

  • The government is usually the biggest rent-seeking entity on the block, growing its body of sinecures with every year and funding it through value extracted from the productive classes at gunpoint.
  • The government usually solves problems by implementing solutions that either don't work, or are hilariously cost-inefficient to the point where they could have done better by just distributing the money spent directly to the nominal beneficiaries. Which of course the government doesn't do, because the actually intended beneficiary is (some other part of) the government.
  • Government is corrupt and wasteful; the private sector gets the blame.

I mean, epistemic gap, the rightist and the leftist see two different movies on one screen, yadda yadda. I'm perfectly willing to admit that private sector actors are also self-interested and will bend and exploit the rules as far as they can, but come on. The government is so much bigger, more powerful and further-reaching, it has every opportunity to prove how well it can solve problems. Pointing fingers at filthy corporats and kulaks, as if they were responsible for every government failure ever, regardless of which country and/or system we're talking about...

I rarely come back to look back at comments, but the comment I replied to originally is also bait, when viewed from a different lens.

We're simply arguing about which problem is bigger, not whether either problem exists. Leaving my comment in response to phailyoor cuts back on the circlejerk that regulation is inherently bad. I mostly make comments like this when the circlejerk becomes unbearable.

London

Sadiq Khan is really more a typical Blairite Labour man than socialist. He's a lot more progressive on cultural matters, but that's par for the course for the wider Labour party these days.

He is also indescribably inept, but I'm not sure his chronic uselessness will open the door for an actual socialist to grab the mayorality of London. They already had that more than two decades ago, with full-blown Trotskyite Ken Livingstone.

Ken Livingstone, on the other hand, did self-identify as a socialist. Apart from some culture-war trolling, he mostly ran London as a pragmatic leftist - both his term as GLC leader (1981-1986) and his terms as Mayor (2000-2008) are primarily remembered for the improvements he made to public transport.

I believe the American term for this type of leadership is "sewer socialism", although by this time London's sewers were controlled by Thames Water (privatised in 1989, and now bust).

Same with Brandon Johnson in Chicago. The man has made enemies out of nearly every faction aside from the highly-controversial Chicago Teachers Union, who basically blessed him with the position.

Humorously enough, Chicago would've been put in a bizarro-world situation if the opponent had made it in (Paul Vallas), with the Fraternal Order of Police pulling the strings instead of the CTU.

I think either way Chicago's budget would've been fucked, which is the number one issue anyway.

Brandon Johnson in Chicago

I've been meaning to read up on him. Sounds like he's a total fucking disaster.

My general vibe is Chicago has been on a pretty good hot streak of terrible mayors.

He's a caricature of a man. Toxic masculinity, minus the overt misogyny. Nothing is ever his fault. No compromises. All decisions are "tough", but somehow don't solve any issues. Manages to piss everyone off every time he opens his mouth.

Probably the worst defeat progressivism has faced in the US since LaFollete lost to McCarthy.

But, Chicago is a powerful economic engine with a multitude of billion-dollar-per-year, both publicly-traded and privately-owned entities across multiple industries. Even a few decades of bad mayors won't stop it, maybe just slow it down. Pritzker seems to be helping at least, too.

Feels like Labour and the UK had their socialism experiment with Corbyn. Didn't last long nor did it do much good, but it was an interesting case study in just what modern day socialism is in practice:

A young and naïve base of support. An old guard of political weirdos who can't decide on if they are doing principled economic classism or third world brown nationalist ethnic warfare. A principled adherence to the former alienates the young, the rhetoric of the latter alienates the old.

It felt like an indictment of the entire left wing project. Insofar as leftism isn't enabling the worst excesses of capitalism, it hardly gets anything done. And what it can get done for its own good takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work, which is not very appealing to young voters who are having their brains bombed with the most impactful political extremism the algorithm can throw at them.

Road to hell is paved with good intentions. I am fairly sure that Marx's ideas didn't include people being boiled alive by NKVD but that is what we got in the end.

The problem with socialisms are two - people are selfish and tragedy of the commons. For the first the only socialist solution that works so far is to beat them into submission. For the second - there is no found cure yet for people not giving a shit for the common good under socialism.

I agree with you regarding your critiques of socialism, but

The problem with socialisms are two - people are selfish and tragedy of the commons.

This describes a huge % of issues the capitalist West is currently failing to deal with too

Not quite. The first part - selfishness is usually nudged to be somewhat aligned with the society's interests by the free market. Before Madison avenue takeover of the american economy companies were actually competing with producing better and cheaper items. We had similar boom with electronics in the 80s and 90s, game industry in 2000s. We have such with chinese phones and cars. All those people may have been passionate about their products, but they were passionate about money too.

The second part - yes there is also tragedy of the commons, but just by the nature of the system - the commons are smaller. So there is less tragedy to be had.

Madison avenue takeover

What does this mean?

In a free market the better product wins. In the last couple of decades the better marketed product wins. Which is not optimal for customers

Ahhh

That's an interesting concept. Any good examples? Why do you think the model of "the customer is a rational economic agent who buys the best things for themselves" has fallen apart recently? What changed in the marketing world to allow companies to leverage marketing to make up for sub-par products?

This is for an effortpost that I am not qualified to do. But I think it is combination of two things - women entering the workforce and being single - they just have different buying patterns than men. As every geek that has been forced to buy more expensive and with shittier spec laptop for his girlfriend just because this is such a nice shade of blue. And the other is that marketing stopped selling products, they started selling desire, status, dreams.

For the second - there is no found cure yet for people not giving a shit for the common good under socialism.

How about even more beatings?

Pretending that this is a serious suggestion:

It's not the quantity of the beatings, but their accuracy. You need to

  1. correctly identify asocials, and catch them in the act and
  2. beat them appropriately and publicly.

And this is difficult because

  1. It takes a lot of attention and fine-toothed combing to separate social citizens from asocial ones who have learned to pretend to be social where necessary. They will obfuscate their asocial activities, limit them to settings in which they aren't observed closely, and always keep a plausible excuse handy. After a few months and years of beatings, only the stupidest will be asocial where they can be caught.
  2. If the beatings are too piddly, people will not take them seriously. If the beatings are excessive, people will hate the goons dishing them out rather than the poor asocial who just got his teeth knocked out for taking one minute too long on the loo, which weakens the entire institution. If the beatings happen in secret so that nobody can judge whether they were appropriate, you end up with some kafkaeske nightmare state like the soviet union or Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Either way, you raise up class of violent state-sanctioned thugs who beat people up for not loving the state enough. It's not a winning recipe in the long-term.

It takes a lot of attention and fine-toothed combing to separate social citizens from asocial ones who have learned to pretend to be social where necessary. They will obfuscate their asocial activities, limit them to settings in which they aren't observed closely, and always keep a plausible excuse handy. After a few months and years of beatings, only the stupidest will be asocial where they can be caught.

This might be a problem after a while. It's not a problem right now. There's low-hanging fruit.

Right. Nobody said that all this is easy!

One of the most common jokes in the soviet bloc was - we pretend that we work, they pretend that they pay us. And neither GULAG or their equivalents in eastern europe were productive. And they beat up people.

A couple of things:

  1. The “we pretend that we work, they pretend that they pay us” Soviet joke specifically originates from the post-Stalin era of thaw and stagnation and for a good reason, as the GULAG no longer existed

  2. Marx was already convinced that revolutionary terror is necessary and described it as such

  3. As you stated, the commies noticed that beating up selfish people for their acts of selfishness will successfully de-normalize selfishness socially; in a similar manner, beating people up for not caring about the common good will compel them to care about it or else – it’ll work just as much; however, this assumes that the goons and their commanders will never lose their stomachs for beating people up all the time

I think @Botond173 is referencing the sarcastic quip about how "the beatings will continue until morale improves".

The Juche (kim whatever) guy said it straight face. And in a way the stick works ok up to a point. You can squeeze more productivity. But you rarely can squeeze passion, innovation, and creativity this way - so probably you are doomed to stagnation.

The problem with socialisms are two - people are selfish and tragedy of the commons. For the first the only socialist solution that works so far is to beat them into submission.

Hardly; this just optimizes for the selfish people getting control of the clubs. Marxism has never truly grokked that people's ideological statements and interpersonal solidarity can be faked or hacked.

socialism seems like a fair response to the complete ineptitude of our political class.

It's bizarre to me that you think the political class is inept, and you think the best response is to give them more power to screw things up in the economy.

Socialism at the federal level mostly means endlessly bloating the elder care apparatus, whereas socialism at the state + local level mostly means bribing connected nonprofits and unions to provide various crappy services that don't really work. Zohran's idea for city-run grocery stores is very dumb and will probably be dropped or completely overhauled after a few pilot programs demonstrate how silly it is.

Socialism at the federal level mostly means endlessly bloating the elder care apparatus

To be fair it also means doling out increasingly huge wodges of cash to professional activist organizations and favored political client groups.

Socialism at the federal level mostly means endlessly bloating the elder care apparatus, whereas socialism at the state + local level mostly means bribing connected nonprofits and unions to provide various crappy services that don't really work.

Neither of these things have anything to do with the ownership of the means of production.

I feel like we've fallen into the trap of using "socialism" as a shorthand for "stupid liberal policy I hate" in the same way the "far right" now means "conservative people with ideas I really dislike"

"Ownership of the means of production" is a niche academic definition that typically isn't used in real-world contexts. Example: Bernie Sanders is a "Democratic Socialist", and most people no matter whether they're for or against him think the label is reasonable. Yet most of Sanders' proposals have nothing to do with the means of production, and are rather just the standard "spend more on social services" like Medicare For All.

He was a speaker at the DSA, which stands for "Democratic Socialists of America."

Clip here: https://x.com/Osint613/status/1939657700553486380 Actual Quotes:

  • "The purpose is about this entire project, it’s not simply to raise class consciousness, but to win socialism"
  • "We have to continue to elect more socialists, and we have to ensure that we are unapologetic about our socialism"
  • "There are also other issues that we firmly believe in, whether it’s BDS or whether it’s the end goal of seizing the means of production"

Full long video at https://youtube.com/live/9K7HDuoJ0MQ

I'm not saying he isn't a socialist.

I'm saying "Socialism at the federal level mostly means endlessly , whereas socialism at the state + local level mostly means ."

Is not a very accurate way to describe socialism.

To add a similar thought, "bloating the elder care apparatus" is pretty much a bi-partisan issue in the West.

Going further, "bribing connected nonprofits and unions to provide various crappy services that don't really work" is very true for liberals, and so is the opposite "bribing connected companies to provide various crappy services that don't really work" for the conservative side.

It's bizarre to me that you think the political class is inept, and you think the best response is to give them more power to screw things up in the economy.

Oh I am not in favor of socialism. I said I could understand, not that I agreed. Socialism is a horrible idea, I have actually read history.

Mainstream leftism is just more power to the elites.

Populist leftism isn't. Opposition to the military industrial complex and the surveillance state would increase our freedom.

Sounds more like (possibly-left-)libertarianism than “populist leftism”, fam

I read this success as a more general rejection of the ruling elite than a specific left or right wing thing. It's New York so of course the populist candidate is going to be a socialist, but is this really any different than the rise of right wing populists in Europe in effect?

"you fucked this up, are insanely corrupt and we want literally anything but that" has been the nexus of pretty much all politics since 2016. All that's changing is that the people who reflexively vote for or support the status quo are dying and not being replaced by anybody.

Of course the same criticism of the right wing populists applies to the left wing ones: they don't really have any realistic solutions and the system will not let them implement any if they do. New York's equivalent to Jeremy Corbyn will surely have that same problem.

Of course the same criticism of the right wing populists applies to the left wing ones: they don't really have any realistic solutions and the system will not let them implement any if they do. New York's equivalent to Jeremy Corbyn will surely have that same problem.

Depends on your diagnosis of the problem. If you believe, as I increasingly do, that most of our societal ills with corruption and collapse of state capacity revolve around the mass importation of high time preference demographics incapable at a genetic level of pursuing generational projects, deporting them is not only a solution, but the only solution. Because with that anchor tied to your feet, no state project, be it reinvigorating capitalism, monopoly busting or state run grocery stores can possibly succeed. If the labor market is flooded with lazy scammers who shameless loot the till, it's not going to matter if the grocery store is a coop, state run, unionized or anything.

If you believe, as I increasingly do, that most of our societal ills with corruption and collapse of state capacity revolve around the mass importation of high time preference demographics incapable at a genetic level of pursuing generational projects, deporting them is not only a solution, but the only solution.

What? No, that's not true. Granting the (very substantial) premise, the conclusion is obviously going to be "don't let these people run society", but that only requires disenfranchisement, not deportation (except in the edge case of a supermajority that can overthrow the disenfranchising government).

If you believe, as I increasingly do, that most of our societal ills with corruption and collapse of state capacity revolve around the mass importation of high time preference demographics incapable at a genetic level of pursuing generational projects, deporting them is not only a solution, but the only solution.

Unfortunately, at least in the US, that's not going to work, for 13/52 reasons.

Deportation won't work because 13/52? What do you mean by this?

As @ToaKraka notes, 13/52 refers to the extremely disproportionate percentage of homicides committed by black people (13% of the population, 52% of the homicides). The US (and the pre-US colonies) already engaged in mass importation of high time preference demographics (I'll reserve judgement on the second part); they've been around as long as most of the white people have, and so deporting them is not possible.

they've been around as long as most of the white people have, and so deporting them is not possible.

One quick conquest of Liberia, and you don’t have to let your dreams be dreams anymore.

You don’t even have to move every black person. For males, 2 or more felony convictions should surely be adequate justification to send them to our new prison colony. For females, you could craft some lifetime welfare income calculation. And for kids, well, better to not break up families, so they have to go as well.

Is this an idea that would take two decades to percolate out of the fever dreams of the right and into plausible reality? Sure, but that’s no reason to give up on it out of hand. Leftists sure don’t!

As the meme goes, despite making up only 13% of the population, blacks commit 52% of the crimes. But blacks can't be deported.

Not with that attitude...

The blacks are a sideshow in the great replacement, more spectators than anything else- the AADOS share of society is actually slowly shrinking and black immigration is barely enough to keep the percentage of black population from dropping.

The demographic story of the USA is white anglos being replaced with hispanics, and this is 1) not a done deal and way overstated in effect and 2) while hispanics are lower performing it's not clear that that's 100% genetic, and assimilation over time is far more likely.

It’s not going to work in the US because the ship has simply sailed. We’re in far too deep.

The most we can do is try to give the US a smooth controlled landing and encourage European countries to not go down the same path.

Haven't looked deeply into this but my impression is that immigration to the US filters more for competence than immigration to the European countries does, with the latter getting a ton of low quality refugees etc

Much like I urged to give the El Salvador solution at least the good ol' college try before cursing entire peoples down seven generations, I'd urge to at least try "assimilate or GTFO" (don't know if there are any success stories as stark as El Salvador, though). People respond to incentives.

What does "assimilate" even mean in this context?

"Adopt local cultural norms"? What else is it supposed to mean?

I'd urge to at least try "assimilate or GTFO" (don't know if there are any success stories as stark as El Salvador, though)

The best example in America are Germans. Germans went from being a fairly-unassimilated minority, with high non-english persistence and significant ethnic lobbying...to completely dissolved in the American "white" mainstream over the course of two generations. Of course, we all-but criminalized the teaching of German in schools and fought two wars against their coethnics with pretty stringent propaganda against the inherent evils of "Germanness," but it worked.

To do the El Salvador solution you need a Bukele tier Great Man of History. That's not a reasonable requirement. Take it from someone whose government is tailor made for such a kind of man. They're much harder to find than you'd think.

As it stands, the managerial rulers of the US are so far from having the spine required to tell foreigners to "integrate or fuck off" that they'll let them fly the flags of other countries in violent rebellion and still not consent to crush them. Asking them to do what you want is doomed.

Is it a reasonable requirement to declare that all of society's problems are caused by a group of genetic untermenschen? I feel like asking for another Bukele is at least on-par with it under current conditions, and the latter is quite a bit more humane.

Oh I think it can very well both be true that a whole class of people are undesirable and that there is no realistic way of getting rid of them.

Seems like the Indian upper classes' whole tragic condition.

All I can say is that I share your longing for competent people that have the courage to take it upon themselves to solve the mess of modern society. But prayer is all I can really provide here.

Oh I think it can very well both be true that a whole class of people are undesirable and that there is no realistic way of getting rid of them.

I mean, I would be content to start restricting suffrage, ending birthright citizenship, and generally "fortifying" out democracy from being co-opted by third world mobs.

Unfortunately, the more I study history, the more I see that all political solutions are temporary. There is only one solution that is permanent, and history is littered with the names of long extinct tribes. Mere curiosities with no survivors to complain, and by and large, the world is better off with that being so.

The last 50 years have been a failure of "assimilate or GTFO". 50 more years and "GTFO" won't be an option any longer. It may already be too late.

It hasn't "failed" so much as been undermined and attacked at every turn by our so-called elites and the rise of MAGA is in large part a reaction against this. If you aren't down with making America great you can get the fuck out.

At the risk of doing a "real X has never been tried", I think you were missing the "or GTFO" part.

For most of the last 50 years we haven't been doing "assimilate or GTFO". We did it before that and managed to assimilate large groups.

It's New York so of course the populist candidate is going to be a socialist, but is this really any different than the rise of right wing populists in Europe in effect?

Yes; the RWP rally around a policy - immigration restriction and recognition of islamicate/SE Asian cultural incompatibility with western norms - which cuts both against official ideology as well as the fundamental moral order of the post-WWII first world ideal.

NYC electing Mamdani is literally a 50-Stalins criticism of the existing order. "We haven't socialismed hard enough/real socialism has not been tried!"

In what way is this true that isn't true of literally any person getting elected that's more left wing than the incumbent?

That really depends on what you mean by "left wing." But yeah, that's a structural problem for left wingers in a functionally one-party progressive political milieu.

It's just the usual - a wrong solution to a real problem. People notice they are getting screwed, they notice some others seem to do well, so it's kind of logical to take from them to give to yourself. It also has always been human nature, unfortunately, and an emotion happily stoked by a certain kind of social elite to their own benefit. People who technically do not own all that much money, but who manage large streams one way or another, and for whom socialism means more money to manage. For the common good, of course! And more generally, just promising a lot with no concern for how to actually get it done is very hard to argue against if most voters have little time or willingness to really look into the details. Without the soviet union as a demonstrable failure in living memory, it will only ever get harder.

I feel like the track record of third worldist socialism is such that it cannot be considered a 'fair response'.

Anyway, socialism seems like a fair response to the complete ineptitude of our political class.

It is a fair response to the complete ineptitude of our political class to put our political class in more complete charge of what is now in the private sphere? This seems utterly quixotic.

That being said, I don't think society is unfixable. I just think that political solutions are pointless. We need what has always been the core of strong societies - a culture that promotes and encourages personal virtue. Without that, you have nothing.

You cannot build or keep a culture that promotes and encourages personal virtue with a political system that does that opposite, like socialism does.

Anyway, socialism seems like a fair response to the complete ineptitude of our political class. It's weary writing and thinking about politics when even the best laid plans seem to inevitably just get ground down by the dumbest things. I can completely understand why young folks want to just socialize everything.

This seems like the opposite of a fair response. If we put a guy on the fry station at McDonald's, and he just constantly screws it up over and over again, in the dumbest ways possible, it doesn't seem like a reasonable response to say, "How about we just put this guy in charge of the entire store?"

I just think that political solutions are pointless. We need what has always been the core of strong societies - a culture that promotes and encourages personal virtue. Without that, you have nothing.

I feel that, given your own stated preferences, a socialist upheaval should be among the worst case scenarios from your perspective. I get that you said you're not on board with it, but I feel like connecting the dots in what you've said would logically make a sweeping trend of socialism pretty alarming and less seemingly shrug-worthy.

The entire mission of this belief system seems to be dispensing with personal accountability at any cost, rewarding people for giving nothing, and deluding the masses into thinking they can get every possible thing for free. There is no interest in a platform like Zohran's in rewarding people for being virtuous, for working hard or providing things of value, only in redistributing to those who do less of either. Personal accountability is often a dirty term from this perspective, and this sort of belief system explicitly seeks to use political solutions to fix every possible issue, whether it's empowering schools over parents, giving us government-run grocery stores, or censoring for the good of the masses.

I feel that, given your own stated preferences, a socialist upheaval should be among the worst case scenarios from your perspective. I get that you said you're not on board with it, but I feel like connecting the dots in what you've said would logically make a sweeping trend of socialism pretty alarming and less seemingly shrug-worthy.

Surprised so many people think I'm a socialist from what I wrote, lol. I am not. I agree that it's terrible.

I didn't read you as a socialist, I understood that you said you weren't a fan and all, but that was what I was getting at - Zohran seems like something you'd find more concerning than your comment seemed to indicate given your stated preferences

You might better have used the term "understandable" rather than "fair". By calling it a "fair response" you are invoking the connotation of "fair" as "just, right, natural" which strongly implies that you believe that socialism is the correct outcome.

Ok, that's fair. Ahaha. I will leave it as it is for now anyway but I'll keep that in mind.

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