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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   27901 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.

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

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