When yes means no

The problem here is North Korea is socialist the same way that China is a republic and Congo is democratic.

AKA, all three are tyrannical, and attached the wrong word to it, because "The Tyrannical Country of..." is horrible PR.

@joshupetersen

Very true. I take it as a rule of thumb that if a country has the three words "democratic", "people's" and "republic" in its formal title, in whatever order, it is none of those.

@stevep59

I think "Republic of" by itself is not that rare and doesn't automatically indicate anything. For example, Finland has "republic
" in it's name but is not a dictatorship.

@Sisu
Agreed. That's why I said all three. ;)

@stevep59

This fits here.
http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2019/08/22/1108-republics/

@SeanR

Very true unfortunately.

@joshupetersen North Korea is a strange thing in the modern world. A capitalist feudal absolute monarchy Those with wealth (favored members of the Kim family) control everything and are the landed aristocrats. The peasants are property of the aristocrats. Kim Jong-un is the hereditary monarch and other members of the family are responsible only and completely to him. The system clearly doesn't work well for those low in the system.

@Gonnhirrin #9853827

Broadly in many ways, but yeah.

Annnnnnnnd..... That's why you don't want Socialism, Communism or any other form of Marxism

@LogicMeister
An example of failure? I disagree, to each example of failure, you can youst answer with arguments how to make it different and avoid past mistakes.

The reason you don't want socialism is since it's a way of resource management and power distribution that could only work if humans were able to act rational or at least not be guided by gread and jealousy. It's a nice system if ants ever gain sentience, but for us it's completely useless.

@LogicMeister Unbridled capitalism is proving to be a disaster as well. It's fairly ironic that you raise socialism as a boogeyman commenting on a comic coming from Scandinavia.

@maarvarq Social security isn't the same thing as socialism. Socialism was on the other side of the iron curtain and it wasn't a pretty sight.

@maarvarq Scandinavia is and has always been fully capitalist. Social programs funded by taxes is not socialism. The ideology of Social Democracy that has been popular in Europe is fundamentally about having free market capitalism that generates wealth that then can be taxed to fund social programs. Sweden for example have way lower corporate tax than the US.

@maarvarq

At least he's right about communism never working. Historically implementation of communism has always led to dictatorship and murder-fest.

This is because communism relies on people being trusting, hard-working, and and benevolent, which goes against human nature. People are always going to want power and people are always not going to want their work to help other peopke (see america's attitude about tax-funded healthcare), people are always going to be unwilling to cooperate out of spite, and people are always going to fuck with the machine cogs, either intentionally or out of stupidity. For communism to work, we would need to be ants or robots.

@LogicMeister Why don't you add libertarianism, crony capitalism, etc... They aren't exactly examples either.

@Daru "Crony capitalism" is a term leftists use to to put blame on capitalism for the crimes committed by corporatism.
An overly regulated market (usually caused by socialists) becomes vulnerable to corruption and corporate influences. This makes it easy for big corporations to outright buy legislation, and thus regulations are created that benefit a few select corporations and limits free competition. The counter to this is to secure the freedom of the market from destructive regulations in the first place.

@Father_Svitjod "Crony capitalism" hurts ? You don't like it ? Let's call it "chum capitalism". Unregulated markets just like anarchy only benefit the strongest to the detriment of everybody else. Rules are (normally) there to keep the playing field as level as possible.

@Daru I hope everyone can agree on the definition that capitalism = free markets. So then why do people insist on calling un-free markets capitalism? Especially when there are readily available labels for those economic systems? Corporatism is when the state gives out special benefits to selected corporations to the detriment of free competition. And no, it is obvious that most regulations of the market is to secure the market position of the big corporations. In a FREE market those big corps would be fully exposed to competition. Now keep in mind that corporatism does not care about the knickknack store on the corner, it is all about the big business. So from the ground level it might seem to be a free market but when you look up all you see is a bunch of state mandated and protected oligopolies or even monopolies. See the banking system in most countries for prime examples. And of course, corporatism is the economic system of..; fascism.

@Father_Svitjod Free markets aren't what make a system Capitalist or not, that's just Commerce, practically every economic system deals in commerce.

Ultimately the difference is about who owns the means of production. AKA: when you are working, who is benefiting from your labor? In a Capitalist system, it's your employer, they pay you a wage and take everything else as profit. In most pre-Capitalist systems, the state owns the means. You work the lord's land in exchange for the pleasure of living under his protection.

Socialism has generally operated on the goal of ensuring that people are the owners of their own means of production. AKA: you are paid the value of your labor, rather than others leeching off of it. Unfortunately, the exact means of ensuring this are difficult. Many Socialist Governments resorted to forming a Government that would be obligated to return the value of the people's labor to them fairly. Unfortunately, practically none of the countries that adopted Socialism had ever had a history of Democratic Governance, and so the Government instead ended up being seized by parties primarily interested in ensuring their own power.

Personally my preference is towards more Syndicalist economies. In Syndicalism, you don't rely on the Government to hold the means of Production, recognizing that Governments are generally untrustworthy for such an important job. Instead, the means of production are hold collectively by the people that use them, who are organized akin to a Labor Union.

So for instance, in a Syndicalist system, a factory wouldn't be owned by a single person who profits off of it and makes all the decisions in how it is run. Rather, each worker there would be paid a portion of the factory's profits, and decisions on how it would be run would be resolved by voting, essentially treating all the workers as if they were shareholders in a Company.

The big rule is that in a Syndicalist system no one can just buy a factory though, unless you are making use of something than it isn't actually your property. That way no one is able to exploit the labor of another. In many ways it's much more like the romanticized version of Capitalism that some people believe exists. Since you have to produce something of value in a Syndicalist system, you can't just sit around collecting money from other people who work on your behalf like a mob boss to his victims.

@Father_Svitjod Can we go back to the laissie faire system of the gilded age which had no issues whatsoever with monopolies or competition being killed off or exploitation of people?

@LogicMeister Social Democracy is and has been working just fine for Scandinavia for almost 100 years now. I'd say that the problem isnt socialism. Its the word associated with it that is usually the crux.

North Korea, for example, is a socialist -dictatorship-. The bad part of that is that its a authoritarian dictatorship, that much seems clear to me.

@Deviant The ideology of Social Democracy that has been popular in Europe is fundamentally about having free market capitalism that generates wealth that then can be taxed to fund social programs. Social programs funded by taxes is not socialism.

@Father_Svitjod not really right of left here, mostly staying outside and just facepalming about everything (I'm in dire need of new faces and palms). AFAIK "socialism" is an umbrella term for a large group of ideologies whose main tenet (at least on paper) is redistribution of wealth to bridge the gap between the wealthy and the poor. Now, the specific means and definitions are up to the specific ideology. An ideology mostly based on a large number of social programs funded by taxes IS one kind of socialism.

The issue here seems to be the conflation of terms made by what it seems to be called "red-baiters". By using logical fallacies, they created a plain image of leftist movements that takes them all as one and the same, and I can tell you just by looking at the political situation in my country that the left is quite diverse. So is the right.

The one that you could say is the "bad" one (not the only one, humans always find way to screw things, and if they were meant to be screwed, to screw them the wrong way) would be marxism, mostly because of two reasons: it's theoretical (impossible to implement as-is in the real world) and it's based on a "fight of classes" (an artificial conflict that most often when adhering to the doctrine devolves in an actual fight).

Based on it as an attempt to implement it there is communism, the main root of the governments you know about and hate. It was implemented slightly different in each place and, with the exception of menshevism (which was too softhearted to survive the war) all of them are based on a charismatic leader that "brings equality to all people" that "fearlessly leads them on a war against evil capitalism/monarchy/dictatorship/whatever". Given the easy it is for leadership to get into a person's head, they almost without fail devolve into either dictatorships or de facto dictatorships (in this second case, there tends to be also a "hidden" aristocracy. Since the basis is that "we are better than the rest", dissidency is not allowed and any bad thing is covered up/blamed on the "enemy". But that's one left out of many, some good, some bad, some meh.

It's quite interesting to see that, due to the horseshoe effect, communist dictatorships are ideologicaly closer to rightwing USA (so rightwing that their "left" is still our "right") that to also leftist socialdemocrat Scandinavia. (By "ideollogically closer" I don't mean that they are the same, only that they have more things in common.)

@Kemm I fully agree that there is great confusion about the various labels among the uneducated. One of the seemingly most common (and possibly dangerous) beliefs is that so many tend tho think that Scandinavia is outright "socialist". And that term is then assumed to mean some kind of leftist paradise where capitalism is severely limited and the wealth is distributed evenly among the people. It paints Scandinavia as an utopian myth totally disconnected from reality.
And then major political players in the US makes statements that align with this myth (Bernie)...

The the one dimensional left-right linear definition of all the worlds ideologies is silly. Your "rigthwing USA" is corporatist imperialists (fascists). But if those are the right wing, where do you place the libertarians? To the left of the fascists? At least with the 2 dimensions of economic and social axes separated we can get some sense of the political landscape.

@Father_Svitjod

There appear to be (at least) two schools of thought that claim the mantle of "libertarian". On the right, you have L. Neil Smith, and on the left Ian M. Banks. Both envision(ed) a world where a person could do anything they pleased, so long as they didn't involve someone else.
Both describe worlds I'd LOVE to immigrate to.

The problem, as you note, is when people use such "examples" to "prove" their point.

It's why so many of us scream TANSTAAFL any time someone starts talking "free" anything. There are some people gullible enough to think "free" means exactly what it's supposed to mean, and who are registered to vote. If these things were properly labeled as taxpayer-funded, it'd be a different issue.

@Father_Svitjod And that's still just 2D; politics have more dimensions than String Theory: every pair of labels is completely independent of every other pair.

That also explains why they are so incomprehensible.

'@Deviant' None of the Scandinavian Countries are Socialist:

Denmark has outright stated it's a Market Economy

Sweden has rolled back many of it's Social Programs and Taxes as it was killing their Economy

And Norway pays for it's programs via it's massive Oil reserves and the Stock Market i.e. Big Oil and Capitalism

@LogicMeister There is a Theory which leans on the Marxism:
It's called Social Market Economy.
Everything needed for surviving is subsidized:
Basic Food, Housing, Healthcare
For living you have to work. To have a big TV, a Car, more then only Pasta or Bread as Food. More then a small Apartment to live in etc.
So you have to work to have a good live, but you can't fall into oblivion.

In the last years the Social Market Idea accross Europe has been reduced bei Neo-Liberatism, but atm a lot of Poeple are fighting for it, as Corona Shows the Benefits of it: Yes lot of poeple have been hiten hard, but thanks to the Social Market they can survive in relative comfort and rebuild. And the Healthcare promise provided enough Hospital space.

I am from Germany and we were a big Social Market Economy. Unluckiley it worked in the first wave to well and we are now hit hard in the second.

Edit.:
It works as an Investment into it's Poeple by the Government.
Example: After the Stockmarket Crash i was 3 Years unemployed and the Government invested into a Job retraining.
All together about 25k € were spend, with living costs and retraining costs.

I am now full employed for nearly a decade now. I started with about 15k taxes per year, now i am nearly at 25k tax per year.
And there are a lot of similar stories of poeples around the stockmarket Crash.
That is Social Market Economy works.
Let your poeple survive and invest into them to make them productive.

The retraining started after one year of unemployment when i was deemed longterm and suiteable for training after a Job reintegration course and then test.

'@Elkarlo' That'll fail due to two simple facts:

1) Government can never hope to properly manage the economy, for instance, during the Pandemic, meat consumption dropped due to the fact that factory job where they made the packaging was deemed "non-essential", and 2020 was the first year in more than a century that Global Hunger & Poverty Rates rose instead of falling

2) Most people aren't willing to do work that in no way benefits them, and if they're provided with basic needs, have no problem lazing around. People need incentives, and entertainment/luxury goods alone is not a very good incentive, as people can easily find ways to amuse themselves and only buy luxuries to reward themselves for hard work, but if they don't need to work to eat, then they'd mostly likely not want it

That's why every Socialist System has generally ended up forcing people to work, and even then their economies fail

@LogicMeister Regarding market economy: Socialism is not about 5 year plans, there is such a thing called social market economy. I'll spare you a repetition of what Elkarlo already said.

Scandinavian healthcare is mainly run by the governement, as is education and quite a lot of other sectors.
On that, labor unions are very influental here and we have strong labor laws and we have collective labor agreements as well as mandated minimal wages and mandated vacations.

While you are partially correct, that sweden has scaled down programs, it is mainly due to conservative majority governments deciding that privatization was preferable, something that has proven to be wrong in Swedens case. But a lot of them are still running strong. As is our economy.

How is your own nations economy?
Do you get a lot of benefits from it?

'@Deviant' I'm just going to counter your point with a few basic observations;

If public school is so great, why do students who attend private schools out perform them?

Unions often make it very hard to fire their members, even when they perform poorly, and mandated minimum wages limit how many employees small businesses can hire, how are either of those things good?

Considering that Money for Government Programs have to come from somewhere, how does Sweden pay for it? If Taxes, then when they get too high it'll just drive taxpayers away, same thing is currently happening in US states like California and New York. If by printing more money and increasing National Debt, then I hope you like Hyper-Inflation, cause that's where that road leads

My own Nations economy is pretty good, but only government run benefits I get from it is a few hundred a week in disability payments. I'm doing much better via the private sector

@LogicMeister Your "basic observations" might be true for the broken system that is the US, but it is incorrect when it comes to Sweden.

Most public schools in Sweden perform just as well as the private schools here as they must follow the same program for educating the students, so that is a moot point. Sure, there are schools the perform worse in low income areas, but in general private schools is no better than public schools here.

The laws require an employer that has worker that is underperforming to put them into training to help them improve or find another assignment that is more suitable for them, after those things has been exhausted, then you can start talking about letting them go. Unions is also the organisations that make sure that we have a steady salary reaise every year that follows the inflation rate. And why shouldnt there be mandated minmum wages so people can actually live from having ONE job? None of us in Sweden wants the dumpster fire of a job market that is in the US where people have to hold down several jobs to surive? Workin 80 hours per week just to live is NOT an achievement. So why would we NOT want any if this?

Yes, and we pay for thise programs with out taxes. Did you know that the cost per capita for health care is much much lower in nations like Swedenwith universal health care than what is is for nations like the US that requires you to keep medical insurance, where some conditions is now covered , you can only use hospitals and doctors covered by said insurance etc. In 2011 I spent 4 weeks in the hospital, 10 days in the ICU, total cost was about $240. Same last year when I caught Covid, 2 weeks in the hospital, $120.
I will happily pay taxes when it keeps health care affordable and schools "free" and where they provide all the books without any additional charge + you dont need to pay any fees to attend school. And you get affordable student loans and student grants to be able to to attend higher education and have the same oppurtunities as everyone else. The same can not be said for the US.


Many people who view the system in the US as the epitome of a nation with it's so called "freedom" is either severly lacking in education and perpective on how the rest of the world works or just brainwashed by the typical propaganda that anything to the left of the Republican party in the US somehow is "communism".

@LogicMeister

"If public school is so great, why do students who attend private schools out perform them?"

This is not a counter. This is an assertion, and a baseless one at that. Private schools do in fact not out perform public ones by default.

"Unions often make it very hard to fire their members, even when they perform poorly, and mandated minimum wages limit how many employees small businesses can hire, how are either of those things good?"

Your first claim is just wrong. If someone can't do their job properly, a union won't help them. What they will do is step in if the company tries to fire them on unfair grounds, like that they have found someone willing to work for less pay, for example.

Further, just because someone happens to run a small business doesn't give them the right to pay their workers unfairly low wages in order to be able to hire more people. However, there are gov grants for such small business owners that want to do both.

"Considering that Money for Government Programs have to come from somewhere, how does Sweden pay for it? If Taxes, then when they get too high it'll just drive taxpayers away, same thing is currently happening in US states like California and New York. If by printing more money and increasing National Debt, then I hope you like Hyper-Inflation, cause that's where that road leads"

If the tax pressure is too high without any benefits for the tax payers then yes, you would be right. But the fact is that the taxes here in Sweden are actually used for important functions. I can't say that the same is done in California and NY, since both those states wrestle with huge homeless populations and ineffective government overall.
As for the moneyprinting thing, thats not whats being done so I don't see the relevance.

So your national economy is doing well, but you're not benefitting from it being good very much.

@Deviant
As I understand it, from several hundred miles away and having never stepped foot in The Peoples State of Kalifornia...

Supposedly, California was a tad too generous to its state employees some time in the past, and is now under a heavy pension burden. As anyone who has been a bit too free with their credit cards can attest, getting out of debt is harder than getting into debt.
The climate of California is beautiful, or at least the coastal area is. As I understand it, It's one of those places where you won't die of exposure if you sleep outside year round. This presumably makes it someplace where a homeless person CAN live. Add to that, I'm to understand that a lot of states took advantage of California, at times in the past, giving "undesirables", including lots with psychiatric needs, a bus ticket "away", with at least some suggestion that "west" might be a good choice. I can not attest to this; it is only what I have heard.

On the flip side...
Then there is the issue that when you cram a bunch of people into a small space, the fair market value of that space will go up until someone moves out.
Then, I've heard stories of heavy-handed bureaucracy further exacerbating an already challenging housing market. A case of too much government interference throttling any chance for growth.

Yes, there are a LOT of weasel words in my response. I've already admitted to having no personal knowledge of the issues of that state.

I have even less to say about New York, except that unfettered real-estate speculation does appear to be a dangerous thing.

@SeanR Oh don't worry about making observations about other states, here we are even doing that to nations across oceans.

Regarding California, you may very well be right. It seems like a state run by ineffective leaders. I mean, I heard there was even a smaller outbreak of plague in San Francisco.

But I would not call California socialist in any stretch of the word.

@LogicMeister No offense, but it seems to me like your arguments aren't quite built on knowledge here, but what you -think-. Its pretty clear that your knowledge of what socialism really is and how the scandinavian countries work could use some filling in.

@Deviant Now you are outright lying. (the only tool of the socialist)
Swedish public healthcare is run by the counties (Landsting) or local municipalities (kommuner). About HALF of all healthcare is supplied by private healthcare providers (this varies greatly between the regions, in Stockholm two thirds of all healthcare is private!).
For education 25% of all schools are privately run. 28% of "high-school"(Gymnasie) students go to privately run schools.
And. There is no minimal wage in Sweden.

Only leftists liars claim that the privatization of schools and healthcare is a failure. The fact is that in private healthcare; workers get higher salaries, the patients get better care and feel more cared for, and it is also much cheaper to run. The failure of schools in general because of the slacker mentality (flumskola) that has been pushed by leftist policies since the 70's.
-If the socialists that hate privatization had gotten their way; Televerket would still be a state monopoly. Phone and internet service would be provided only by them. No phones would be private property, all phones would be on loan from Televerket. The whole Swedish IT sector would not exist.

The economy runs well because Sweden have very low corporate tax and that it is comparably easy to start a business than in other countries. That Sweden as a whole is export oriented also makes it quite easy to expand to other markets. The more free the market is the better the economy runs, not the opposite.

@Father_Svitjod And what is the counties and municipalities a form of?
Thats right. Local government.
And who does the local government answer to?
Thats right. The national government.

And well, how is that privatization going for Stockholm?
Hospitals working fine? Nya Karolinska Solna is a mess of ineffective administration and corruption.

Personnel being treated well?
Nope. The health workers are so overworked that some are even "escaping" to neighboring nations. Due to budget cuts and more overtime. In the pursuit of profit.

What about the elderly?
Same there. Treated poorly. Hardly even get proper meals. Some are even forgotten about and left to die. By private care companies such as like Attendo.

Also, having 25% (as you claim) of all education be private means that the other 75% is what?
Thats right, run by the municipality, and thus government.

There is a minimal wage in Sweden, at those companies that has a collective labor agreement. 9 out of 10 workers has those, so roughly 90% of all working swedes has a set minimum wage.

Only neoliberals claim that privatization of school and healthcare isn't a failure that costs lives. The rest of this statement is just empty claims. There has been a multitude of reports of how privatization has meant worse quality for most people, both by academia and from media.

And Televerket isn't healthcare or education, but okay, lets take a look at how telia is doing.
Ah. Filled with controversies and not doing so well financially.

Lets look at another state monopoly. The postal service.
Postnord has more or less become a meme in Sweden, with everyone expecting their mail to be either late or lost, and their packages damaged. The company is even called "Postmord".
So the postal service became an actual joke after it went private.

Finally. I am not opposed to a freeish market. I prefer mixed markets, ie free but with regulations. That has been shown to work the best.

So don't come here and call me a liar when you don't know what I'm talking about. Its rude and stupid.

@LogicMeister In the North Korean supreme law, it is mentioned that they’re socialism country and it’s their goal to achieve or complete socialism construction

@kiyori Egypt's official doctrine pre-massive revolution awhile back was to ensure free democratic elections as well, but that was just because the US paid them as long as that's what they reported to the UN because cold war deals. The truth about what was going on was a bit different one could say, as per the fact there was a large democratic revolt trying to overthrow a dictator that had been holding "Elections" that were completely rigged just so they got subsidiaries.

@LogicMeister

I think the problem here is what is meant by the term socialism. Your right that there is a clear difference between socialism and social democracy but two points:
a) The main one is that socialism is a much abused term and often right wingers use it to reference to many aspects of social democracy. For instance during the attempts to get affordable health care in the US by Obama the Republicans were repeatedly raising the 'threat' of socialism and "we don't want state organised medicine here", citing the NHS in Britain as well as health care in Scandinavia and other parts of western Europe as such which by your definition is inaccurate. That's why people get nervous when someone makes a blanket reference to socialism without defining what they mean. Its too often been used by right wingers to seek to discrete anything other than their particular brand of right wing version of capitalism.
b) Actual in social democratic states the key point is that it is a regulated market. I.e. there are limits on what companies can do in terms of abusing concentrations of power, environmental mismanagement, working conditions etc. As maarvarq pointed out unrestrained capitalism has regularly been very good, for the few wealthy people and terrible for the vast bulk of the people as well as society as a whole. Don't get me wrong. You can have bad, or even very bad government [whether left or right] but a total lack of government is also a disaster.

'@stevep59' You fail to realize that regulation RARELY helps Economies

In fact, the most regulated Economies are the most Corrupt, because it creates lobbying and crony capitalism. Cause when Government can influence the way an industry makes money, then it becomes profitable to start bribing Government Officials, and if by some miracle you come across you find a politician who won't take bribes, then they'll just find one who will and make sure THEY get into Office

Less regulated Markets are also alot more flexible and capable of adapting, and thus can not only produce superior products, can more easily fix problems. For instance, Logging and Paper Companies plant more trees than any charity organization or government program, private companies also do way more to clean up plastic in the oceans and have even devised ways to extract carbon emissions from the atmosphere. And WHY wouldn't they?

There's no profit to be made in causing irreparable damage to the environment and rendering the planet uninhabitable, and they'd go bankrupt if they'd lost they're means of profit, plus by collecting discarded scraps they can recycle them and turn them into some less environmentally destructive that they can sell

@LogicMeister

As I said some of the most heavily regulated economies are as bad as the unregulated ones but see the US as an example of a lightly regulated economy notorious for the sort of lobbying and corruption your talking about. Its less obvious in Britain but again under the Tories over recent decades my country has become more corrupt and inefficient in many ways.

Unfortunately your also inaccurate in your latter analysis. Some companies are taking steps to repair environmental damage, especially as you say when they can make a profit from it. However most others are still treating such damage as a 'cost' for other people/the future that they can avoid to maximise their short term profits because that's what most of them are primarily concerned with. Hence the backing for climate change denial by many big industries.

The idea of logging companies planting more trees is not a good example. Both because as their doing this to make a profit by cutting them down in the relatively near future, which totally negates any CO2 reduction measures. Also since they often plant plantations of commercial crop timber even if they weren't due to be cut down such 'forests' would be environmentally far poorer than the sort of natural woodlands that used to be there.

By definition less regulated markets can be more flexible but that's missing my point. Largely unregulated markets don't need to be flexible because they can get away with just about anything. Especially if less regulations includes removing the ability to record what's actually going on so problems may be missed/avoided until its too late to avoid severe damage, including often loss of lives. [Hence why many big companies seek to reduce/remove bodies that study the environment.]

The entire thing is getting a level of balance. Enough regulation to keep the corrupt and rogues under some restraint while not choking the operation of the economy. Too much or too little is bad. Furthermore the other big issue here which cases problems in many countries is when extremists take the stance that all government/regulation/taxes are bad as that seeks to and often does undermine the sense of moral responsibility and helps make government structures more corrupt and open to bribery by large vested interests. Again we're seen this in both primary Anglo countries with Thatcher's "there's no such thing as society" and Reagan's "government is the problem not the solution". Such excessive BS along with their other lies have done both countries much harm.

@LogicMeister >There's no profit to be made in causing irreparable damage to the environment and rendering the planet uninhabitable

The issue here is this relies on humans to be logical on those aspects. What we often have instead are wealthy people who calculate the maximum profit they can get before they die, which often involves doing stuff that hurts vast swaths of humans while they get no backlash, or bribe officials to weaken education programs which cost money up front but makes people easier to manipulate

Really the big issue is that the systems we currently use tie industry and government too closely together - It doesn't matter how hands off or hands on a government is if a few corrupt individuals can use the system to turn it into a fiefdom, no matter how little or how much government is

And this folks, is an example of how the American education system has completely failed when the it comes to politics. Our teachers and schools could use some international aide, because do you really want people with incorrect political views like that with access to launch codes?

@LogicMeister No, that is not why you don't want those -isms. Which is not to say that you do want them.

North Korea (aka "Best Korea") is all about the Kim family, and everything else is window dressing. Thus, North Korea is not a good yardstick for measuring Socialism, Communism, or Marxism its performance for organising a state.

@LogicMeister
Funny how the downvotes are red, just like the ones who are doing the downvoting.

@LogicMeister

Your kind propably also thinks Scandinavia is ""sOciAliST"" because unlike america we have basic human decency.

@Sisu

too true comrade ;}

@LogicMeister This has precisely nothing to do with socialism or communism. First, North Korea is a dictatorship. Second, the system is "juche".

There's *nothing* in the state of NK that is specific to any left wing ideology. Hell, it's more like feudalism than anything modern (which reminds me, uncontrolled capitalism leads to the same result; uncontrolled socialism wouldn't because the central tenet is equality). The people at the top are doing fine.

@LogicMeister North Korea is socialist/communist/marxist in the same way it is the ***Democratic*** People's Republic of Korea.

China is called "The peoples republic of China." I don't see the people having any say in anything over there, just government control and fear mongering. Lots of countries and groups use familiar good sounding in principle names to hide what they really are. North Korea is not an example of socialism, it's an example of a tyrannical dictatorship by a royal family that care so little for it's own people that they are starving to death.

It's actually a terrible way to rule long term. You need subjects to be a king. Those subjects die and you have nothing. But I think the Kim family is legitimately mad if not psychopathic which would aid their short sighted stupidity and endless cruelty.

@Sinvanor are you talking about taiwan

@Sinvanor Yeah also most countries call themselves 'democracy' while most of them are merely elective oligarchies.
When liberals took over power in France and USA they managed the feat to make people believe democracy was the same as elective oligarchy. But it's not and it's really apparent nowadays when political leaders take a lot of decisions that don't benefit most people in any way. If power really was in the hands of the people (which is what democracy means literally), such decision could not be made.

On a side note and ironically, though France is technically a Republic and UK a monarchy, France is closer to an elective monarchy type of government while UK is closer to an elective oligarchy (which is usually how you would describe a republic). Talk about confusing names. The world is such a mess right now that we lost most of what the words mean when it comes to politics.

Guys, wanna get introduced to the flemish giant rabbit? You dreamed of hugging a fluffy rabbit as huge as a dog? Belgium did it!

@Milady13 First time I saw a picture of one of those I was CONVINCED it was photoshop.

Ah, Youtube, the most reliable medium in the world.....

@jowi You need to learn how to read. Their source was North Korean Defectors. NOT Youtube. Youtube is just the best place to find uploads of documentaries. North Korean victims will ALWAYS be the #1 most reliable source regarding how life in North Korea is like, which is why THAT is the source give.

Tagline for North Korea:
Because one country has to be the worst

@Kvaseren

It's probably better than Afghanistan or Somalia. Interestingly, Women's Rights are actually sort of a thing in NK, though sexual abuse is still probably also a thing; they allow women fighter pilots, for instance. There's something surreal about listening in on their radio broadcasts and hearing a pilot begging another pilot for sexual favors when they get back to base...

Well things are starting to look up...sorta in rural North Korea. Black Markets are opening up, people trade with U.S dollars and Chinese Yuan(some smuggled, some air dropped by South Koreans tying dollar bills to balloons) for things the state can't or won't provide, and if some KPA tries to shut them down, the market vanishes until the military police leave. They're becoming a lot smarter about getting what they need under the government's nose.

Course it's not all good. Last I checked, a Chinese man at the border can still buy a North Korean bride for a bag of rice so...

And it's important to remember that as bad as NK is, a majority of the people there are terrified and convinced that it's *even worse* outside of their hermit kingdom.

Let's just pray for the final collapse of North Korean regime

@Irene Lets not, because a totally failed state on South Korea and China's borders, wracked with revolution and fighting, is something we already tried in the fifties. And in the current era it could become a nuclear flashpoint. Better to pray for a Kim who decides that constitutional monarchy, like the House of Windsor in the North Korea of the North Atlantic, is the way to go. A reform rather than a collapse.

@CrypticMirror If we put the leadership change on the side of this, the big terrible reality of North Korea seems to me to be how people are graded on what their ancestors did during the war. Meaning if you were born to communist fighters, you have more rights and a better life than those who were marked as ''traitors to the state''. Who seemingly has been subjected to a horrible life and their whole bloodline will pay for their actions forever.

As long as this stratified society exists... i honestly do not see reform as a solution, only revolution.

Then again, these sort of societies do exist still in India and to some very specific degree in Great Britain and Europe.

@Irene

And this goes here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

It is not hard to vet the ridiculous claims made by so-called “defectors”. I really have no respect for someone who can’t look into these claims and the money being paid to some of these defectors (Yeonmi Park, for one) and immediately see through the Imperialist lies. Anyone who believes this is a grade A dupe. Yes, including you.

https://youtu.be/BkUMZS-ZegM