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this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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chapotraphouse
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okay but like (not particularly educated take inbound)
the biggest gripe we have with social democracy is that it's fundamentally just a more equitable distribution of plunder from the global south, but that criticism doesn't really hold up when you ARE the global south and it's your resources getting plundered by imperialists
The criticism of social democracy ultimately boils down to "you're not doing a juche-style degrowth to decouple from imperial satraps". Which is fine and perfectly arguable on its face. But it does lead you to breeze over the policies social democrats are most commonly championing - public sector professional services free at the point of consumption - that would, in fact, get you some of that juche-style degrowth you said you wanted.
What are you even saying?
I believe he’s saying that, while social democracy in the global south doesn’t directly serve to cut imperialist ties, the policies implemented by social democrats will do some of that cutting in practice.
What didn't you understand?
By Juche-style degrowth, do you mean a command economy? Socialism?
That's more the method than the end goal. Juche is about economic independence. Decoupling yourself from below-cost-of-production imports and waste-exports that an imperial state uses to enrich the core at the expense of the periphery. Command economies and socialist dictatorship of the proletariat can get you there. And one might even argue they're the only economic model that can get you there. But they still need to be pointed in that direction.
A communist economy in South American Country X that harvests lumber from the Amazon in Neighboring Country Y and fills in denuded landscape with landfills of waste generated by the consumption of the lumber isn't self-sufficient, even if its leaders are democratically decided and its capital democratically owned and operated.
Asset inflation and excess waste production resulting from our Big Number Go Up strategy is undermining our ability to operate self-sufficiently without sacrificing quality of life. Any kind of economic restructuring is going to result in a huge nominal drop in the economic numbers that undergird the economy, and we need to be psychologically prepared for that if we're going to execute on necessary economic changes before they're forced on us by material limitations.
De-commodification would, first and foremost, decouple the material resources upon which our economic forecasts are based. If you go into the economy and you decommodify energy, you're going to cause the speculative price of for-profit energy companies to crater. That's going to result in a large contraction in credit markets following a wave of defaults on debt. Big Number Would Go Down.
De-commodification and distribution of energy on an as-needed basis rather than a speculative basis would move us towards a system of self-sufficiency rather than one of artificial revaluation. Microsoft no longer having an infinite well of paper currency to buy from a finite well of fossil fuels for the purpose of generating electricity to run their entertainment machines would free up enormous amounts of energy for necessary living conditions.
Another big gripe is that social-democracy is just capitalism, and we are opposed to capitalism.
For the same reason, it doesn't work to materially improve conditions for the 3rd world. The only solution is revolutionary socialism.
If it doesnt materially improve conditions for the third world then why do Latam social democracies get opposed by the imperial core?
Pretty sure things are better in Bolivia under Evo then they would have been under the woman they couped into power there lol.
Obviously we all want revolutionairy socialism. But imperialism is the primary contradiction. So things that oppose that are worth some level of support.
Like ffs i do live in the imperial core and socdem policies materially improve my conditions. But i consider my socdems social imperialists anyway. Without the imperialism contradiction though?
because anglos are mad about it. a global south nation-state could do full capitalism but economically align with china or russia and anglos would mald and do a coup or another libya.
of course.
at leas MAS is "movement toward socialism". western/global north socdems are just trying to save capitalism and that's why they're moderate fascists.
Right. Doesnt sound likenwe disagre on much here. Whole point of me posting this is that global north socdems are social imperialists but the same cant he said of a social democracy in a country that isnt imperalist.
I do admit though that a latam social democracy isnt inherenrly worthy of support. Only if it resists imperialism.
I think an important distinction here is that Evo calls himself a marxist-leninist while socdems in the global north call themselves socdems and denounce communism.
Yeah they might be marxists doing social democracy out of necessity. But are they ideological socdems? Or is social democracy viewed by them as genuine compromise and/or stepping stone?
I don't think their goal is social democracy. Whereas that is the goal of the socdems of the global north, with nothing beyond it.
One group sees social democracy as an end, the other sees it as a means.
Explain the massive gains in living conditions and worker power in Bolivia then