this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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me_irl
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not really. if we didnt allow people to get so rich in the first place, it would not be that much of a problem.
socialism has a better track record when it comes to this of course there are exceptions either way. a lot of the good stuff in socdem comes fron socialists anyway.
of course we dont have a 100% solution, just a possible step forward as it always is with humanity.
Better track record to avoid rich people, but not to allow general population quality of life and prevention of an authoritarian government. I'll take European social democracy and its rich people over it.
in general the soviet union (and china for that matter) has been on the vanguard of quality of life for the common people. even vietnam is doing much better than east asians in general.
most of the good workers rights you see in europe came first for the soviets.
the problem with social democracy is that it doesnt address the rich people and they take it right back over time, as you can see in the US for example.
Not all left ideas come from the Soviet or communist China although they participated to the experiments. Most socialist parties in EU split from USSR and communist China from the revolutions or when the economical catastrophes (Chinese famines) or atrocities (military repression of opposition and gulags) they committed were revealed. From then, it split between social democrats and communists, social democrats are simply called socialists in those countries (at least France and Spain).
Apart from Sanders, I think American democrats are very far from European social democrats, they rather correspond to our traditional right, which indeed doesn't care much about rising inequalities. I think the median people live better in European social democrat countries than they ever did in communist countries.
nobody batted an eye on china when famines were caused by the british, just on the specific post-revolutionary period they were still struggling. nobody bats an eye to the us prision system which is worse than the soviet prision system was either, shit i think my country currently has a way more cruel prision system.
overall, when you look into it, the atrocities either were exaggerated or didnt happen. shit, some of these psyops were even admitted later by the CIA.
i think the chinese standard of living is quite comparable to europe, on average too, and its quite impressive how fast they went from one of the poorest to one of the richest countries out there.
social democracy is barely left wing tbh, they barely made progress outside of europe, and are still tainted by the red scare. even then they seem to be sliding back, since they are losing the colonial power over africa, which is a big part if what keeps them rich.