Why is socialism viewed so negatively in politics and media?

The USSR was a totalitarian state. It might have had socialism in its title but it’s a misnomer.

Socialism and the trade union movement have given us many things we hold dear. To name but a few: maternity leave, health and safety at work, equality laws, health care free at point of entry… and so on.

I’ve never argued for some soviet government where everything is state owned. All luxury items can be part of a free market as far as I’m concerned. However, we now have solid evidence of what happens when water, education, transportation, roads and so on are left in hands of shareholders.

Maybe capitalism can be good but we’re not seeing anything good about it right now are we? Like saying selling of council houses was a good capitalist move- it might have been if more houses were built and sold under same system but they weren’t.

Maybe, closing the mines was a good environmental move IF they’d been replaced by sustainable power?

Nope, if anyone is ever going to convince me otherwise they’ll need to find some better examples of capitalism than this country has had because I’ve never seen it work in a way that benefits people.

Gracious response, thanks 😊

@Imdunfer no, it was an ill-thought through post! Mea culpa! Blame the last glass of wine.

It was more of a reaction to my small local market town's economy which is much more about SMEs than a large city. Our largest employers would be the huge comprehensive school, then the local district council.

big companies don't create jobs.

How did they get big then?

Of course they do. Aldi has trebled its employment in this area in the last 3 years. Greggs has doubled theirs. Barratt Redrow is responsible for hundreds of new jobs in my one small town, Manchester Airports Group .....

And they don't deliver a nice society, or anything new

They've delivered affordable clothes, affordable tastes of food from around the world, pampering toiletries, incredible health care products (lateral flow CRP blood test on Amazon for £8 anyone?) ....

I could fill pages to show you what a nonsense that statement is. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be sarcasm?

It's a very unpopular opinion here, but capitalism has raised more people out of poverty than socialism. It always will, because people will bust a gut for themselves and their family, if there's a sensible/plausible path set out for them to follow.

This. It's one of the main reasons why USSR collapsed - many decades of poverty, structural to socialism.

FFS @Sillycake , big companies don't create jobs. And they don't deliver a nice society, or anything new. I've had AMazon Prime since it launched, and it's great value for me, because my retail environment is otherwise shit. A few years ago, a stroll down my town was enjoyable and visually engaging. Now, it's charity shops (I like them, donate), Boots and barbers (Turkish- or thereabouts-- money laundering) but there is also one very upmarket, expensive clothes shop. Realistically you would say it's a fail, but the owner prospers and has traded through good times and bad. Two owners have known that professional women buy clothes they like and find comfortable to wear that simultaneously declare professional status even before they say anything.

Apologies, here, empathetically here! But I am listening.

@Papyrophile, hear, empathetically, hear!

basically this

At this point, after that post, I feel I should beat my chest and declare "I am a Tory".

I revised for my A levels in a library lit by candles, because of the three day week.

The 70s were so bright and vibrant culturally, because everyone was poor, and wanted more.

With Maggie Thatcher in the chair, it tipped over into more people doing better, as long as you were not in manufacturing or steel (my SF hated her, and he OWNED a high tech steel company) based on the insight that people work a lot harder for themselves than for the system.

Hence the sale of council houses, which the councils couldn't afford to to repair much less improve. So they were sold. And they were bought by their occupants at pennies on the pound, who did the upgrades that were required to bring them up to decent condition. Once they became owners, they thought like capitalists.

It's a very unpopular opinion here, but capitalism has raised more people out of poverty than socialism. It always will, because people will bust a gut for themselves and their family, if there's a sensible/plausible path set out for them to follow.

You are completely full of shit and understand nothing about what life was like in the 70s.

But if the money was splurged would it be a productive flow of money back to the economy.

A lot might be spent on say holidays that would benefit other countries or on cars etc. Whereas if the money wasn't splurged and invested in say new machinery for a family business then this would create more jobs, more revenue and more tax.

Completely agree.

It wouldn't be that bad if people were going to just splurging it, there would be a flow of money back to economy. I think people will just stop working when they have enough to maintain their lifestyle plus some extra for care.

That's the flaw with say a 100% inheritance tax. Many people are more motivated to increase their income / wealth in order to provide security for their children than they are to increase their income/ wealth to spend it on themselves. From an economics perspective that is illogical but from a parental perspective perfectly logical.

If you have a 100% inheritance tax, all that will happen is a rush to splurge the money before you die on holidays etc rather than say use it invest in and to grow the family business.

The financial security to gift financial security to the next generation is the inheritocracy. As a boomer, it didn't happen for me. I got £400 from one GP and £3k from another... a garden table and a nice holiday in Canada. But I spent my most productive years in a growth economy.

My quibble is that I don't really believe that the current Government understand how to grow an economy. They have views on making life safe, and supporting the unsuccessful, but they are not interested in making or incentivising successful people to do even better.

Agree with you. But even socialists try very hard to give their kids a helping hand. There is a regular poster, who is determinedly socialist, who acknowledged that she and her partner have given their child a house, or a significant chunk of one, because in our currently very insecure world, that is the best thing a parent can do while youth earnings and employment are precarious. We have done the same, but in 10 or 20 years, we may have provided the foundation for a social rebuild.

There is another angle to it.

Social Ownership: Means of production (factories, mines, utilities) are owned by the public, collective, or state rather than individuals.
Equality Focus: The primary goal is reducing inequalities in wealth and power.
Economic Planning: Often involves central planning or government intervention to manage resources and production.
Distribution: Resources are distributed according to collective need.

What social ownership actually means? There are individuals who would need to manage these assets. As soon as one group has access to assets/wealth there is a risk of corruption. To a point it was almost inbuilt feature in USSR and all socialist states.
Resources are distributes according to collective need - again, it's not AI which makes decisions about needs, it's individuals. And the same point about corruption applies.
Economic planning involves central planning or government intervention - means losing speed and agility and innovation.

There is a reason why socialism has never been successful.

I think you hit the nail on the head.

Socialism is a fantastic wonderful idea, it's just that it doesn't work in practice with human nature.

to serve public good rather than private profit.

The very wording suggests that both cannot be true at the same time.

Which completely ignores the role of profit in driving innovation and efficiency, allowing for investment, and allocating resources.

And ignores basic human nature where progress is made by competition and where equality focussed pay scales remove incentives to perform.

The biggest challenge to debating OP on the pros and cons of socialism, is defining what exactly is socialism?

Its impossible to debate when different people have different definitions of what socialism is?

Here for example is the Wikipedia's definition, which differs from the PP's definition:

Socialism is an economic and political system based on public or collective ownership of the means of production, aiming for a more equal distribution of wealth and resources. It emphasizes cooperation over competition, with essential industries often controlled by the state or worker cooperatives to serve public good rather than private profit.

Core Characteristics of Socialism:

Social Ownership: Means of production (factories, mines, utilities) are owned by the public, collective, or state rather than individuals.
Equality Focus: The primary goal is reducing inequalities in wealth and power.
Economic Planning: Often involves central planning or government intervention to manage resources and production.
Distribution: Resources are distributed according to collective need.

Having an NHS etc doesn’t mean socialism. North Korea is more likely to take that description.

That definition doesn’t mention anything about the role of the state?

Excellent post.