Why is socialism viewed so negatively in politics and media?

I can't believe how many people on here seem to confuse Socialism with Communism!

This is the definition of socialism from AI:
"Socialism is an economic and political system where the means of production—such as factories, resources, and services—are owned or regulated by the community, often through a democratically elected government. Its primary goal is to achieve a more equitable distribution of wealth, ensuring access to basic necessities like healthcare, education, and housing. Socialism allows for individual contribution to be rewarded, meaning people are compensated based on their work or effort, and it can coexist with a capitalist framework through social reforms and public sector intervention"
What's not to like? Many of the UK institutions and systems are socialist in nature - NHS, Regulated industries (water, rail, airports...), social housing, state schools, subsidised childcare, employment and sickness benefits etc.

Yes, socialism is a dirty word in the US but I think it's what Europeans call civilisation..

I don't disagree but that's not the case on Northern Rail. They are the only train company which uses them. Aslef have agreed a deal with all the others and say they are ready to agree a deal with Northern.

What they mean is that they are ready for their train drivers to be paid more money to use a method of communication which will be easier for them, more effective for the company and increase reliability of the service.

@Imdunfer , I agree with your analysis, mostly. There are bits of the economy that cling on to outdated technologies, like fax machines, that should have been retired 20 years ago. But the fax machine remains a very useful device even now. Identity verification is the starter. The ability to transfer an image via alternative analogue methods is a significant brake on criminality, as long as folk are educated to ask for such proofs.

Huge unemployment was a result of deliberately allowing all the zombie companies that had no prospect of competing in a global economy to go bust and shed jobs. Productivity increased hugely, the UK became a country with a flexible workforce that others wanted to invest in and unemployment reduced again (though not to previous levels until later) leaving the county much better placed to face the future instead of limping along with unions telling companies who they could and couldn't employ and what they could and couldn't get them to do.

I agree with the description that Thatcher was the Funeral Director of 1980s industry, not the murderer.

The murderers were global capitalism (the same global capitalism that gives you your cheap clothes) helped by unbelievably restrictive unions.

The kind of unions who still have fax machines being used this morning in Northern Rail trains (in Public ownership for over 5 years now, no improvement in service levels) because they demand more money for their members to switch to easier methods of communication. Northern Rail managers explained to Andy Burnham that they have no power to introduce "new" communications like email without Union agreement, which is all too typical of publically funded operations.

I get that Britain being described as"the sick man of Europe" is before most people on this forum were working age, and that things feel as if they are going badly wrong at the moment. But be careful what you wish for!

Agreed re North Sea Oil. We should have copied Norway and kept it owned by the state and had a ban on spending or investing the proceeds domestically.

The biggest two economic acts of vandalism were perpetrated by Conservatives.

Heath: sold North Sea drilling rights as he did not believe that there was oil under the North Sea.

Thatcher: sold off the family silver - some needed to tbf eg Sealink; British Rail; BEA & BOAC. And her monetarist policies resulted in huge unemployment & subsequent benefits bills.

Insults are the default of the right? Another thing we will have to disagree on.

I'm very happy to stop discussing politics and economics with you (though I see you carried on when you said you wouldn't) . I find your socialist views very typically entrenched and your memories of public ownership extraordinarily rose tinted.

Regarding not engaging in further debate, I reserve the right to challenge you each time you repeat your assertion that the current fall in unemployment rates is any kind of good thing when it's actually largely a result of people giving up looking for a job in despair of finding one or it being worthwhile if they do.

I'm sorry that was a typo, I knew it was £3 but I can't find anywhere that suggests Ofcom mandate it.

All ISPs are allowed to hike prices but they all compete against each other and we have the MMC to make sure that do. It's a highly competitive market.

And I certainly have seen either lower prices for what I already have or service improvement. You've worked in Telecoms for years, you say. Have you not noticed bandwidth increasing year by year, and that you can now watch a film streamed to your phone?

Don't you think £30 is a flipping bargain for what you get for it compared to what it used to cost to rent and use a telephone?

I pay £1 a week for my phone and I have done for, I think, a decade now. Every 3 months I get even more minutes/texts/megabytes, depending which I chose and the price is going down with inflation.

I think @Imdunfer has been pretty reasonable and patient. No particular insults so no need to huff off?

The left seem to be far more prone to insults as a "default position" in my view. Not you particularly, Alexandra. But the left seem to often struggle with taking their own medicine.

End of discussion with you, you cannot form an argument with resorting to insults (the default position from the 'right)

I've tried to keep it polite with you across a few threads, its a pity you fail do the same.

TBH read what i wrote (i said a £3 annual increase) not 3%.

All ISPs are allowed to hike prices by 10% every year... most BB packages cost £30 or more... esp if you want higher bandwidth/speeds.

BT was privatised in 1984, i doubt very much you ve seen improvements in services and lower costs every year since.....

Well you're mixing up a while load of different issues there, but mostly I think you are deluded if you think things would have been any better if it had stayed in public ownership. My husband has many stories about the piss poor management and productivity when he was employed in it.

Still only 1% and it was needed (though some economists now argue that it was never required) after OPEC hiked oil prices by 300% and the mishandling of the economy by the Tories in the early 70s... the 3 day week/black outs, often attributed to Labour, actually only occurred under the Tories......

I love the use of language though "begged".... i mean you do know what the IMF is set up for don't you....

I haven't a clue what 3% increase you are taking about in telecoms services. Every year that goes by since privatisation we've either had price reductions offered by competing companies or massive increases in service for similar money.

No, as we have seen, most of these companies folded as they were very poorly run.
Its a fixed market, made "competitive" via massive state regulation.

Service levels? mmmm the 25% of people with smart meters, that don't work, that are never recalibrated might argue with that... among other problems.

National Grid offer "service levels" that are appalling, a complete monopoly and don't even carry out basic mtce, its cheaper for them to pay any fines than to cut back trees, provide generators, upgrade old over head cabling.

NG also have taken over many regional network companies, reducing service levels even further.

As we have some of the most expensive electricity in the world, i would say that "privatisation" has been a complete failure.

Well, i ve no idea what world you live in thats true enough..... OR have 70% penetration, BT 33% of BB.
The 2 companies, still work hand in glove...

VM are only really an option in cities.

Offers? lol... you mean the fixed £3 (min) per year increase, way above inflation, fixed by OfCom.

I ve worked for over 35years in Telecoms, i ve seen the the total screw ups of cowboy companies, lack of support, the constant blame when there are faults.

But as i said, it has overall been a success.

IMF loan was 1976, we borrowed from them about 1% of our GDP.

We didn't need to borrow what we asked for and what was agreed. The fact the IMF was underpinning us restored the confidence of the markets in the basket case of the UK economy at the time. We were able to borrow from the markets at reasonable prices again and didn't need to draw down the loan.

Don't you get how bloody shameful it was for the 5th biggest economy in the world to have to beg for a loan?

I'm also baffled that you don't think that the privatisation of electricity supply (not necessarily generation, which I don't think should ever have been private, same argument as water, a necessity of life).

Did you prefer it when we had "take it or leave it" pricing and the service levels that go with monopoly suppliers?

The only one i can think of that worked was Telecoms, though decades later, its still an industry largely controlled by Openreach/BT.

I sometimes wonder in discussing things with you whether you're living in the same world as me. Openreach still has a strong hold on the wires, but Virgin has is own network and there are satellite providers, not limited to Starlink.

As for providing a service, there are more offers out there than you can shake a stick at.

IMF loan was 1976, we borrowed from them about 1% of our GDP.

Rail and water were privatised some 18 years and 13years later respectively.

We could have had huge revenues from NS oil for capital investment, instead it was squandered on tax cuts, oh and privatisation involved a great deal of cost too, not least to the consumer and in subsidy.

Utilities were privatised out of ideological reasons.

The only one i can think of that worked was Telecoms, though decades later, its still an industry largely controlled by Openreach/BT.

Going back to socialism, people forget that the reason the trains and utilities were privatised was because they are all hugely capital intensive and the country was crawling is way back from having gone begging to the IMF for a loan. We weren't in a position to be able to load the National Debt with the money needed. We could not have borrowed the money except at too high a cost. A first glance says that the National Debt was lower by 12.5% as a result of the saddle, lowering interest payment and enabling lower taxation.

These days of course socialist economists will tell us all that debt doesn't matter, only the ability to pay the interest. Unfortunately the markets that we borrow it from don't agree.

They need to solve the track/train issue perhaps as problems on the track outside their control is what train companies usually blame delays on. I suppose you can't increase competition if the track is owned by one train company though.

But a state monopoly (unless you have a functioning decent state, which we don't) is not the answer.

I've being doing some digging for statistics but they weren't reliably kept under BR. I had a recollection that the definition of a delayed train was changed from 60 minutes to 15 on privatisation and Google AI suggests that's correct, it also confirms my recollection that it was so hard to get a refund it wasn't worth the effort.

The stats that are available improve in the couple of years before privatisation, when more money was invested to make it fit to sell.

I don't think it's going well at the moment and I don't wholly disagree with it going back into public sector management. I don't doubt there will be immediate improvements. I do doubt they will be sustained, because sooner or later it will come down to making huge capital investments to keep it up to scratch and the government of the day will fight shy of increasing the National Debt to pay for it.

How old are you out of interest? And where were you getting this daily train If that's not too personal.

I suspect you must be the only person in the UK who lived through the service British Rail provided and thinks it was better than today.

I did, used it extensively, both as a teenager to get into town and for regular long distance travel when i started work.
We also had school trips, both at primary and secondary, can't remember them being the disaster the current rail system is now eg look at how train companies have fined and even prosecuted in court for genuine mistakes in railcard or ticketing?

My memory is that it affordable and whilst the trains were nothing to write home about, neither were the alternatives, buses were slow and noisy, cars the same.

I do not recall them breaking down or not turning up.

& thats before we get to the eye watering cost of taking train now a days.

Thats my "lived experience" so please stop arguing against it 😂