To ask how Socialism would work in the real world?

[NewNameNewShoes]

Not a trick question. I've seen a fair few people state "I'm a socialist" and just wondered what it really meant (I've a vague idea but realised I don't really understand it very much). Tried a quick Google but it brought up loads of essays and academic stuff - just need a paragraph-long overview.

I was never very interested in politics in my 20s as had too much going on personally. Was in a sales career which I hated for 15 years but which I was good at and which paid reasonably well. Found it hard to focus on the bigger picture when I had job related anxiety every day and an undiagnosed hormonal problem which made me lack energy and drive. Always felt like politics would have much less impact on my day to day life than changing career or solving immediate obstacles, but now I've become quite interested in it all.

For example, all MPs/politicians seem to be paid fairly well. In a socialist society would they earn £35k like the average individual or would they be the elite and us the plebians?

Who would do the demanding, stressful jobs which currently command high salaries? We already see high earners go to great lengths to evade tax, so clearly money is an incentive for them. If they can't earn a high wage here won't they just move abroad leaving us with a skills deficit?

Would people really be happy being on the waiting list for a fridge etc as we've seen in previous communist societies (especially when their much hated neighbour/MIL/colleague gets one first). I ask this because I've heard people say that many people who claim to be socialist want an idealised version on socialism where they keep all their current niceties of a capitalist world

I'm probably skewed a bit because the only self proclaimed socialist I speak to in real life is my best mate's brother. He's the archetypal manbunned barista type who spent his 20s sofa surfing and smoking weed whilst his siblings studied and built careers. He's finally holding down a job in Costa and shares a small bedsit with his stoner girlfriend, and they both love banging on about redistribution of wealth. To me it just looks like they couldn't be arsed to work for what they want and are jealous of those that did. But surely there's more to it than this. I see some very intellectual and educated types claim to be socialists although it does also seem to be very popular with the blue haired student types.

John Lewis is a socialist company and works very well - the employees are all owners, unlike most companies who’s owners are faceless investors who care most about profit. Socialism is like that in the sense that people have more of a stake in the economy and the rewards shared more evenly. This is not the same as communism, people aren’t required to be completely equal.

However most socialist don’t mean it to this extent. It’s more about creating a more equal society and giving a helping hand to those that need it, levelling the playing field to enable equality of opportunity. It’s capitalism but managed to make it fairer. So the rich can’t hoard the wealth but people can still do well financially. There’s more of an emphasis on wellbeing verses GDP. Or that’s what it means to me.

Thanks for replying. I think that's interesting. It sounds on the surface a little like labour as opposed to conservative, left as opposed to right.

The idea of a society which gives more power to the people sounds on the surface a good thing, although I'm not sure how it would work in practice as money always seems to command power.

Pure socialism is a rare, Cuba, Venezuela or old style Eastern Europe or Soviet Union are examples where it has been tried for a prolonged period. Although people will often claim it was never properly tried due to the invasive nature of capitalism.

Comparing outcomes of what it meant for people living either socialism or capitalism is interesting. Capitalist policies are shown to have greater improvements in the overall standard of living. But it comes at a cost, inequalities are greater. Socialism doesn’t raise standards of living as quickly but irons out inequality.

Cuba is an excellent example of a poor country with excellent public health. It is notable that socialised health care is evident in a lot of otherwise capitalist countries. Clearly a lot of people view good health as a national resource rather than a commodity.

Socialism is like capitalism, there are a thousand variations.

It can be Maoism or Marxism and the short answer is that they don't work. Certainly never in big countries like China or Russia.

However low level socialist ideas like public ownership of essential services is a great idea and works well, often subsumed into capitalist structures (like housing in Singapore being built by the government and sold very cheaply).

Who would do the demanding, stressful jobs which currently command high salaries?

I find that interesting. That's a lie. job with high salaries are no more demanding that jobs with very low salaries. If effort and stress were enriching, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. It's the rare skills, aptitudes and acquisition of knowledge that command money. Plus connections. Why are these not distributed equally?

Your man-bun barista friend sounds like an arse. A more interesting question is whether capitalism works in the world. And, of course, it doesn't. Starvation, rampant ecological destruction, homelessness, the willful impoverishment of whole swathes of people to feed the machine, the shit show that we created in Africa and other places. It might be more persistent than socialism, it isn't better.

This could be my own naivety/lack of understanding, but I've always been a bit sceptical of the view that wealth is a public asset that needs to be fairly distributed. For example, if somebody starts a company which manages to bring in significant investment from overseas, then they are acquiring money which wasn't already in the pot so to speak, so they're not taking an 'unfair' portion of what is already there, although I appreciate this may be a somewhat limited understanding of the situation.

Obviously monopolies etc are a different case.

Socialism is essentially about putting the means of production into the hands of the people. It doesn’t prohibit external investment, it’s just not an attractive prospect for most investors.

That's a lie. job with high salaries are no more demanding that jobs with very low salaries.

I'm not sure we can say this with certainty.

I certainly agree that the guys digging roads in the hot sun work pretty hard for a fairly low wage, but on the other hand my BIL earns six figures as the Commercial Director of a household name company and does loads more hours then the average office worker and is away for at least a week every month. He has to have his mobile to hand on holiday and at Xmas.

I work the evening shift because it gets me about £7k more a year but I probably wouldn't otherwise, although I'm a night owl and don't really mind it.

I recommend buying an a level text book to give you more of the basics through to decent understanding overall. I watched newsnight and had debates about politics with my dad as a teen, before doing the a level, I loved it. It’s hard to debate with others when you don’t a good grounding, even I get lost with the level of debate from some people and I worked around politics before kids. Although that made me cynical and I switched off for a few years.

Representative democracy can work in a socialist country, no need to change that. Scandinavia has socialist governments and does really well, higher standard of living. Germany is more socialist too and did fantastically with Covid. Danes are the happiest people. These aren’t communist countries, they run on capitalism too. The NHS is socialist and would never exist without socialism. It’s about finding the right balance. Bernie Sanders in the US is an example of a current democratic socialist, have a read of his policies.

Communism doesn’t work because humans are too easily corrupted. Animal farm is key reading for that, a nice but easier to read insight into Russia. You can find a guide to help explain who the characters represent and how it linked to real events.

Communism doesn’t work because humans are too easily corrupted.

It's interesting to read about the early days of Mao and similar. So idealistic and so much better than what had gone before. And then the descent into violence and insanity.

I think mental and physical effort are different things too. Moving from being an office worker to being a truck driver, I earn about the same salary (£45k) but my life is very different. I do 50 hours minimum a week and never have 'easy' days anymore like at the start of a project when I often had a couple weeks of mostly wfh to 'familiarise' myself with a bid (basically a few hours reading a day with my feet up), or days where I'd have to travel somewhere for a two hour meeting and spend most of my day browsing my iPad on public transport.

But my life is much less stressful now. I never take my work home aside from the very rare occasion I've had a bump and am shitting it about the next morning (not really an issue now with three years experience and now being a trusted driver at my workplace). I also don't really have to think outside of the moment either, which doesn't bother me as I'd much rather keep my mental energy for the things I really enjoy.

I do have to be extremely careful as I could easily cause catastrophic damage to a building or kill a family with a momental loss of attention, but no office politics or corporate bullshit and I can pretty much speak my mind within reason to most of my colleagues. But of course other people thrive in different environments.

I grew up in a Socialist country. Here are some pros and cons:

Pro- People lived in flats free of rent, funded by the government
Con- the way people were chosen to get a free flat was not always fair. There was corruption/connections/nepotism at play

Pro- Education, including university education, was free.
Con- The universities themselves were not necessarily world class

Pro- All healthcare, including dental care, was free
Con- Not necessarily world class healthcare/ dental plans

Pro- Crime rate was very, very low
Con- We had a dictator and everyone was afraid to commit criminal acts or speak against the dictator, which was in itself considered to be a criminal act

Pro- Huge support and push towards locally grown/nationally produced goods
Con- there were always shortages of something or other as we minimised all imports. We considered all shortages ( including a shortage of sugar or eggs) to be normal.

Pro - the country had a good, strong army
Con - a huge percentage of every salary was taken and spent towards equipping the army
Con - the weapons were later used to kill my people, so we paid for the bombs that killed us by ourselves

Pro - the country played a part in defeating the nazis in world war II
Con - the government tried living off the old glory days for over 50 years, while implementing a strong dictatorship. People needed more, I guess, so it all came crashing down

Final note : the dictator himself was loved and still is beyond any reason. He passed away days before my birthday and let’s just say no one cared about me being born...the entire country was crying. Brainwashing at its finest 😆

Socialism may appear nice/ fair in theory, but when in practice, please still account for human greed, nepotism, hunger for power, loyalty of certain groups but not others all based on culture, religion etc.

How old are you? We used to have state owned railways, water and power. We still have heavy regulation of these areas. It makes sense.

John Lewis is a socialist company and works very well

LOL what? The reality is that John Lewis give employees a bonus if they work hard enough and make a large enough profit. Its no where near socialism.

Socialism in the UK would be if the Unions controlled how much everyone was paid how often everyone worked and what a 'company' was allowed to do or not!

Thank god we dont have it.

Podcasts and audiobooks are great if you are driving. You can learn about all sorts. I got into economics through podcasts and enjoy science too. It’s amazing how we have a large capacity to learn even as adults. Wikipedia is great too.

@AuntyPasta

How old are you? We used to have state owned railways, water and power. We still have heavy regulation of these areas. It makes sense.

I am 40 AuntyPasta 🙂

I meant the OP but I was vague.

I'm mid 30s, AuntyPasta.

I wonder if there needs to be a distinction between 'trendy socialism' and the real political deal. When I watch YouTube videos (admittedly not the best source perhaps) I see a lot of beardy types claiming to be socialists and they don't strike me as the types who would have a particularly diverse understanding of politics or be able to make much sense of the Financial Times. Although maybe I'm projecting.

@ZombieFan of course is a socialist model. The company is owned by the employees who share in the profits, and isn’t sold off as capital - capital = shares owned by private or corporate investors and run for their benefit.

And I doubt it would be seen as an unattractive prospect if it did sell out, investors would flock to it.

As for unions, the US has powerful unions surprisingly. And in other countries they do well with unions. Germany s lots of good working practices and a very well skilled workforce. Unlike here where we refuse to invest in our workforce and import them from other countries.

Socialism can mean a few different things. But it's maybe useful to think about what characterises capitalism to compare.

Some people think of capitalism as being characterised by free markets, but that's not entirely true - trading in markets was around long before capitalism, and no markets are entirely free, someone always defines the rules of trade.

The main thing about capitalism is that, in basic terms, it is divided into capitalists who own the means of production - the factories, businesses, mines etc - and the workers, who sell their labour to the capitalist in return for a wage. There are also self-employed people, but what is characteristic is that in a capitalist society the bulk of people are employees. Employees don't own something that can earn them money like a business owner, they depend on employment, and the right kind for their skills.
There are always fewer capitalists than workers. The main criticism that socialists have of capitalism is that it puts too much power in the hands of the owners - without some kind of balancing force you end up with a situation like the horrible employment situations of the late 19th century. Many would also say that the other inherent problem is that wealth concentrates more and more. So over time, you have fewer employers who own more and more, and all the workers have less and less. So you get the currant situation where a tiny number of people own more than half the world's wealth.

Socialism is built around different ways of balancing that relationship between the owners and the workers. So strong unions have been a feature and were important in getting laws about work hours, safety, etc passed. Legislation around employment practices. Other socialists think these things are never enough, and what is needed is that the whole idea of an employer becomes less common and important. State socialism, where the state owns most businesses is one example, as seen (sort of) in the old USSR. More commonly you see the idea that certain industries are state owned, or publicly owned, combined with more conventional businesses. Another version has most people working in self-employment, either as independent businesses and partnerships, or for larger operations as co-ops. Many socialists will also recommend changes to things like banking practices, how businesses are incorporated, and so on.

Sadly there’s loads of bullshitters on the internet, including mumsnet. That’s why it’s better to get a text book and understand it on a factual basis before getting options, which are often biased, including newspapers.

It’s amazing the number of people who conflate socialism with communism, and those who think communism is evil, when it was idealistic and unfortunately unrealistic. Socialist democracies work and are working right now. The best way to govern is to take the best balance from socialism and capitalism for each country. Capitalism also doesn’t work if uncontrolled due to human nature. Whatever we have is a mixture of both, the US is too as they have a welfare system of sorts and taxes and regulations on companies. Demonising either isn’t helpful.

I have no idea where I stand on the political spectrum, really. I dislike corporate culture and snobbishness (despite coming from a middle class background), but I also feel like a lot of people seem to want the state to act like a nanny rather than relying on self agency (obviously not talking about the genuinely needy here, more the type of people who moan about the achievements of those who've put in much more blood, sweat and tears than they have, like my mate's brother).

of course is a socialist model. The company is owned by the employees who share in the profits

In what what way do the employees 'own' the company? They are called 'partners' not owners because they have ZERO say whatsoever over the company.

They have literally NO control over what happens. Its is run by a self-serving oligarchy in that it’s the board of directors on the company that appear on the panel that appoint and remove the directors and the shareholders of the trust.

"Everyone is equal but some are more equal than others...."