Why is socialism viewed so negatively in politics and media?

[Vix150]

Why do people not like socialism?

To me it doesn't seem disastrous but it's portrayed in the media as a horrific way for a society to run.

Any thoughts?

The ones who have generational wealth ☺️.

Socialism removes the ability for owners and shareholders of businesses to get rich out if the labours of others. It’s nothing to do with people having to work less. How are are the privatised water companies and rail companies working out for you all? Have a look at the Scandinavian models for socialism that works.

We've never had socialism, we've always had capitalism.

The Nordic model is capitalism that works, not socialism, as those countries have free market economies :)

The "socialism vs capitalism" debate is so unhelpful. As illustrated here, there's virtually no consensus on what is actually means - many on this thread seem to conflate socialism with authoritarian communism, others with modern Finland.

Far more helpful is just to ask whether wealth inequality, right now in the UK, is too high or too low, and what we should do about it. Do we want to be more like Finland or the US? And how do we make that happen.

Personally, I think wealth inequality is much too high. It's inflating asset prices and baking in heritable inequalities - the very anti-meritocratic thing that capitalism is supposed to remedy. The really interesting question is how we remedy that.

It’s not just that. Socialism is about the size and power of the state.

On looking it up about five countries are seen to be socialist and that there’s misunderstanding re the Nordic countries, which is on this thread too.

I meant that there's little consensus in practice. Most people are unaware of the formal dictionary definitions, so everyone is talking at cross purposes.

I agree that it's important to talk about the size of the state, that's a better understood term than socialism I suspect.

True re people coming at it from cross purposes.

Can we stop with the 'Scandinavia is socialist' myth please.
eg Sweden: Between 1870 and 1970, Sweden had a smaller government and a more open economy than most comparable countries, and that was the era when Sweden grew faster than any other developed country but Japan.
Then, when Sweden had already become one of the richest countries in the world, Sweden began to experiment with socialist ideas. From 1970 through 1990, government was massively expanded, taxes were raised, and the economy was regulated. Swedish companies like IKEA and Tetra Pak and lots of successful entrepreneurs left Sweden and not a single net job was created in the private sector. It was the one moment in Sweden’s modern history where they lagged behind other countries. After a devastating financial crisis in the early 1990s, politicians from both the left and right agreed to end this experiment. Instead, they reduced public spending, taxes, and regulation to get back to the growth model that made Sweden successful. Sweden started to outperform its neighbors again.
Sweden still has a relatively large welfare state, but the receivers pay for it themselves. The tax burden falls heavily on low- and middle-income households in Sweden, making the tax system much less progressive than almost all other rich countries. If you wanted to replicate a similar model in the UK, life would look quite similar for all those net contributors on higher earnings (or better in fact as services would vastly improve at no additional contribution from them). But those on average to low incomes had better watch out as their contributions will increase significantly. The lesson from Sweden is that you can have a big government or you can make the rich pay for it all, but you can’t have both.

Just those. Not the other ones that became billionaires due to work? Are we OK with those ones?

Can you name the ones that are only billionaires through inheritance other than royals/ Duke of Westminster?

There is wealth inequality between generations, specifically the Boomers. That is relevant.

Well we've never had a Marxist socliast revolution thats true. But we have had periods where extenstive socialist policies were enacted on. Eg nationalisation of various industries.

Where hard working women dominate the lowest paid jobs with long hours.

Do you actually know what's going on in Cuba? Because that's a very strange answer.

Either that or this is just rage bait.

@Vix150 sorry the quote function isn't working
I meant to quote your answer about people being resilient and friendly. Which is really not the issue in Cuba!

No there is wealth inequality between rich and poor. The moment you fudge that into identity groups you will fail to actually change anything.

If you use the same calculations for millennials that self appointed grifting lobby groups use for boomers then millennials come out as the richest or soon to be richest generation in history. The reality is that millennial children of the wealthy boomers will be even wealthier. Millennial children of poor boomers will not.

Well, if you consider both tax and spend rather than just tax, which is the relevant measure , Sweden is actually one of the most redistributive countries in the world.

However, again, I'm not sure that narrative accounts of individual countries are particularly helpful. More informative are cross-cultural comparative analyses of large numbers of countries. When these are performed it is fairly clear that very high levels of inequality are pernicious. Very high inequality is associated with lower meritocracy, social mobility, economic growth, and life satisfaction, and higher crime and political instability. There's a pretty high consensus on this among those who study the topic. Surely we should focus on the weight of evidence.

So these "others". How do you think they will run a successful business to earn enough money to support all the employees. Are we talking about people all having brains and the drive and being sufficient risk-takers to build these businesses? Or will some prefer to take a back seat and then just be employees? Or is everyone to be employed by the state? Which country can you point to where that has happened and worked?

I remember British Rail when it was state owned. The grass isnt always greener.

It’s a slightly different topic to the op on socialism.

There’s about five countries that fit with the socialist description and looking up a few it doesn’t end up in higher equality.

North Korea's Gini coefficient is difficult to determine officially due to a lack of transparency, but estimates suggest high levels of income inequality, with some studies estimating it between 0.63 and 0.86.

• High Inequality Estimates: Some research suggests North Korea has one of the highest levels of inequality in the world, comparable to nations like Brazil or South Africa, contradicting the perception of a socialist, equal society.

History knows examples of socialist countries, USSR was the one. It was horrid.

it's interesting that top 10 richest people in the world started in relatively ordinary families

If you want capitalism you really need to look at third world countries. There the gap between rich and poor is extreme. No safety net, no job you starve or rely on charity.

Here we have a bit of both. There's still a tendency for wealth to move up to the wealthy with a growing gap. However we do have a safety net, social housing, health care, child benefit etc. To push more to capitalism we need to remove social housing (in progress when councils were required to sell of social housing as right to buy), dump child benefit make people responsible for their own children, remove health care unless you can pay for it.

Also many workers rights were brought in through socialism, sick pay, maternity, health and safety, employment protection. Capitalism would be more effective if they didn't have to consider these sort of things.

Yes, I think that illustrates just how unhelpful the word socialism is. Most people would assume socialism implied low inequality, and I very much doubt that the people on this thread who are advocating for socialism were envisioning or hoping for North Korea.

Likewise, I doubt that the pro-capitalists here were imagining e.g. Mozambique or Somalia, countries with very small states (and high inequality).

When there is a big discrepancy between dictionary definitions and normal usage, a word ceases to be helpful and becomes a distraction from the important topics that we need to address as a society .

Venezuela was supposed to become a socialist country with Chavez. The people in power brought the country to its knees. Enriched themselves, destroyed the middle classes and today only give some crumbles to the very poor. While there was already free education, free healthcare and social programs. The main issue was corruption and inequality. That never changed but exacerbated. Elections have been rigged for years.

Educated Venezuelans knew this would happened from the very beginning. The appetite for change from the two main parties and people sick of corruption was a motivation for some of the middle class to vote for change. Poorer people felt heard. However, nothing changed. Unless you join the corrupt government you stay as poor as ever or worse. Always be weary of governments erasing the middle classes. Best way to control a country as the rich and mobile go and the poor has not choice.

Yup. Chavez done cronyism and was corrupt etc. And the US slapped sanctions on them cos they nationalised things, esp the oil. As @MrsTerryPratchett says, it's a non stop cycle of US intervention. Then what does Trump do. Kidnap their president, leave the same regime in place.... and takes their oil.. for himself.

Moving away from Venezuela, North Korea also shows socialism in reality.

Although the pp below on Mozambique also applies.

The Nordic model probably gets a better rap than socialism, it’s still capitalism though.