Sorry I didn’t know which other community to post this on😅. So let me take example of my country, Well so what most people don’t know, is that India is a socialist democracy by the constitution, and I must admit before I start that yes, there’s plenty of problems with this country, but I was surprised by how deep socialist roots go in this country, so I thought a few of India’s policies would make an excellent case study.
Firstly, a subtle one, existence of MRP, maximum retail price, on everything you buy. Packet of lays, coke, medicine, everything has an MRP, over which you cannot sell the product for. Enforcement had been weak historically, but even then you would only see people selling above MRP in amusement parks or movie theatres, for everyday shopping, you are almost always likely to pay the MRP price. I was surprised to know that such law doesn’t exist in the west, though feel free to correct me.
Second, India’s medicine patent laws. India has strict ‘non evergreening’ laws, which means a patent of a medicine cannot be extended unless you made the medicine better. Also government can give orders to bypass medicine patents if deemed necessary.
Third the farming in India. A nice rabbithole to dig in, but I am picking one example, Amul, the most popular brand of milk in India, is less like a company and more like a co-operative society, where they co-operate with regional dairy farms. Most of the money made by selling the milk actually goes back to the farmers.
Plenty of examples, but just these few I could think of. Infact MRP does not even exist in China, so in that policy, India is literally more left than China.
Yeah again, Indian laws in practice are riddled with corruption, but I think the template they work in are interesting, and I think west would tackle those problems a lot better.
Any more examples of socialist democracies?
India is not a socialist democracy, the working classes do not control the state and private ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, rather than public. Modern socialist states include the PRC, Cuba, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, and partially Venezuela. Former socialist states include the USSR, and the various Warsaw Pact countries. Thinking about “left vs. right” in terms of single economic policies, rather than the dynamics of class struggle in a given society, is an error.
Socialism is defined by “the ownership of the means of production by the working class, in a transition to communism”.
There’s some debate about whether cooperatives satisfy this criteria.
What you seem to be describing is a social-democracy, where there’s still the common capitalist dynamics and class interest contradictions, but with the conflict reduced somewhat by appeasing the majority with a social safety net.
To be clear, markets aren’t anti-socialist and class struggle continue into socialism, the key distinguishing factor is which class controls the state and which aspect of production is principal, private or public.
Absolutely, I could have worded it better.
No worries!
Lol I myself misunderstood what socialist democracies look like.
Is what you describe really socialism though? Western leftists would probably call these policies social democracy. And yes, they make the life of people in that country better! Relatively high minimum wages, limits on prices (or price increases) for certain things (especially housing), mandatory paid sick leave, mandatory unemployment insurance, and so on are all things that some European countries have in some form or another. And yes, that makes most of our lives (I’m German) relatively great.
However, most of the housing, factories and land are still owned by capitalists. They still exploit their workers and tenants, the policies only soften the blows. In recent decades, the concentration of capital in a few families’ hands has also skyrocketed here, which gives them political power (sometimes openly, sometimes covertly) and led to the erosion of many of these social democratic benefits. Also, a lot of the high social security in the west in the past century was only possible thanks to exploitation of people and nature in the global south.
That’s why many leftists, at least in the west, don’t think that social democracy is enough in the long term. Many even see social democrats as stabilizing the fundamentally corrupt capitalist system by covering up that corruption. For most of us, socialism would mean that, at the very least, big corporations are owned and lead by the workers themselves. That could be cooperatives in markets (market socialism) or that could be some kind of planned economy (not only state central planning, there’s also proposals for somewhat or even totally distributed/decentralized schemes). The point here is that there are no more owners of productive forces, who don’t participate themselves in production, i.e. capitalists. The existence of a separate capitalist class with a lot of power and opposed to the workers is a common denominator for unneccessary misery in this world. Eliminating that class (that doesn’t mean eliminating the people, only expropriating them) would not magically solve all problems in the world, but it would make us freer to seek effective measures.
Well there’s always some difference in how countries brand yourself vs how they actually function, lol.
This country is absolutely filled with monopolies that make lives of common people worse. In ways they are worse than chaebols of Korea in terms of how untouchable they are. But also there are lines this country would never cross, like agriculture and medicine, cause that would be a political suicide.
Regarding socialism, well truth be told there’s plenty of incentive for people the keep the system running the way it is, hence the sorta world socialists envision is really really hard to implement. Not because it’s bad, I love the idea of housing as a right, and markets being a co-operative, it’s just, how do you even implement it in this atmosphere.
Most of fennoscandia (skandinavia + Finland) think of themselves as socialist democracies. Although political power of big companies and right wing parties they control has been eroding government ownership of large business, public education system and healthcare system for decades.
Not sure if they are that anymore.
Those are social democracies, socialism requires that the working classes control the state and public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy. Social democracy is largely a concession to prevent socialism.
They were never socialist, they’ve always been social-democracies, that’s quite a difference even though there’s some shared ideological roots.
Great discussion!
First order of business; let’s define “socialism”, or “Democratic socialism”, because as a citizen of the US, this (these) terms have been bastardized beyond recognition.
Second order of business; the term “left” is also muddled (certainly in my country, but also in the global context). Historically it’s those who are nationalist (don’t want external rule). Modern usage seems less concrete.
I like the idea of MRP for staple goods. Are there any producers that make the cost of products below the MRP?
Historically it’s those who are nationalist (don’t want external rule).
If I think of the historical meaning of leftism, I immediately think of marxism, but this would be antinationalist, as the goal is specifically unite all workers of the world and ignoring the country borders. Anarchism also abolishes nation states. What were you talking about in your comment?
A correction on nationalism with respect to Marxism: nationalism against imperialism and colonialism is progressive, as to truly be liberated the people must not be under threat of empire. Nationalism within the imperial core is reactionary as it protects imperialism.
Oh, well mrp is mostly for packed food and goods. It’s extremely rare to find stuff below MRP in normal shops, but some wholesale grocery stores would sell stuff for lower than the MRP.
For stuff like vegetables and fruits, we don’t practice MRP, but at the same time, that vegetable is far more likely to come from a local farmer than in USA. Actually unless you buy from shopping markets, that vegetable is 100% from local farmer, and most people don’t buy from shopping markets, they buy from local vegetable vendors. There’s plenty of government intervention in agriculture that protects local farmers, but currently I don’t remember much of it
The UK has RRP as an equivalent, but they address the problem differently really. MRP is stop price gauging I think, whereas RRP is there to incentivise retailers to offer discounts to lure more customers.
We also have co-op’s that run supermarkets and banks, but they compete against private companies.
I think Europe is fairly social in its services (healthcare, pensions, etc.).
Yup, erurope definitely is. Infact India, despite being socialist democracy, does not have real ways of tackling healthcare and pension. Yes we have government funded hospitals but the service there is abyssimal. Only thing I know about Europe is that they don’t have any equivalent to Indian medicine laws, rest I agree on
If you want to ask about socialism, lemmygrad.ml is the right place.
Firstly, a subtle one, existence of MRP, maximum retail price, on everything you buy. Packet of lays, coke, medicine, everything has an MRP, over which you cannot sell the product for. Enforcement had been weak historically, but even then you would only see people selling above MRP in amusement parks or movie theatres, for everyday shopping, you are almost always likely to pay the MRP price. I was surprised to know that such law doesn’t exist in the west, though feel free to correct me.
Second, India’s medicine patent laws. India has strict ‘non evergreening’ laws, which means a patent of a medicine cannot be extended unless you made the medicine better. Also government can give orders to bypass medicine patents if deemed necessary.
Plenty of examples, but just these few I could think of. Infact MRP does not even exist in China, so in that policy, India is literally more left than China.
Market interventionism (example: price control) isn’t leftism. Paternalistic conservatism is rightist ideology that uses market interventionism.
Third the farming in India. A nice rabbithole to dig in, but I am picking one example, Amul, the most popular brand of milk in India, is less like a company and more like a co-operative society, where they co-operate with regional dairy farms. Most of the money made by selling the milk actually goes back to the farmers.
Nice information.
I am sorry if my english is bad.
