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?

  • Micromot@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    4 hours ago

    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?

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      3 hours ago

      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.