>>If you have lived in a more extreme country that does not have proper democratic protections and has had an authoritarian socialist government then I'm sorry you've had to experience that.
I have and I kind of see where you coming from now. Because I would never use the word socialist for what you have in the UK, the word I would use is social. You make it sound socialist invented healthcare, transportation and education when all those things existed long before the first socialist was born. And yes ideology does matter a lot. There is a good reason why there wasn't a single successful socialist country in the world and there also a good reason why a lot of ex-socialist countries still have so many problems even after they nominally became capitalist. Value set and the ideology behind it really do matter.
> You make it sound socialist invented healthcare, transportation and education when all those things existed long before the first socialist was born.
The UK NHS was invented by the UK Labour Party (socialists) after WW2. It was the first healthcare system in the world that provided free healthcare services to its citizens on the basis of citizenship rather than fee payment or insurance. So yes, in a way, they did invent the modern health care system. Before it, working class people could not afford to see doctors because everything was private like the mess they have over in America. There is a reason the British people are very, very attached to the NHS.
Roads are another example. If all roads were private they would all have tolls and you would have to pay for every single one you used, including the minor ones from your house to the main road. Instead we pool our taxes and maintain them collectively because everyone can see that doing otherwise would be madness. But in a completely free market capitalist society with no opposing ideology, the landowners would happily charge you for each individual road, just as they happily charge you for parking a car.
And education only used to be available to those whose parents could afford it. Collectively we decided this was a bad idea, so we created a school system where every child would receive an education, paid for out of taxes. In a free market capitalist society, this would not exist, and half the country would be illiterate, having received no education because their parents could not afford it.
You can’t remove the “ist” from the end of “social” and claim it is a different thing. These are socialist policies, that are paid for by collect taxes and redistributing them to those in need. Most of us agree that these are for the greater good and preferable to the free market equivalent. But we can also agree that we don’t need to nationalise the production of cars, or clothes or any number of other things because the free market capitalist ideologies do a good job in those industries.
The problem is not the ideology. The problem is applying the wrong model (ideology) to the wrong problem due to being overly attached to the model as well as bad actors exploiting loopholes in models and systems for their own gain.
I prefer to look at these ideologies as percentages. I don’t know what the numbers would truly be but for the sake of example you could say that 70-80% of scenarios call for capitalist solutions and 20-30% of scenarios call for socialist solutions. In the UK this tracks, as we tend to have more/longer periods of Conservative government than we do Labour. It also tracks with the folk wisdom of sticking with what has been proven to work for the majority of the time rather than trying something new.
> and there also a good reason why a lot of ex-socialist countries still have so many problems even after they nominally became capitalist.
Yes, because they have not developed the checks and balances in their political systems to contain extremists and exploiters so they become corrupted. For example, this is one of the reasons why Ukraine was not allowed to join the EU. According to Wikipedia, it still needs to reform its system in the following areas:
Brussels Requirements
reform of the Constitutional Court
continuation of judicial reform
anti-corruption
anti-money laundering
implementation of the anti-oligarchic law
harmonization of audiovisual legislation
change in legislation on national minorities
For what it’s worth, I do think some of that is a bit hypocritical, especially as until very recently the UK was a member of the EU and London probably launders more dirty money than anywhere else on the planet but that’s another discussion in itself.
Words have meanings and socialism doesn't mean what you think it means and also free market capitalism doesn't mean what you are making it to be. You are trying to assign everything that is a about common good or state's good as socialist, which is absurd and completely ahistorical thing to say.
The roads example is so silly that just let me say the Romans already build roads around Britain and I wouldn't call them socialist.
Socialism is a political philosophy and movement encompassing a wide range of economic and social systems[1] which are characterised by social ownership of the means of production,[2][3][4] as opposed to private ownership.[5][6][4] As a term, it describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems.[7] Social ownership can be public, community, collective, cooperative,[8][9][10] or employee.[11][12] While no single definition encapsulates the many types of socialism,[13] social ownership is the one common element,[6][14] and is considered left-wing.
If the state owns the roads rather than an individual or company, and they are maintained via taxes rather than tolls, then that is a socialist system. It may be part of a wider system that is mainly capitalist (which it is) but that subset of the system follows socialist principles. You can’t get around it just because you don’t like it. You want to label everything black and white, good or bad, but the world doesn’t work that way.
Just follow through with your logic. Were Romans 2000 years ago socialist (Roman state build roads)? Were middle age European kings (they were the state) socialist for building roads? I mean did you read what you copy pasted from wikipedia, it doesn't support what you claim at all.
The copy and pasted definition supports my argument exactly.
> Romans 2000 years ago socialist (Roman state build roads)?
No because Roman roads were built for military purposes and with military funds.
> Were middle age European kings (they were the state) socialist for building roads?
No, because there was no government that represented the people. All the land was owned by the royals and aristocracy.
The roads today are owned by the state, which represents the citizens of the country, not an individual, family or military. The roads are funded by direct allocation of the taxes of citizens and not from any single individual’s bank account or military war spoils.
I have and I kind of see where you coming from now. Because I would never use the word socialist for what you have in the UK, the word I would use is social. You make it sound socialist invented healthcare, transportation and education when all those things existed long before the first socialist was born. And yes ideology does matter a lot. There is a good reason why there wasn't a single successful socialist country in the world and there also a good reason why a lot of ex-socialist countries still have so many problems even after they nominally became capitalist. Value set and the ideology behind it really do matter.