socialism: a state where the workers control the means of production (like the soviet union or china)
Go back in time and ask any worker in the Soviet Union or China if they control the means of production. The sense of alienation in the USSR was even stronger than in any capitalist country, because your ultimate boss was even further removed from you.
Where you’d have less alienation as a worker is if you were in a worker coop. In a worker coop you vote on how to dispose of the means of production, you’re a worker and an owner at the same time, and you have a say in the company’s direction and the various administrative matters. The USSR was not a country of worker coops. Neither was China.
The USSR was an exceptionally hierarchical setup, and democracy there was a sham, so what control could the workers speak of? None. It was non-existent. At least if the democracy in the USSR were real, there’d be that very coarse level of control via your elected representatives.
There were historically a few rare exceptions, so in fact the USSR did have a few worker coops here and there, but those were the exceptions and not the rule.
Realistically a country like France, with very strong worker protections and a much more functional democracy and a culture of routinely speaking truth to power and active resistance, is much closer to a worker-enfranchising country than something like the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union the culture was one of fear and non-resistance and with all the important elections being “unanimous” the Soviet “democracy” was a sham.
Firstly, I was talking about the USSR and not the modern day Russia.
But even with modern day Russia, which in some ways has become more politically liberalized, yea, there is no comparison and France is more democratic.
The fact that there is something like the Yellow Vest movement is in and of itself proof. Where is the Russian Yellow Vest movement? It’s nowhere. Why not? Because Russians are habitually more afraid of their government. They’re trained to be afraid from birth, like dogs, like caged animals.
What happens when Russians rise up? They quickly find themselves intimidated, in jail, or dead. How many journalists got shot in recent years in France for publishing things against the government’s interests? None that I know of.
What worker protections exist on the books in France vs Russia? Compare them. Which country is better? Which country is more likely to follow their own laws?
Go back in time and ask any worker in the Soviet Union or China if they control the means of production. The sense of alienation in the USSR was even stronger than in any capitalist country, because your ultimate boss was even further removed from you.
Where you’d have less alienation as a worker is if you were in a worker coop. In a worker coop you vote on how to dispose of the means of production, you’re a worker and an owner at the same time, and you have a say in the company’s direction and the various administrative matters. The USSR was not a country of worker coops. Neither was China.
The USSR was an exceptionally hierarchical setup, and democracy there was a sham, so what control could the workers speak of? None. It was non-existent. At least if the democracy in the USSR were real, there’d be that very coarse level of control via your elected representatives.
There were historically a few rare exceptions, so in fact the USSR did have a few worker coops here and there, but those were the exceptions and not the rule.
Realistically a country like France, with very strong worker protections and a much more functional democracy and a culture of routinely speaking truth to power and active resistance, is much closer to a worker-enfranchising country than something like the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union the culture was one of fear and non-resistance and with all the important elections being “unanimous” the Soviet “democracy” was a sham.
lmao france is more democratic than the societ union? is that what you are gonna tell the yellow vests?
I stand by what I said.
Firstly, I was talking about the USSR and not the modern day Russia.
But even with modern day Russia, which in some ways has become more politically liberalized, yea, there is no comparison and France is more democratic.
The fact that there is something like the Yellow Vest movement is in and of itself proof. Where is the Russian Yellow Vest movement? It’s nowhere. Why not? Because Russians are habitually more afraid of their government. They’re trained to be afraid from birth, like dogs, like caged animals.
What happens when Russians rise up? They quickly find themselves intimidated, in jail, or dead. How many journalists got shot in recent years in France for publishing things against the government’s interests? None that I know of.
What worker protections exist on the books in France vs Russia? Compare them. Which country is better? Which country is more likely to follow their own laws?
So yea, France is the winner here.
lmao i’m not even gonna read this drivel
It is absurd to think France is less democratic than the USSR or Russia.
Whats even absurder is thinking the USSR and Russia are the same. You think everything stayed the same after the coup where tanks shot at the Kreml?
USSR and Russia were both mentioned, they were not assumed to be the same.