What American socialist movements were most successful?

Probably unionists fighting for better working conditions, especially in the 1930s and before

Historically?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World

This the ivy league donates more money to socialist than conservative causes.

>America never had a real "socialist" movement.

That's completely wrong.

this is the only thing i could think of that actually did something

Wasn't a success, but I imagine Bernie Sanders is the best polling socialist america has seen in a long time.

And a minimum wage. And the abolition of child labor.

If I recall correctly, Huey Long had a pretty decent following before his assassination.

What the fuck? The socialist party was hugely popular in the WW1-era Midwest, and the Communist Party was a major political faction twenty years later.

In the 60s the expressly socialist Black Panthers made their mark on US history.

new deal democrats and third world immgiration

Keynesianism isn't state socialism at all

>keynsianism isn't exactly my definition of socialism, therefore it isn't heavily socialist in nature
kek

What do you think socialism is?

Keynesianism isn't socialist by any reasonable standard. It's a variant of capitalism. Keynesianism demands an economy that is primarily market driven.

communism is state seizure and control of private assets, more generally

socialism is the state interference via extensive laws and incentive structures of private industry

keynsianism is the heavy subsidization and market rate manipulation of industry, which leads to an indirect control via favored industries

a rose by any other name.

Right, but that's not correct.

Communism refers to a stateless and classless society where workers, not capitalists or aristocrats, control industry.

Socialism refers to ANY society in which the workers control industry.

Keynesianism is a capitalist ideology, and therefor non-socialist.

socialism claims that the central state can appropriately reorganize industry in the best interests of people. that's a CLAIM

keynsianism claims that central government can best reorganize productive incentives for the good of capitalism. that's a CLAIM

both systems derive power from centralization of economic power in the hands of the state. the difference is who they CLAIM to help. the claim doesn't effect their government or economic structure, both of which reroute money to special interests.

Veeky Forums is the stupidest board.

so you're going to define a system by an ideal state of existence which has never actually come into being?

that's fucking dumb. I might as well wear a pony costume and declare that my soul is a horse.

a system can CLAIM to be something. do those claims have substance? no

Veeky Forums is the stupidest board.

Nah dude, socialism is just when workers control the means of production, like factories or mines.

Stare control isn't socialist unless the state itself is controlled by workers.

>Communism refers to a stateless and classless society where workers, not capitalists or aristocrats, control industry.

I'm going to agree with on that. You can't define an economic system by an imaginary utopia that has never existed.

However, this does not change the fact that Keynesianism is a form of capitalism.

right. so modern france isn't socialist, despite having socialism in its name, socialists as teh ruling party, socialism as the guiding ideology. and neither was the USSR communist, despite calling itself communist, usng communist ideology as the guiding principle, etc.

got it, buddy.

are you aware that socialism itself doesn't claim to want to put workers in control of the means of production directly, but to do it via democratic means of a central state?

whatever

Veeky Forums is the stupidest board. I'd really like to see a survey of the average age here

Why is that dumb?

Communism refers to a very specific and vaguely utopian circumstance. Every communist experiment has been an attempt to create this kind of environment.

But that's what communism means.

The USSR and Maoist China were not examples of communism or ever purported to be.

and the result of every experiement has wildly diverged from the ideal and ended up with exactly the same circmstances, which is the concentration of power into the hands of a small elite which ends up starving half the country to death and killing the others.

is communism an ideal only, or is it also a real system? if "ideal communism" always turns into "dead people communism." so it seems that those ideals KILL people.

hmmm.

Veeky Forums is the stupidest board.

The French socialist party isn't socialist. Neither is Bernie Sanders' platform. All political theorists would corroborate this.

Across the Cold War, some socialist parties abandoned demanding worker control (the definition of socialism) to keep their membership.

Socialism isn't necessarily statist. One of the most popular socialist ideologies is anarchism, and anarchists obviously want nothing to do with the state. Communists, by contrast, believe the state should exist as a means to redistribute control of industry and then abolish itself.

Very few socialists believe the state should exist as a permanent institution. Even Joseph
fucking Stalin believed that the Soviet government was ostensibly a temporary instrument of social reorganization.

The USSR was communist in that it wanted to create communism.

Some members of the French socialist party are socialists, but most of them don't seem to want to create socialism.

okay, so what you're saying is that we can't believe what a person NAMES himself,because he can lie

what what a person CLAIMS to want to do can be believed?

wow, you're so smart.

hey, what's your bank account number and password? I dont NAME myself a helper, but I'm making the claim that my ideology revolves around helping you.

go ahead, post your social security number

OR maybe it's a better idea to classify people according to what they DO and not what they CLAIM

Veeky Forums is the stupidest board

You're not following.

"Dead people communism" isn't communism. Stalin and Mao never said it was. They believed ruthless measures were acceptable to achieve a stateless and classless society, but this is effectively impossible because the state became too powerful to "wither away" like Marx intended.

The problem with the Leninist model of communism is that it's meant to emerge out of prosperous liberal capitalism, and then spread abroad. Marx believed that once industrial workers made up the cast majority of the population, they could take control of industry without much resistance.

Every successful communist revolution has occurred in agrarian societies without much of a proletariat at all. Following the Leninist model, communists in Russia and China and Cuba assumed dictatorial power to "preserve the revolution", and killed millions in pursuit of their goals because there was no way for the people to stop them.

A communist is somebody who wants communism.

The USSR was communist because the people in charge wanted communism.

Do you understand now?

right, since you believe what a person CLAIMS to be doing is so important, give me your social security number and bank account number

oh, wait, that's RETARDED. you don't want to do that. because it's RETARDED, and you're a RETARD. but somehow you think this is a good basis to deal with millions of other people's fates regarding whether they starve to death or not.

hey, thanks for taking so much more care of your own life, and disregarding others.

kys

>But that's what communism means.

In theory, maybe.

But in practical terms, the USSR and Maoist China are examples of communist states. How could they not be? They are countries where communists literally took over the government.

What a person says he wants is the deepest level of sophistication we can achieve in political analysis, and of course, it's a completely reliable system.

You're so smart.

>the literal definition includes statelessness
>but my feelings dictate that these examples are what communism is about

The Bolsheviks were communist, yes?

And they took over the Russian government, yes?

So then the USSR was communist. Or at least it had a government that supported communism, which is basically the same thing.

You're fucking stupid if you can't grasp what I'm saying.

Communism refers to and has always referred to a specific utopian model for society.

Communists are people who try to get there. The USSR was not communism, but either state socialism or state capitalism, depending on who you ask.

Why do you think it was called the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" instead of "Commune of Russia"? Why do you think communists in Russia and China and Cuba talked about furthering the revolution decades after they seized control of the state?

Nigger, you gave faulty definitions of socialism and communism so I corrected you.

Either read a book or grow a thicker skin.

>The USSR was not communism

Was the government of the USSR run by communists or not?

Right, that's Marxism-Leninism, a socialist plan for a achieving communism.

So if declared myself a monarchist, seized control of some country, and installed a representative democracy, does that make the state a monarchist?

If they were trying to bring about a communist state, then they were in fact communists. It is not inaccurate to say that USSR was communist.

M8 this is what we're trying to tell you.

A communist is a person or group of people or even a state that want to create a stateless and classless society where workers control the means of production.

The USSR was communist because it wanted to create communism. That doesn't mean they ever succeeded.

If you're not trying to create a monarchy, then no, you're not really a monarchy.

But the USSR was sincerely trying to create a communist state, so they were in fact communist.

But I'm trying to create a monarchy. By your logic, the republic I have just created is a monarchy.

Alright, I just wanted to point out the fact that there were socialists and communist party members in the Administration. That would count as a major achievement for american socialist movements.

what if I call myself a "fucking retard" and the definition of a "fucking retard" was to try and create a square circle, and make 2+2=5.

now, every state I try to create, which fails to make a square circle, fails to do so. therefore, I am not actually a "fucking retard." I happen to kill millions of people in the interrim, but it is incorrect to classify "fucking retards" according to their actual accomplishments. we must only call a "fucking retard" someone who squares a circle.

A communist state is any state run by communists. Communism refers to the utopian economic model.

The goal of the USSR was to actually abolish the state, and abolish classes, so that worker collectives could control industry instead of the government dominating the economy.

Lenin thought it would happen really quickly, but the Civil War and WW2 and the Cold War forced the ultimate goal of communism to be placed on the back burner.

They were communists because they wanted communism, but their state wasn't an example of communism. By definition a state cannot be communism.

What's confusing about this?

I have no idea what you're trying to say

ah, I get it. someone who tries to square a circle is a "fucking retard" but his attempt is not "fucking retarded" because he didn't accomplish something impossible. we can't classify killing millions of people "fucking retarded" because it doesn't square a circle

I'm not suprised, if you can't follow a basic analogy maybe you shouldn't be discussing this.

>By your logic, the republic I have just created is a monarchy.

If you created a republic, then that means you weren't really a monarchist because you weren't sincerely trying to create a monarchy.

However, the people in charge of the USSR (at least in the beginning) were sincerely communist. And so it follows that the USSR was communist.

Who decides if I am geniunely a monarchist? It is still my intention to create a monarchy, but instead a republic has arisen. Does that mean that the republic is a monarchy?

socialism and communism are literally "dunning kruger: the ideology" and "kill your victim, then say it was his fault: the government."

speaking of it favorably should be punishable by revoking any high school diploma and voting rights

How old are you?

Being communist isn't the same thing as successfully creating communism.

The USSR was a communist country bedside it was run by communists, but it was not an example of communism.

Do you see what we mean?

you're trying to boil down a system of economics and government to the intentions of the people in those systems (according to what YOU think they were thinking) rather than attempting to define those systems mechanically by their processes and systems.

you might be a nerd, and weak, and got bullied. none of that means you're smart. you can enjoy history if you like. that doesn't mean you understand anything.

>Who decides if I am geniunely a monarchist?

I do. I'm the person you're talk to after all.

>It is still my intention to create a monarchy

And are you actively working towards that goal?

>but instead a republic has arisen

Seems pretty bizarre for a monarchist to take over a country and then somehow end up making a republic instead. That sounds like you never actually took over.

As a revolutionary state, it's incredibly important to discuss what the USSR was trying to become.

What do you think all those five year plans were about?

Please read a book about communism. Any book.

Even fucking wikipedia will explain why you're wrong.

>my opinon literally invalidates your intentions and goals

Holy Christ, do you have any idea how delusional you sound?

I could provide every shred of evidence that my goal is to form a monarchy and you would still say that I am not a monarchist.

What if I'm a monarchist actively working toward that goal by prohibiting democracy, imprisoning or killing non-monarchists, reorganizing the country based on feudal estates, and forcibly redistributing resources to create an aristocracy and a peasant class? Once this done, we can talk about becoming a monarchy.

That's essentially what Stalin was doing

ah, right, the old
"you don't know islam because you haven't studied islam for 20 years in a madrasa" argument

right, it's almsot like you can't actually provide a functional definition of things based on how things WORK based off their effects or reality.

wow, consider me enlightened

I'm done with this fucking board. you're just a bunch of 90 iq nerds who got beat up but wree never actally good at anything, so you retreated into loser fields.

none of them