Aeolus451 said:
Leadified said:
By this I assume you mean that Sanders wants to expand the welfare state and basically emulate FDR, if I'm wrong in that assumption then do you have a specific example? The Democrats are largely a neoliberal party now so yes most of them wouldn't propose what Sanders' policies but this is something more exclusive to America.
As far as I know now, social democracy and democratic socialism has been fused to more or less mean the same thing (wasn't always the case but that's not really relevant here). Yes it does sugar up socialism by trying to offer a system that can work with and reform capitalism and call it socialism (basically a welfare state). Many socialists of course have a problem with this so called "socialism".
Venezuela under Chavez was a social democracy with an extensive welfare state, yes. Sanders appreciates the Nordic model that he wants to emulate in the US, which is also a system of social democracy.
However, one of the problems (there were many, many others such as property rights) with Venezuela is almost the entire economy is based on oil, and when oil prices plummeted in 2014, the whole economy fell into a death spiral. All that oil money was used to fund Venezuela's social services and things went well while oil was high, their mistake was the lack of diversity in the economy. Venezuela faced a similar crisis in the 1980s and it appears they haven't learned much. The US economy is much more diverse and resilient than Venezuela's, the two are not really comparable. Does this mean Sanders' policies would not have a negative effect on the economy? Of course not, but economic harm does not instantly equate with economic collapse.
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I have gave examples of his proposals in a few other posts. Ya might want to take a quick look. By redistributing the wealth from the rich (any business) and the middle class thru excessive taxation/fees/fines while increasing regulations, it would likely destroy the economy in short order. His idea of fair taxes is very different than democrats. It would likely turn out worse than Venezuela because we have a lot of guns and plenty of people who don't think of themselves as one people or as americans. 😫
Bernie wants free schooling across the board, universal heathcare, universal pay (I think that is what it's called) and other things that I can't remember. Basically, anything that makes a person dependent on government is something he wants. Just with the free school for all idea alone, even if we took all of rich people's money, it would only fund that for a few years.
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I see, I disagree on those proposals being socialist since I follow the definition that socialism is the abolition of private property and worker control of the means of production. Therefore even if Sanders implements the most draconian policies imaginable, it can only be considered socialist till those two conditions are met. Which obviously is more than just redistribution of wealth and liberal social policies and programs. Naturally I don't consider social democracy like Sanders to be socialist but I don't really care to argue about semantics since I don't particularly care to challenge your definition of socialism in this case.
Again I don't think the Venezuela, Sanders comparison holds much water other than fear mongering.
