Socialism is definitely compatible with democracy.
If you wouldn’t want to have the stupidest, most psychotic and authoritarian people in charge of things… you would need a mechanism or mechanisms to prevent that from happening.
Because it is naturally what happens in many or most human hierarchies of organization.
It is what has and is currently occuring, under capitalism.
Socialism is, horrendously oversimplified, the idea that private people should not be in charge of capital, big expensive things that make the economy possible.
They should not be allowed to mold the world and lives of thousands or millions, by fiat.
Capital, infrastructure, those things should be subject to the whims of the people in some manner, via maybe a command and control planned economy, where the government planners are subject to some kind of accountability system, maybe democratic, maybe not…
…or maybe via the anarcho syndicalist approach of sort of merging the labor union and business management hierarchy into a structure more resembling a multifaceted parlimentarian government, where employees are voters, maybe also customers are members and also have some kind of voting rights, where ‘business’ decisions actually are made by elected representatives.
Or maybe many other possible configurations, many other possible meldings of ‘ok this economic sector is non critical, lets just let the “free market” happen there, within regulations, but this other economic sector is extremely critical and thus must be publically, socially, operated.’
Democracy is not possible when people are stupid.
Thus, education must be well made available and provided to the people, lest their ignorance facilitate their own oppression.
Even the classical liberals of the 1700s say this.
But if you have a system that allows public education to be hollowed out and replaced with elitist, preferential, private education… you should not be surprised that society reverts to a rigid class or caste system.
Incuriousness, inequity, poverty, lack of basic human physiological needs, lack of a possible potential future to aspire to… these things traumatize the human mind, and they reinforce themselves, if no one does anything to fight against it.
Therefore, at least as I see it… you have to fight, you have to hope.
Otherwise you are a traitor to the species and, given the extent of modern technology, a traitor to the planet.
Socialism is definitely compatible with democracy.
If you wouldn’t want to have the stupidest, most psychotic and authoritarian people in charge of things… you would need a mechanism or mechanisms to prevent that from happening.
Because it is naturally what happens in many or most human hierarchies of organization.
It is what has and is currently occuring, under capitalism.
Socialism is, horrendously oversimplified, the idea that private people should not be in charge of capital, big expensive things that make the economy possible.
They should not be allowed to mold the world and lives of thousands or millions, by fiat.
Capital, infrastructure, those things should be subject to the whims of the people in some manner, via maybe a command and control planned economy, where the government planners are subject to some kind of accountability system, maybe democratic, maybe not…
…or maybe via the anarcho syndicalist approach of sort of merging the labor union and business management hierarchy into a structure more resembling a multifaceted parlimentarian government, where employees are voters, maybe also customers are members and also have some kind of voting rights, where ‘business’ decisions actually are made by elected representatives.
Or maybe many other possible configurations, many other possible meldings of ‘ok this economic sector is non critical, lets just let the “free market” happen there, within regulations, but this other economic sector is extremely critical and thus must be publically, socially, operated.’
Democracy is not possible when people are stupid.
Thus, education must be well made available and provided to the people, lest their ignorance facilitate their own oppression.
Even the classical liberals of the 1700s say this.
But if you have a system that allows public education to be hollowed out and replaced with elitist, preferential, private education… you should not be surprised that society reverts to a rigid class or caste system.
Incuriousness, inequity, poverty, lack of basic human physiological needs, lack of a possible potential future to aspire to… these things traumatize the human mind, and they reinforce themselves, if no one does anything to fight against it.
Therefore, at least as I see it… you have to fight, you have to hope.
Otherwise you are a traitor to the species and, given the extent of modern technology, a traitor to the planet.