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  • What do Scandinavia, Bernie Sanders, and the Soviet Union have in common? Arguably the

  • most misused theory of all time: socialism. The word is thrown around in popular culture

  • and political discourse as both a pejorative and a compliment. But how can the same system

  • be behind both the Nazi Party and Finland’s world-class education system? What exactly

  • is Socialism?

  • Well, in it’s most simple form, socialism is when a population collectively owns and

  • controls the means of production, and distributes the end result proportionally. In practice,

  • however, control is usually delegated to the state. While the distribution usually comes

  • in the form of underlying social welfare to satisfy everyone’s basic needs, like housing,

  • education, and health care. The end-all purpose is to guarantee a level playing field for

  • members in a society, thereby removing class distinctions based on ownership.

  • For example: in the US’s capitalist society, high quality education is expensive, meaning

  • that those who can afford it are generally given better opportunities. Those who can’t

  • are forced to compete at a material disadvantage. This leads to class inequality, not on the

  • basis of talent or ability, but on generational wealth. By comparison, in countries like Finland,

  • where high quality education is free, everyone is given the same opportunity to succeed or

  • fail, regardless of their financial status. If that sounds a bit idealistic, that’s

  • because it is supposed to. Early socialism was predicated on the idea that if we could

  • eliminate classes and have true, societal equality, it would be a utopia. In fact, the

  • earliest modern form of socialism was calledutopian socialism”.

  • It’s important to note that there are no 100% socialist countries, but rather, different

  • socio-economic systems with socialist undertones. Even the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,

  • which literally has the wordsocialistin the name, has been called a far cry from

  • real socialism”. The same is true of the Nordic countries, which employ socialist

  • programs combined with a capitalist economy.

  • But so, why are the Nordic countries doing so well, while Russia is still recovering?

  • Well, like any political system, socialism has a countless number of variations. The

  • two most dominant are Social Democracy, as practiced by Sweden and Bernie Sanders. And

  • the Marxism-Leninism form of socialism, used by the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba. Social

  • Democracy generally prioritizes improving quality of life through equal rights and opportunities,

  • bolstered by a state-run welfare system and on top of a capitalist economy.. On the other

  • hand, Marxism-Leninism prioritizes the infallibility of its dictatorship government. The rationale

  • is that any benefit to the state would also be a benefit for the people. However, in practice

  • this has meant that the ruling party can massively depreciate the population’s standard of

  • living for thegood of the state”. Although both strive for similar utopian socialist

  • goals, the way they approach them is very different.

  • These examples show that socialism (along with it’s logical extreme, communism) may

  • be backed by rational theory, but requires rational practice to go along with it. Social

  • democracies make up the happiest countries in the world. Other socialist-leaning countries

  • like China and Cuba suffer from terrible human rights abuses, like modern slavery and censorship.

  • Maybe the best takeaway is not to trust anyone using the wordsocialismto describe

  • radically different political theories. Just becausesaladis in the name doesn’t

  • make fruit salad, potato salad, and Caesar salad the same thing.

  • If you’d like to learn more about Libertarianism, Anarchy and other political ideologies, check

  • out our full playlist here starting with Communism. That links in the description below. Thanks

  • for watching TestTube, make sure to subscribe for our next one!

What do Scandinavia, Bernie Sanders, and the Soviet Union have in common? Arguably the

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