in defense of champagne socialists

[@emmanuelokoro537]

The crituque of 'champagne socialists' is stupid coz they're rich so they shouldn't advocate for egalitarianism but if they were poor the crituque would be thier poor coz they're lazy and should 'pick themselves up by thier bootstaps' rather than complain how society treats them unfairly. Its a bullshit critque honestly

[@jamesnesran2348]

champagne socialists constantly advocate for the subversion of the values which made western society great to begin with, while reaping the benefits of what made western society great.

[@bonafidemonafide7810]

The people critiquing champagne socialists and the people critiquing poor people are completely different groups. Until you realize this, maybe switch topics

[@wqsted9988]

until you realize they're both vaid arguments. Poor socialists obviously don't understand the system they exist in and thus they blame the system for all their problems. Champagne socialists simply fuel the poor socialists hate for the system and get money for doing so, Hasan being the biggest culprit of that. And therefore they are directly benefiting from capitalism and at the same time hating capitalism. Like some spoiled rich kid hating his rich parents for not buying him some $500,000 car.

[@539strt]

People that are poor are one of two things., either they are Lazy or they are Stupid! If you took everybody in the worlds money away right now, in ten years the same people would be rich and the same losers would be, well, losers!

[@emmanuelokoro537]

@@bonafidemonafide7810 wise one how do you know this to be true

[@MnCB_x]

Whilst Norway has a strong welfare state, at its core the economy is structured along classical capitalist lines and imbued with neoliberalism, with most businesses being privately owned rather than state-controlled. This means that Norway's social programmes fall far short of making it a socialist country. The state pension fund is often cited as a prime example of Norway's social commitment, but one should not lose sight of the fact that this fund is primarily fed by revenues from the oil and gas industry, which is not only problematic from an ecological standpoint, as previously mentioned, but can also contribute to social injustice. Although Norway's principle of sharing is often praised, it does not automatically mean that everyone benefits equally: whilst Norway fares rather well in terms of income distribution with a Gini index of 0.25 to 0.27, there are considerable wealth disparities, as shown by the Gini index for wealth distribution of 0.60 to 0.65, where 0 represents perfect equality and 1 represents maximum inequality. Ultimately, the debate about "champagne socialism" not only misses the point but also harms the very idea of social justice. Whether one defends this concept or uses it as a delegitimisation, both sides become entangled in a constructed discourse that distracts from the real issues. Instead, we should focus on finding ways to address the fundamental challenges of our society, rather than losing ourselves in superficial debates. In this context, the thoughts of thinkers such as Herbert Marcuse, Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault and others are invaluable. They teach us to think critically about the structures that generate and maintain such distracting discourses. Marcuse's concept of "repressive tolerance" shows how seemingly open debates can actually work to maintain the system. Gramsci's theory of hegemony helps us understand how dominant ideas contribute to maintaining existing power relations. Foucault's analyses of power and discourse reveal the subtle mechanisms through which social control is exercised. Contemporary thinkers like Slavoj Žižek also challenge us to think outside the box and question the often hidden ideological structures that influence our thinking and actions. Their insights can help us avoid getting lost in unimportant discourses and instead strive for profound, structural changes. Rather than being content with merely comparing Norway to the USA or becoming entangled in debates about "champagne socialism", we should have the courage to think more radically. It's about finding ways to achieve genuine social justice and human progress - beyond the boundaries of existing systems and prefabricated discourses.

[@Katzeblow]

What do you think Peter Singer would say about champagne socialist

[@czechmeoutbabe1997]

who cares lmao

[@jamesmiceli4985]

I think this brings up a great point that socialism and capitalism as an argument isn’t really talking about what was intended in the first place (and, thus, reflects a topic that is not actually what is really being addressed). Like existentialism is a humanism, Singer and thelifeyoucansave show that there’s probably more good in just trying to take action than worrying about doing it perfectly. Communism as a title means so little to the actual points being made compared to the actual actions WE can choose to take.

[@yair55648]

I think you are partly right, and It was a nice video :)

[@jespernilsen4467]

I refute the whole point of Norway as an inherent socialist country, if you check the heritage foundations economic freedom index. You can clearly see that we are in the global top when it comes to economic liberalism.

[@redjarvis]

and what do you have to show for it

[@steinarvilnes3954]

Heritage Foundation is a propaganda institution and therefore useless. They have manipulated their measurements so the best developed countries almost always get defined as "economically free". When a ranking rank the most generous welfare states as the most capitalist, something is indeed wrong.

[@HS-hx8ti]

"Economic liberalism"? Speak out against mass migration, feminism, vaccines, political corruption or anything else and you're very likely to lose your job.

[@jokerpilled2535]

I don’t want the govt telling people how to spend their money, but I do want the govt to enforce laws and hold people accountable for breaking laws in order to make money.

[@maxoobbxxx8032]

Norway is wealthy primarily from their oil and natural gas exports, is it not? It's basically a white-people version of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Kuwait. No doubt they made some good decisions to make their barely 6 million population live well, but let's not pretend those people really worked for what they get from the system. I can bet $10 that an average Japanese has orders of magnitude higher goods and services output than an average Norwegian. It's a very poor example in either defense or refutation of socialism.

[@steinarvilnes3954]

On the other hand the other Nordic socialdemocracies also do quite well, even though not as rich as Norway. Also, Norway do not simply hand money over to our citizens the way the Middle Eastern oil countries does.

[@steinarvilnes3954]

@@tylerguitar75 Norway has such a small population we have no hope of getting a sufficient military. And if anything, it is US defence expenses that are wildly exaggerated. Many European countries have a considerably military as well, must not compared to the US, Russia or China.

[@tylerguitar75]

@@steinarvilnes3954 okay, but that's only one part of my larger argument, which is this: Norway is capitalist, Norway has a budget surplus, and the USA has massive national debt. If the USA had a budget surplus, national positive net worth (like Norway), we could have nice things, too. It's not "socialism," it's capitalism with a government that actually does what it's supposed to. Granted, we could still debate how much the government should do, but we aren't even there, because our politicians, bureaucrats, etc, are basically robbing us, here in the states.

[@rachelkoller6508]

No, Norway is about as rich as the other Scandinavian countries that don't have lots of oil. Norway is rich, because it is is in Europe and thus industrialized early. If you don't like Norway as an example, use Sweden, Finland or Denmark, which are about as rich and equal. Not that I agree with this silly video. Norway is a bad example for socialism, because it is capitalist.

[@arbitarious]

@@tylerguitar75 because our politicians are capitalist

[@zerocool5395]

As someone who grew up in Miami around Cubans and Venezuelans. I've heard horror stories from people that have actually lived under Socialism/Communism. The people that romanticize it is always well to do Americans that have never experienced it. While Capitalism has alot of flaws, it's still way better than Socialism and Communism.

[@steinarvilnes3954]

At least Cuba is not by as a crime infested as the other countries in the region. Also, people like you only complain when the middle class suffer. In Venezuela almost half the population was poor in the nineties, before Chavez. And what about 130.000 peasants killed by the miltary in Guatemala in the eighties?

[@owenhowever1958]

Thats the point of socialism, to control the population thru big government and keeping the poor poor. Rich people have time to advocate for their rights, poor people have to work to survive so thats what they focus on. Remove the rich and you Remove the ability for the population to enact change. Socialists are evil as the nazis

[@swayback7375]

I wonder if having 60 years of almost complete isolation forced on Cuba had anything to do with conditions there, is that possible?

[@zerocool5395]

@@swayback7375 The US is definitely culpable, but saying that it's the only reason why Cuba is in that state is dishonest and not true.

[@NaN-noCZ]

The "lesser evil" argument is silly; if you wanna talk about the casualties of systems, starvation and poverty have consistently led to more deaths under capitalism than attempted socialist projects (and before you start talking about how all socialist projects led to literally everyone being homeless and starving, they didn't. Poverty rates, on average, improve more under a system of socialism than capitalism in countries of similar development, and the same goes for housing, which isn't so strange considering a country like the U.S. has ridiculous housing prices along with a surplus of about 16 million unoccupied housing units). Furthermore, these nations have also excelled in literacy rates, education rates, women's rights and more, when compared to capitalist counterparts of about equal development. Moreover, Cuba and Venezuela are both in terrible states due to, in no small part, western sanctions and manipulation. The same goes for just about any other socialist nation; eventually, they have to turn to market capitalism, authoritarianism or simply be forcefully overrthrown by the CIA even in favour of salafists and fascists if need be, because the U.S. is terrified of these socialist countries has spent billions of taxpayer dollars ensuring their downfall in spite of the fact that they apparently believe that these nations would falter on their own, with no foreign interference, because socialism is apparently just that bad! Pretty rich.

[@jamesmiceli4985]

Love your videos as always, you killed it on the analysis and brought out a great point regarding human brotherhood, reminds me of renaissance humanism (and a modern need for it). Also what kind of plant is that? It’s absolutely gorgeous…

[@UncleKlausSchwab]

What a load of horse manure. Any genuine analysis of history compounds Hobbes view of humanity. Once society breaks down, humans become animalistic. The little communist enclave during the BLM riots highlights how ignorant young people are when it comes to reality versus fantasy.

[@misterwachulochulo5262]

Poor socialists: Jealous losers Rich socialists: Hypocrites If neither the poor nor the rich can be socialist, then who can? "champagne socialist" was always a dumb insult

[@smokerx6291]

I agree. Nothing is wrong with being rich😂 that's why I'm a capitalist

[@xhunter7971]

I have just one caveat, George Orwell wasn't a good writer and he was a terrible person

[@UncleKlausSchwab]

Irrelevant.

[@swayback7375]

It’s a shame people are so rigid and hung up on labels. Our current system is capitalism, it’s fantastic! Beats the hell out of tge old system, feudalism, but both are old systems, and aren’t perfect… it’s remarkable that to me that anyone is satisfied with sitting stagnant when there’s massive improvement to make. A single read thru of capital is super quick and easy and he is quite prophetic… call it what you want, a new system is coming eventually.

[@NaN-noCZ]

Capital being a quick and easy read?? Did we read the same book?!?

[@lucyla9947]

​@@NaN-noCZ I think they might be confusing the Communist Manifesto with Das Kapital. The Communist Manifesto is deliberately written to be easy to understand, as it was a political pamphlet written to be distributed to the common man and help them understand at least the basics of Communism. Das Kapital was the book with all the in-depth stuff for people who wanted to delve deeper. Or they might just be unusually skilled at comprehending old economics manuscripts, who can tell?

[@swayback7375]

@@lucyla9947 yea, the short version is more than adequate for the public. The full version is a bit much… I think the most important thing for people to see is that Marx was able to “predict the future”… he just followed things out to their logical conclusion, but the fact he could reach those conclusions shows his predictable capitalism really is. It also presents it in a way that I _think_ most people would understand without being too complicated. I learned long ago that I’m not special, and likely never had an original thought, whatever the subject matter, someone other there has thought about it more, or they’re smarter than I am…etc… once we each realize that it becomes MUCH easier to listen to others and consider whether their ideas or conclusions are better than our own… I was basically a socialist at age 8, long story but I saw adults treat homeless like trash when I couldn’t understand why or how they could treat other people that way… lost many hours of sleep thinking about it and determined that it shouldn’t be a problem in “the richest/greatest country in the world” and in my 8 old head I tried to think of solutions… but never got any political education at all thru school, and had no idea what communism or socialism means… I was almost fooled into thinking trump might be good since he wasn’t a politician, but thankfully I knew not to trust a corporate “business man”… which eventually led me to educate myself… I’m a drop out and have pretty bad ADD… if I can teach myself at age 30 then just about anyone can. Cheers

[@citizen99]

i'd really just like to comment on your beautiful KZbin channel generally and felt the need to reciprocate, as your sincerity with all things philosophy reminds me there are so many of us very much interested in digesting this panoramic human experience further and further. greetings from US

[@jamesnesran2348]

norway is not socialist in the way that you people define socialism (you people mean communism). norway is socialist in that it has welfare and supports it's people given a high trust, modest sized, ethnocentric society. but other than that, it also has a mostly free market. norway is an example of how good lack of multiculturalism is, it is certainly not a case study for a communist dream.

[@SmellySkidMarks]

Gurl, you're more stunning than your twin, Supermodel Gisele Bundchen 😂

[@Owen-mm1vi]

Yeah

[@rachelkoller6508]

Imo hording wealth is immoral but calling out hypocracy is always a bad argument, cause it's a personal attack and an argument is not invalid if you have a bad take on another thing. We hate people who toss trash in the forest despite advocating for the environment, cause they are hypocrites. But that hypocrite is objectively better than someone who tosses trash in the forest without advocating for the environment. Your video is still silly tho. "Oh look, this insanely rich country consumes a lot of champagne despite having social programs, luxury products are totally a part of socialism". "My country exports a lot of oil and shuts itself of from refugees, but it's still a leftist utopia cause don't all countries do that?"

[@NaN-noCZ]

This video is neither an argument for nor against socialism, or champagne socialism for that matter. This is moreso flaunting welfare and social democracy, which first of all, is not socialism nor adjacent to it. Speaking as a Dane, "mixed" economies are great to live in because they borrow ideas from socialism, i.e. welfare. Social democracy was indeed founded as a method of socialism, but it has slowly reverted back to what it is today, where it's only viewed as "socialist" by either those who think it's the best system we can conceive of, or those who think anything slightly left-wing is socialism, because it has some core ideas borrowed from socialism, which it doesn't take to their logical conclusions. The issue is that A) all of these social democratic countries, as you rightly state yourself, have free-market capitalism where unelected CEOs control the lives of employees whose only means of influencing their only means of putting food on the table is through unions regulated by the law (which has, to a lesser degree in Scandinavia than in the rest of the world, to be controlled by the flow of capital). This is by far preferable to the U.S., for example, I agree, but it is not socialism in the sense Marx or any other classical leftist thinker would use the word, it is only at most socialism in the sense that our governments have for a century been using the word to pretend that they are on the side of the workers whilst still being pushed around by the forces of the market. The second issue with your line of thinking is that B) Scandinavian countries are far more developed than almost all of the rest of the world, and are also small in population. These two factors are the only reasons the Scandinavian model has worked for us. Denmark, Norway and Sweden have had pretty consistent borders and cultures for 1000 years, along with centralised governments who still could not exert too much control over the people since all 3 states have always had a large economic sector based on naval trade routes and fishing, both of which are harder to tax than roads. This has directly led to the state of the modern Scandinavian political systems; people have always had some degree of independence, which they never gave up. The low populations in Scandinavian countries have contributed in that we don't need as many resources relative to other countries to be able to do well. The reason we can live comfortably in Scandinavia is because we have few people, meaning resources like just a bit of oil in Norway's case can make a huge difference, and because we're well-developed, meaning that our governments are forced to pretend to be sustainable (though they're obviously still driven by re-election, and although I can't say I know many specific details about Norwegian politics, here in Denmark our politicans always make vague and/or false promises, and we're one of the least corrupt countries on the planet so I imagine it'd be about as bad in Norway), allowing for us to live cheap, unsustainable lives off of the backs of poor workers in the third world, who probably made the clothes on your back right now. Finally, here's a quick defense of "champagne socialists" (which I don't want to call them, since you stated in this video you think them all social democrats, which might be true for the examples you listed, but definitely not more broadly. I get it, though, "champagne socialists" is more catchy for a KZbin video), or as I will simply be referring to them, rich socialists: Rich socialists can either be great boons to the cause, or wolves in sheeps clothing. It depends on a few things, some of which you do rightly point out in the video before going off on a tangent about how great Norway is. First there is the issue of charity; I think it'd be apparent to pretty much anyone with a basic grasp on socialist ideals that any really rich person calling themself a socialist would feel obliged to donate some amount of money to charity. The amount is obviously unclear but personally I would think the easiest moral argument to make would be that a donation of exponentially more wealth according to income would be reasonable (i.e. if you make 1 million dollars/month, you might donate 10% of that, but if you earn 1 billion you might donate 99% of that). A rich socialist could also give all their belongings to charity in death if they stated so in their will, but how much they would leave behind for the betterment of others would be dependent on the second moral quandry regarding rich socialists, namely their consumption. Amongst leftists there's a sense that there can be "no ethical consumption under capitalism", which is demonstrably true, however at the same time I also think anyone could agree that that is a statement with many shades of grey, some darker than other: buying less resource-intensive food that won't cause as big of an impact on the climate for, say, 100 dollars, or buying a less clean meal and donating the rest of the money is surely better than buying a McDonalds meal for 10 dollars and spending the remaining 90 dollars on clothes made with child labour, or donating it to Trump's (who is, by now, undeniably a fascist) political campaign. So, there you have it. Rich socialists aren't hypocritical merely because they're socialists; that would be akin to calling agitators of slave revolts hypocritical because they've been fed by the institution they're now fighting. Rich socialists *can be* hypocritical based on what they do with their wealth, however, and I think an argument could easily be made buying lamborghinis or drinking champagne is irresponsible when the only reason you're able to is because someone has it worse than you, especially if you not just a socialist but more broadly a leftist, as you wanted to use the term.

[@Rhandomcurator]

Girlie pop this section is COMMENTING, really liked how this debate has started and thanks for the space to think, to create opinion.

[@David_10157]

Which country is “champagne socialist” country of the world?

[@lucyla9947]

Norway

[@jasnesciemnienie9107]

I think principally that hypocrisy objection is aimed only at strict, text-book like socialism. So you haven't refuted the strongest form this argument can have, but it's good observation that it's not very good argument against social democracy

[@Sams911]

Spoken like someone who comes from a country with a small population and immense reserves of oil and natural gas.. Naw (with my best southern accest) ... there's no defense.. The free market speaks not only on economic issues, but on ALL issues.... the cream rises to the top, supply = demand, and the dog will eat the smaller dog... it's human nature, it's evolution, it's science.

[@steinarvilnes3954]

I think that if dog eat dog capitalism was really human nature, there would not be so much opposition to it. As such free market "theory" is nothing but a poor attempt at defence of sosiopathy.

[@539strt]

Ask this question,. How did Bernie sanders become a multi millionaire when, he has never had a job other than senator, ever? Who deserves to be a millionaire more, a capitalist CEO, or a communist/socialist politician?

[@arbitarious]

Uh oh. Rip comments

[@arbitarious]

Also Hasan doesn’t exploit his workers

[@antman7673]

I just don’t like Hasan. He just says awful stuff.

[@DontCareAboutUsernme]

Socialism summed up: luxury beliefs with other people's money

[@basedsasha]

5:02 there is market socialism, markets do not need capitalism.

[@swayback7375]

We have the freest markets anyone has ever seen! 🙃

[@Quiestre]

the issue with Hasan isnt that he is wealthy, that was always a stupid talking point and critic. the issue is that he operates on only one modus whihc is "america bad" which clouds his judgement of Nato and ukraine. Ukraine being attacked by a literal FASCIST country and all he did was shit on the west

[@arbitarious]

@@Quiestre I somewhat agree but still USA bad

[@bonafidemonafide7810]

Literally has nothing to do with his stance on socialism, this is about foreign policy, if you wanna talk about Ukraine go to a ukraine video, no need to shoehorn it in lol. No human has ever said “man, I can’t take hasan’s socialism seriously because he criticizes the US and NATO”

[@arbitarious]

@@bonafidemonafide7810 lol you’re a breath of fresh air

[@Quiestre]

@@bonafidemonafide7810 if you are a socialist, one of your greatest enemies should be fascists everywhere, world wide to me as a European more or less directly affected by the war here it is of utmost importance that we stand against fascism. Yet I see more and more "leftists" take the side of it. While Hasan has never outright defended Putin he is often a useful idiot for them. If you want to talk only socialism, well Idk what hasan does that furthers socialism besides talking about it. Seems like socialism is still far away from america. guess being busy defending states with red flags is more important than being pragmatic or setting something up by himself.

[@villevanttinen908]

Of course hypocrites

[@swayback7375]

Everyone is a hypocrite sometimes… it’s not the ultimate own sone people think is is

[@czechmeoutbabe1997]

Did anyone in this comment section actually watch the video? What is going on here

[@swayback7375]

There’s a few intelligent ones… mostly trolls with average ignorance of the topic.