902
Divide & Conquer
(i.redd.it)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
902 points (100.0% liked)
Comic Strips
22752 readers
2498 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- AI-generated comics aren't allowed.
- Limit of two posts per person per day.
- Bots aren't allowed.
- Banned users will have their posts removed.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Those countries are social democracies, not democratic socialist. Democratic socialism and social democracy are different systems. I know it sounds like splitting hairs, but they really are distinct.
Social democracy is a mostly capitalist economy with a democratic government that has a progressive tax system that funds a social welfare system and basic, universal public services. Social democracy does exist in many nations around the world today. Even the US has hada version of this model in the past.
Democratic socialism is a socialist economy with a democratic government. Most services would be provided by community or government owned non-profit organizations. Some for-profit businesses might exist but they would be worker owned. Unlike social democracy, Democratic socialism has never actually been tried. It's entirely theoretical.
Yeah, tens of millions. Not 350 million like the US. Of the top ten democracies, according to the democracy index, all have populations under 20 million, and most have populations under 10 million. Clearly, social democracy has a population limit. I believe democratic socialism would too.
Correlation does not imply causation. Show me a mechanism, with evidence. The mechanism I propose is that if a society looks even slightly too leftist the billionaire class does everything they can to destroy or sabotage it.
Also, there isn't a crisp definition or delineation between a social democracy and a democratic socialist one. Again- quibble over definitions as much as you want. A social democracy is several important steps in the right direction.
And capitalistic centrism / authoritarianism is NOT "working" globally. It's just managed to kick the can down the curb for a while.
That doesn't mean the correlation is irrelevant. The fact is, not a single one of the top ten democracies on the planet today have populations above 20 million. Not a single one. Source. I don't necessarily know why that is, but it is.
I don't think modern global capitalist civilization will peacefully transition to social democracy, or democratic socialism, whatever you want to call it. I think the capitalist global economy will continue growing until we hit some hard limits to growth, at which point it will collapse, which could be sooner than most realize. It's not going to be pleasant. Global population could decrease significantly, average life expectancy could decline, as could total global industrial output and average living standards. Who knows what will come out on the other side of that.