Of course what Americans mean by "socialism" is just basic societal necessities and a modicum of dignity for workers.
How To Train Your Vanguard (2026)
this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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Most people don’t understand what socialism is until you explain the fire department to them. Do you think the fire department should be for profit or are they a tax funded service for universally everyone. Copy/paste to all services necessary for a basic standard of living.
as is customary for hexbear, allow me to insult your intelligence and ridicule your understanding of socialism.
while all forms of government trade taxation for public services in some way, such as a fire department, this alone does not constitute socialism. a socialist state owns and controls the means of production (natural resources, factories, workforce) and directs the use of those to meet the state's goals. a proper socialist state's goals would be decided by workers' councils and could be used to establish a welfare state that covers the basic standards of living, as you said. this is, in essence, what the nordic states do (minus the workers' councils, they have just regular ol bourgeoisie democracy), which is why their model of social democracy has been referred to as socialism by other western powers.
You're not making a bad point in any normal place, but we do have fire departments in the United States that you pay directly and if you don't pay, but your neighbor does, they will come make sure that your house doesn't catch your neighbors on fire as it goes.
So.... Some people in this country live somewhere that has (even if it's not actually for-profit) fire departments that discriminate based on payment status.