- cross-posted to:
- progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
- socialdemocracy@sh.itjust.works
- cross-posted to:
- progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
- socialdemocracy@sh.itjust.works
Socialism for the elite but not for the masses?
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Its more than a grocery store. I knew a guy who was buying german VCRs in the late 80’s and early 90’s and shipping them home. The german machines didn’t have the copy protection circuit in them and would make perfect copies of any tape. The machines were all bought at cost from a US base’s PX.
That would be the Base Exchange/Post Exchange, but it, the Commissary, Shoppettes (convenience stores), and Class Six (liquor stores) all fall under the Army Air Force Exchange Service. The Navy has their own service.
Funny enough there is still rationing. If you are in an overseas base, alcohol and cigarettes are rationed to cut down on black market sales to host nation citizens. We still bought stuff for our friends, though. Bourbon and cigarettes were super cheap compared to what they could buy on the economy. Coffee was also on my ration card, but I don’t think it was actually rationed. No one ever signed it off.
Thanks for the added detail. It was only the end result I saw. He got out in 90 right before Iran invaded Kuwait. It is unlikely he would have been deployed. He was Cobol programmer.
I’m going to let you people in on a secret: The American military’s support system is the very definition of socialism. Healthcare, shopping, housing, education all subsidized. You people literally use socialism to support your primary arm of anti-socialism.
It’s like the VA of grocery stores, or like the Medicare of health insurance, or the public schools of education, or the taxpayer-funded firefighters or judiciary or police or highways or ports or bridges or hydropower dams or the forest service or national parks or public health and science and technology research or NASA
LOL at the idea that we don’t do this sort of thing all over the place
MAGA will find a way fuck it all up.
deleted by creator
Do any of you guys know what communism or socialism really are?
This thread sounds like if they offer subsidies for goods, housing, school system and so on, then we can ignore you can only get in if they like you and they use the entire countries tax payer money to subsidize goods for themselves only. Must be socialism. We can ignore its about war.
If Socialism means collective ownership and social welfare, then where is the collective ownership in your examples? Many can’t get in the US military, but pay for it.
Free Healthcare and and Higher education are the main reasons enlisted soldiers join the US military; both things that countries that aren’t Empires offer to all their citizens.
So Mamdani’s idea was not even new, and took it from the military? What was all that fuss about supposedly communist run groceries?
Because benefits people at the cost of corporations.
At least with DeCA there is a stone wall of needing to not die during service to access it. So it doesn’t threaten corporations as much.
There’s also the fact that corporations greatly benefit from imperialism. You can’t have imperialism without the military.
But, if you die your family gets commissary access for life…
As long as you stay near a base. Cheaper to pay more at whole foods than drive to the closest Commissary.
What really matters is the exchange and tax free on big appliances.
Cuz he’s a Commie. /S
In some states civil employers are required to interview for positions if they apply and are qualified.
TIL the military is the elite
The military in general is like a complete socialist economy: socialized health care, home loan programs, car loan programs, banking, insurance, housing vouchers, tenant and homeowner protections, groceries at cost, retirement and pension, and to top it all off the thing itself is the country’s largest jobs program.
Indeed, the military tells you which uniform to wear on a daily basis. I do not understand the soldiers who say they despise socialism, when they’re in the middle of it.
what has telling someone what to wear to do with socialism?
To add to this, something I like to point out to people, but (for the US) only ~60% of military personnel are ever deployed. Of those 60% only 10-20% will ever see combat. To top that off ~25% of the military are actually civilian service members, people who work for the military but are not soldiers.
So in summary, for each soldier that sees combat there are:
- ~6 deployed soldiers who will never see combat.
- ~11 non-deployed soldiers who never will be.
- ~6 civilian military staff who will probably never need to move for work.
Of these 24 people, all have access to the commissary, retirement and pension, top tier insurance, paid child care, up to 26 days of paid time off with 13 sick days and 11 fed holidays. The only things the military civilians don’t get are the VA, loan programs, and special protections.
So unless you’re a complete block head with no skills or talent your odds of joining the military and basically getting socialism with no risks is pretty high. Remember this the next time someone gets mouthy about respecting “the troops” or “serving their country,” odds are they didn’t do shit.
I used to work with a whole group of guys who their whole military career (20 years) was running a wastewater treatment plant on an Air Force base in the US, that’s it.
It may have changed since then, but after my dad left the USAF in the early '80s, my mom was a civilian employee on the base for a bunch of years, and we didn’t have access to any of the additional benefits. I know that we couldn’t go to Aaffes, the Px, or use any base services. Not sure about retirement / insurance at that time, but we certainly didn’t take advantage of insurance if it was available.
About the only thing we had access to was some of the Recreation services: My mom worked at Arts and Crafts, and that was attached to the Auto Hobby and Wood Shop so they let employees use those facilities, along with the place where we could rent lawnmowers and other recreation equipment.
Yeah, it may have changed. Here is the website for commissary eligibility, it looks like civilian employees get limited access (mainly grocery store like items). Here is a link to the Exchange, they get limited privileges or conditional unlimited privileges depending on their situation. Here is the website posting the Army Civilian benefits. Looking online they do have access to on base housing, but active duty get higher priority and may have to wait for an opening.
Here is the general DOD website for the civilian employee benefits, it looks like they get general federal employee insurance (generally considered to be good), and the general federal pension (20 years of service by 50 years old). This site also has more information about the exchange and family care.
Thanks.
Looks like it has improved quite a bit over the years.
And all you have to do is kill whoever they tell you to.
Including yourself.
My husband and I, who are both Enlisted, have been saying for years that the military is proof that a form of socialism CAN work in the US. It’s not “true” socialism because we still have an owning class, but ffs, it’s a goddamned start. And its not just Active Duty who gets taken care of. Its also dependents, veterans (to an extent), and retirees. So there is the proof that the model is scalable.
At this point, I honestly believe that the biggest reason reason the government won’t let the US have free or even affordable Healthcare isn’t solely because of profits. It’s because they won’t be able to dangle free healthcare over the heads of poor teens to get them to Enlist. Same thing with the pension for re-enlistments.
I feel like those two items are purposefully withheld from the public to keep the military stacked.
Amazing insight. Thanks for sharing. Counterpoint: it can be both. And a third — they’re giant pathological assholes. Trifecta of people getting screwed.
sounds very exclusive, though. Is it really ‘complete’?
Hey I put like in there 😆
especially if you have 800bn funding it every year. half goes to contracters(which includes the stuff you mention) plus giving welfare to other countries instead of citizens.
Valid, except now they aren’t giving the money to other countries, they’re just keeping it for themselves.
Welfare as in giving aid to countries like Israel, Ukraine,etc
Oh, yeah, I was thinking more like USAID.
But yeah, he loves siphoning money to countries that kiss his ass, like sending $40
millionBILLION to Argentina cover their latest economic malfeasance, while Americans were literally starving during the shutdown.I think it was 40bn but it was for bessenets friends who made bad investments there.
Copy that.
You can see the prices here. These are sales flyers, but pretty on par with Kroger or Walmart neighborhood stores. Little more expensive than lidl though. https://shop.commissaries.com/
More expensive than WinCo as well. Interesting.
But also the only place to get American goods in lots and lots of countries. I believe they’re also duty free.
It’s amazing how having health care, housing, consistent employment, and a lot of support services also end up creating the best US school system. But the radical left is hell bent on destroying the world. \s
the best US school system
what a flex 😐
It is, because the US numbers are so incredibly dragged down by the worst of its school systems. I live in New Jersey, and we rank highly and are considered globally competitive (although I never really understand how you can compare them, they’re very different approaches to learning), but if you go to the shit hole parts of the US it’s a stark contrast. That being said, NJ has over 500 school systems, so there’s even stark contrast within the state.
But yeah, the DOD school system is consistently the best place to educate your kids. And it’s all free (if you’re doing your part).
And it’s all free (if you’re doing your part).
🤔
The largest social program in human history is the US military.
They have one on Moffett Field that’s the only one for hundreds of miles. They’re closing it next year along with a whole bunch more. Only service members and a handful of civilians who work in certain departments can shop there. I wanna go with my neighbor one day to check it out before they close it (he’s enlisted). I’ve heard it’s significantly cheaper than Safeway, et al.
It certainly can be cheaper than other groceries. The beef is cheaper but its also a lower grade beef than what is sold in most grocers. Usda choice instead of prime, lowers costs but tbf technically isnt a direct competition with Safeway etc. There are some items you can certainly get cheaper but others are more, toiletries and such are usually close if not more at the commissaries
This is hilariously out of touch with reality.
First off, how many redneck trailer park kids joined the military because of a paltry $3,000 signing bonus? The Bush administration scraped restrictions against felons after 9/11. Who, exactly, are the “elites” that shit in a bucket you light on fire once a week? Rich kid don’t join the military.
Second, that’s not how commissaries work at all. It’s not socialism in any way. It’s hyper-capitalist if anything.
A huge amount of resources are put into name brand items being shipped across the globe to lock in brand loyalty for life. It’s not free either, only duty-free. No import costs. A $4 small pack of sour patch kids or $10 frozen 4-pack of frozen Jimmy Dean breakfast includes shipping costs. Containers from the States cost $80K+ to ship, which the commissary pays for. Every commissary is a business that operates as an independent business. Except for the ones managed by huge contacts to companies.
They’re non-profit only because of host country laws about profits without import duties.
paltry $3,000
idk about you but that would literally be a life-changing amount of money for some people (like me lol, not gonna join the military tho fuck that noise)
I should have put “paltry” in quotes to show it was sarcastic.
I knew plenty of people that joined right out of high school, some weeks before 9/11. Signing bonuses like that were absolutly live changing for many people, which is why they went for it, and went they’re not “elites” for shopping at a fucking PX.
you’re so uneducated on the subject matter it hurts.
I am embarrassed for you. educate yourself.
Lol. Brilliant reaction.
I’m sadly well-educated on the subject matter and wish I wasn’t. Or at least wish I had gotten paid.
OP likely just saw this video https://youtu.be/PQOXdtPBGXI
But there are many in American soil that are significantly cheaper than Walmart and similar. Of course if a commissary is placed in a base in Okinawa, in the middle of the ocean on the other part of the globe, then stuff is much more expensive
Right, so what you’re missing here is that AAFES and NEXCOM are independent corporate entities under the DOD that are almost entirely self-funded (I would guess some basic admin elements are staffed by DOD staff or something very basic, but I’m not sure). That puts them into a weird category of company that is usually referred to as a parastatial corporation or “state-owned company” in most places outside the US. The US usually contracts out rather than have state-owned companies, as a limit to liability.
They’re basically 100% independent entities with no taxpayer budget so they can operate with less bureaucracy and government requirements for how they spend their money and contract with vendors and contractors. AAFES has a civilian CEO. Their employees are not members of the military, they’re civilians. It IS a non-profit, as they’re also captured to only have a limited client base. Their goal is to break even and save money for things like buying a new meat cooler for when the ones they have break. Which means they get much easier taxes to deal with.
They key here is that they save money on things like real estate costs and import/export duties compared to Wal-Mart, but leverage the same corporate relationships. So taxpayer money isn’t exactly going to commissaries, they’re just not getting charged as much for facilities or utilities because they’re leveraging military economies of scale. That does count as a subsidy in a sense, but it’s not like they get cash from DOD to run any commissary.
It’s not “socialism” in any sense of the term. It’s a company store if anything - it’s just the one version of this where the prices are not jacked up to exploit people.
You do know the UK and a few European countries also sometimes have commissaries on joint bases or diplomatic properties, right?
