I’m new to lemmy .ml and unfamiliar with Sedan so I thought they were equating social democracy with socialism

I always shy away from making both points at once – “social democracy is not socialism, but also, socialist states do engage with capitalism to avoid embargo and build their economies” – because it tends to segue to China, which is exhausting to talk about with western socdems but you lose credibility if you’re not willing to go the distance

…but I guess my oversimplified version still implicitly comments on AES states so it could use some work

By that logic, we should still live under monarchies today.

Well put, but at that point is it even surplus value? Loosely speaking, if they perform necessary labor in the supply chain, and they’re paid a fair rate (money to live on, not get rich on), wouldn’t their wage count as part of the cost of production?

Modern capitalist economies are already massively centralized and planned – see “The People’s Republic of Walmart.”

Socialist countries fail because they are embargoed, which stifles their economy, which then stifles their legitimacy.

Capitalism is defined by private ownership of businesses.

A socialist business isn’t controlled by a private owner (or major shareholders), it’s controlled by its workers or by the government (or a mix of both). No one sits at the top and gets to award themself a massive chunk of the revenue just because their name is on the deed, so to speak. That’s the difference.