misconceptions re: communism and socialism
It depends on the context. Sometimes 98% similarity is close enough, and sometimes it is not. It really depends on the workings of language and the situation. Margin for error is empirical.
i framed the discussion as misconception because i believe essentially it is. no nation that has been referred to as socialist or communist has been even close in terms of the original denotations of the terms. perhaps socialism is a less clear argument because the definition shifted around over the course of its use in the eighteenth century, but generally the abolition of private property, worker ownership of the means of production and abolition of the state were/are pre-requisites. communism is a bit more clear cut as we can simply refer to marx.
whether language has shifted over time or not, the modern usage of these terms betrays a fundamental flawed understanding of what they mean.
this thread has taken off a bit, and unfortunately when i don't have much time to be contributing to it.
master pedant has made some interesting and prudent points. i will attempt to return to the discussion tomorrow.
Would you say that the issue is just that the shifting terminology has made it difficult for the radical left to discuss it's ideas? I can see that. I still don't think that requiring the USSR be called "authoritarian state capitalism" is the reasonable position though. I mean, no matter what term you'll want to give it, the USSR will still be used against the left as the people doing it were inspired by left-wing ideas, EVEN IF they went into some absurdly totalitarian ideological direction.
However, for most people, I think that the real terminological confusion is calling the welfare state to be "socialism" or "communism", even though this undercuts the ability for us to talk about the USSR. I personally tend to dislike this one, as unlike the USSR, there is no self-proclaimed socialist group involved in the matter.
Americans are brainwashed sheep who have been indoctrinated by the media and still believe in the McCarthyist lies, smear, misinformation, disinformation and propaganda.
The US is a western world country without free universal health care system, a poor under funded broken dysfunctional public education system and a broken dysfunctional welfare system that is inadequate. There is no wonder prison system in the US holds 4 million people, one quarter of the world's prison population in a country that makes up less than 5% of the world's total population.
Spending money on public health system and public education system would benefit the US nation and society as a whole. Public spending of any kind is seen as Socialism/Communism: Americans are brainwashed fools. Backward thinking libertarians have held the US in an extremely selfish individualistic corrupt sad state of affairs.
Capitalism is good, always good. Socialism/Communism is bad, always bad.
The Americans same simple beliefs have not changed much since the 1950s,
Americans have been practicing social and economic redistribution for 80 years. We just do not like
-calling- it Socialism. Almost everyone in the U.S. thinks we have a capitalist system. We never did. The closest thing to it was Hong Kong under the British.
ruveyn
i framed the discussion as misconception because i believe essentially it is. no nation that has been referred to as socialist or communist has been even close in terms of the original denotations of the terms. perhaps socialism is a less clear argument because the definition shifted around over the course of its use in the eighteenth century, but generally the abolition of private property, worker ownership of the means of production and abolition of the state were/are pre-requisites. communism is a bit more clear cut as we can simply refer to marx.
whether language has shifted over time or not, the modern usage of these terms betrays a fundamental flawed understanding of what they mean.
this thread has taken off a bit, and unfortunately when i don't have much time to be contributing to it.
master pedant has made some interesting and prudent points. i will attempt to return to the discussion tomorrow.
Would you say that the issue is just that the shifting terminology has made it difficult for the radical left to discuss it's ideas? I can see that.
pretty much, yes. i tend to find that where discussions on the subject arise, much of the time is eaten up arguing over the definition of terms and attempting to counter what i consider fundamental misconceptions. the mindset of the average person, an even people who often might consider their outlook socialist, is mired in the paradigm of capitalism to the point that even talking of, for example, some of the fundamentals of marx's thought, is often met with derision.
it will, and, in the early stages at least, they were, yes.
i feel that this might be even more prevalent here in the uk. it's almost ubiquitous here. and that the origin of this lies in the labour movement and the reformist goals of the early movement consuming its overall ideology.
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?Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.?
Adam Smith
-calling- it Socialism.
Rightly enough. That would be completely ahistorical. And twisting the term to mean anything and everything under the sun is not useful.
You seem to be using the Randian definition of capitalism.
~from Wikipedia
-calling- it Socialism.
Rightly enough. That would be completely ahistorical. And twisting the term to mean anything and everything under the sun is not useful.
~from Wikipedia
There is a lot less going on that is voluntary than we would like to admit in public. Also our economy is much less competitive than it should be to be capitalist. When a business firm gets big enough it bribes the government to hobble its competition both actual and potential. That is creates a system of rent-collection and crony "capitalism" a horrid perversion of the real thing.
ruveyn
What real thing? Capitalism has been like this from the beginning. Sure it's a subversion of laissez faire principles, but that was never part of the game. I don't see why you need to define capitalism in some special way such that it never existed. Why not just use the word laissez faire?
O.K. I prefer free enterprise myself. Governments do not like free enterprise. It is difficult to control.
Also free enterprise does not guarantee honesty. Which is why we have governments in the first place.
ruveyn
Not surprised, but I would tend to blame this a bit on closed-mindedness. I mean, if a person were to talk about "anarchism" they wouldn't be greeted with some analysis of the system, or even a thoughtful statement of a Hobbesian perspective, but rather they would be met with all sorts of rebuttals, even ones that lack any real conception or willingness to conceive of the issue.
To go to something less charged, I once saw an Objectivist propose Minarchism, and they were greeted with a large number of toothless concerns, such as "how will contracts and law and order be maintained". Now, in that system, there are explicit structures to maintain the problem. This criticism just would not work.
i dont know if its been clarified before but post revolution russia was socialist but only for a brief while. and it fell because of a number of reasons(not because socialism/ communism is inherantly flawed.):
1. russias economy was under developed- it did not have the wealth necessary to support a socialist state on its own because
2. you cant have socialism in one state- capitalist economies are linked and to separate your self from the others would be to destroy the economy and ensure the mass wealth capitalism produces and the different goods different countries produce cant be distributed to where they are needed. other revolutions in neighbouring countries were defeated making russia an island.
3. civil war/ a bunch of countries ganged up on russia and a lot of people died and states stopped tradding with russia.
4. the working class the state was built upon ceased to exist as they either died in war or they left the cities where they had previously been concentrated for the country to revert to farming.
5. counter revolution under stalin. state capitalism ensues. there are no socialist states today. all state capitalist.
also when people say that communism= dictatorship, capitalism= democracy and others say that they are confusing economy with political system i think it needs to be said that only under socialism /communism can you have a true democracy. socialism would allow for workers democratic control of their workplace, capital, what is produced, how things are run and give them true control over their lives as opposed to what we have now under capitalism. in other words the only dictatorship in a true communist state is that of the proletariat. capitalism hates democracy. we dont get to elect who rules our workplace, we are not consulted on most decisions, when we vote in elections it is between identical parties who both suck, if voting changed anything they'd ban it, when public opinion differs from what beifits the ruling class then it is ignored, the regime of the capitalist class is enforced by the state structure, the courts, state endorsed violence from the cops, etc no, capitalism is not democratic. only under socialism can you have democracy.
the are 2 types of socialism
1)State socialism(state ownership of the means of productions,strong central planning)
2)Libertarian socialism/Anarchism (workers ownership of the means of productions,democracy extended to workplace,a system that empathizes collaboration over competition instead of the actual rat race )
the former(1)has always been source of brutal dictatorships,the latter(2) would drastically increase the living standard for the vast majority of world population but requires a cultural and psychological revolution and the collapse of capitalism and I can't see how this can happen in the near future
1)State socialism(state ownership of the means of productions,strong central planning)
2)Libertarian socialism/Anarchism (workers ownership of the means of productions,democracy extended to workplace,a system that empathizes collaboration over competition instead of the actual rat race )
the former(1)has always been source of brutal dictatorships,the latter(2) would drastically increase the living standard for the vast majority of world population but requires a cultural and psychological revolution and the collapse of capitalism and I can't see how this can happen in the near future
the 1st isnt socialism. it sounds more like stalinism but i wouldnt call it real socialism. it is the opposite of socialism. what marx said- "If this is Marxism, then I'm not a Marxist". they were state capitalist dictatorships.