Political Discussions
What is socialism?
Posted by Agit8r • 8/17/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: capitalism, fascism, Regulation, social services, socialism
unfortunately, there is no set definition of "Socialism."
I use the term to refer to a government monopoly of economy, or a centrally fully-planned economy, or economy by delegated monopoly or oligopoly.
Market-anarchists refer to anything that is delegated to government collectively as being socialist.
I find that most people's understanding is less clearly defined and tends to include social programs that they don't approve of, or do approve of, depending on political leanings.
I'm wondering what those on this board think socialism means?
User Comments
-
The Catholic Encyclopedia offers an interesting article (www.newadvent.org/cathen/14062a.htm). It addresses the current rhetorical confusion in its first paragraph, rejecting the extension of the socialist label as the right uses it in our own media landscape these days.
Also helpful is Robert Heilbroner's article in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (Library of Economics and Liberty), though you will find nothing in there that resembles the way the right is using the socialist label these days (www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Socialism.html).
Socialism cannot be reduced to mere social programs, such as universal health care. Nor is it the equivalent of "big government," though the right often uses it that way. Not content with the collapse of communism in Europe between 1989 and 1991, they would bring down the welfare state as well, that great contributor to public welfare and social stability, that is, domestic peace, since the twentieth century. The ultimate logic of the right's argument would be that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on are all "socialist" and therefore morally reprehensible. Of course, they don't actually follow this logic and demand an end to these programs. Instead they concentrate on current socio-economic policy-making, in this case health care, and they reserve the "socialist" label for whatever ideas come from the left, stripping the term of its historical content and analytic value.-
unfortunately social programs equaling "socialism" has entered the political vernacular
-
Yeah, but it was there back when we were talking Medicare and Medicaid, and most right-wingers who don't want reform now would prefer to keep the Medicare and Medicaid that they once called "socialist." That discrepancy puts the lie their claims, even if you were to accept their specious, ahistorical definition of socialism. The older example also shows how this rhetoric will fade with the issue, while the real meaning of socialism will remain.
-
one hopes
-
-
This reminds polybore of a thread prompted by GW Bush Nationalising a couple of US banks 10 months ago. It was meant to be something of a joke based on the irony of a Republican president doing the nationalisation thing...
www.blogcatalog.com/politics/discuss/entry/the-united-socialist-states-of-a...-
He abandoned free market principles to save the free market. Or something like that. -
he and congressional republicans (perhaps realizing that nobody in that party could regulate anything) also nationalized airport security... cuh-razy!
-
Boy you really hate Bush... cuh-razy! I wonder, is it really good for the soul to hate someone that much??
-
it isn't about hating. It's about being vigilant against such things happening again.
-
-
You know, Agit8r, your question is still a good one, even if those who throw around the socialist label the most don't have a constructive answer for you.
I was pretty shocked to see one essay in an exam use "socialist" and "big government" to describe Nazi Germany. Putting aside whatever negligence the student might have shown in the reading assignments, the language pointed to the nonsense that is out there in Medialand. S/he knew darned well what the Nazis had perpetrated, and s/he was familiar with Nazi propaganda, Nazi ideology, etc. Yet under time pressure s/he resorted to familiar vocabulary that did more to cloud than clarify the issue. The darned thing was, s/he was not making any ideological statements either. Indeed, s/he is probably more liberal than conservative.
I'll have to add "socialism" to the list of terms that I need to emphasize mean something different in history than in some current political debate. It would also fit in well with the "use and abuse of history" category, whereby I can talk about the broader tendency (including by some on the left) to use the Nazi label irresponsibly.
Your question reminds me that things "everybody" once knew can no longer be considered general knowledge.-
You can't apply it as "general knowledge" because the term is used by those who actually claim to be socialists in very different forms depending on what their view is.
Marxist socialism is one, albeit a largely failed one.
Social Democracy is another that strives more towards a mixed economy than the more complete communal ownership than marxists would hold.
National Socialism is a third, which again uses some parts of socialism, but also incorporates more faschist ideals.
In general, Socialism can be described as too many things to be used as a general definition of any grouping regardless of what the grouping is.
What you CAN do however is recognize Specific socialistic ideals, separated from the whole they are able to fit that definition. -
Yes, there are varieties of socialism. But National Socialism is a completely different animal that has no place in any discussion of socialism, except insofar as the Nazi's appropriated the name "socialist" for their own purposes.
As to your last point, well, I already rejected that with the last paragraph of my initial comment in this thread. -
Here is the Merriam-Webster definition. Slightly different from my more Hayekian definition:
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism -
Mark,
The fact that you reject something doesn't make it any less true.
You CAN view something on it's foundation.
And there are plenty of people on the right that think Medicare / medicaid and SS should be ended.
However, most of the ones that do believe that believe it needs to be phased out, because just like the warnings are now. Once something of that magnitude is in place, just cutting it doesn't work. Which is another reason for not having Pub. funded Healthcare en masse.
-
-
One of the things that I find so distasteful about the right's use of the term "socialism" is its rejection of any government role at all in any part of the economy. Any help for the weak or any contribution to the common good is branded as socialism and is lumped into the same pot with the excesses of socialist states that failed not only because of their unreal economic policies, but also because of their brutal oppression.
By the way, historically, the state has been involved in all manner of economic activities long before the emergence of either free market capitalism or socialism. I'm not suggesting we return to those days, but capitalism left to its own devices is a problem, as the current collapse demonstrated.-
LMAO first you say that the government has always been involved in some sort.
And then you claim that the economy crashed because it was left to its own devices.
Go back, Do over, That one gets an F- -
It's more interesting to talk with you when you actually read what I write. When you don't, it is impossible to reply in any meaningful way.
*shrug* -
You mean it's Impossible to make any meaningful response when your original statement was nonsense.
*Double Shrug with a cherry on top* -
beleive it or not Mark, some people believe that too much government intervention lead to the collapse. Because deregulation that favored easy credit by Clinton is somehow viewed as intervention.
I know, it makes my brain hurt too
-
-
One problematic aspect of our culture's attitude towards capitalism is that it is taken as natural and therefore outside of history. Yet capitalism as we know it is a relatively modern creation.
Its roots go back very many centuries, but any meaningful history probably would start with the role of bankers in Renaissance Italy.
Living side by side with this new form of capitalism, however, were notions such as a moral economy, a just price, and the village commons. There were also guilds, which were anything but free market, and significant remnants of feudalism persisted, even if the institution was on the way out in western Europe after the crises of the fourteenth century (Black Death, 100 Years War, peasant uprisings).
Our modern understanding of economic man did not emerge fully until the eighteenth century in Great Britain. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nation recorded this epochal shift in Western Civilization.
There is nothing natural—or unnatural—about capitalism. It is a historically contingent phenomenon, the product of a specific time and place, and it continues to evolve over time as a consequence of people's economic activities and government policies.
One major challenge to its great injustices was offered by socialism. Many states, however, avoided civil unrest not by going that route, which in east block countries only fed people at the cost of their basic human rights, but instead by adopting various measures to ameliorate the worst negative effects of capitalism.
The emergence of the welfare state in the twentieth century contributed greatly to social stability. Under that term I am thinking of states' new role in things like unemployment insurance, higher education, retirement schemes, and health care, at least in some countries. The idea has been to increase freedom, not detract from it like in a socialist state where there is no private ownership of the means of production. Europe has flourished under the system. So have we, although we've held ourselves back because of our inequitable health care system.
To return to my initial point, however, all of these developments are the result of human actions and decisions in specific historical contexts. Adam Smith's invisible hand was nothing but a metaphor, not a description of nature or God at work. Any tinkering of humans with this invisible hand is not automatically socialism, though it is clear that those on the right will continue to use this label, because they adhere to a fundamentally ahistorical image of capitalism.-
capitalism as we know it is a creation of judicial activism
-
What was the name of that horrible SCOTUS decision that gave human rights to corporations in America?
-
"There is nothing natural—or unnatural—about capitalism"
Capitalism has been defined so many ways, and depending upon the way you define it, this statement may or may not be true. If you define it as a fairly natural state of open trade under commandment-like criminal laws, it's pretty darn natural. If you define it, as it is more properly defined, as a system of asset trade enabled by banks, private corporations, and stock markets then you are correct. -
Corporations given civil rights of "persons"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad
Corporations given near soveriegnty via the weakened power of state charter
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_College_v._Woodward
See also
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Personhood_Debate -
The first one was one I was thinking about.
Your heterodox interpretation of the Dartmouth case offends me, because it's my alma mater.
Just kidding about being offended, but I'm not sure that case is the same kind of thing, though your take is worth thinking about. -
well, that seems to be how it was viewed at the time by Jeffersonians, rightly or wrongly
-
-
The question I have is: has the country shifted away from being a democracy and actually become a plutocracy, or was it always a plutocracy at some point? It seems to me that free market capitalism favors a plutocratic society much more than a true democratic one. -
Socialism is the philosophy of government ownership and changing and direct economic control, as supposed to laissez-faire (no government control), legalism (crystalline, ex post facto guidelines), feudalism (enforced social standing and fragmented government/private control), syndicalism (collective bargaining) and mercantilism (government favoritism). History has shown that the most effective economic system is mostly a combination of legalism & laissez-faire (describes US perfectly,) with a small share of syndicalism for certain very specific areas, like banking. Socialism provides almost no direct economic benefit, but may be beneficial in some cases to the maintenance of government services like the armed forces, transportation and welfare that may in turn act as stabilizers or externality correcters, but for the most of the economy should not be used. Mercantilism ditto. Feudalism is just plain evil.
Add Your Comment
Login to leave a message.
