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Is Socialism a word with any meaning anymore? Like in Marxism it was a step towards communism.

1. Primitive Communism: as in co-operative tribal societies.
2. Slave Society: a development of tribal progression to city-state; aristocracy is born.
3. Feudalism: aristocrats are the ruling class; merchants evolve into capitalists.
4. Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the proletariat.
5. Socialism: workers gain class consciousness, and via proletarian revolution depose the capitalist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, replacing it in turn with dictatorship of the proletariat through which the socialization of the means of production can be realized.
6. Communism: a classless and stateless society.

But the German Nazi Party were also at times called the National Socialist party or the German Workers party which implies Socialism, which is contradictory as Nazi Germany was anti-socialist.

And in my last semester's sociology course we were not supposed to call Scandinavian countries Socialist but rather Social Democracies (the same thing for Canada's New Democratic Party), which tend to be democracies that heavily invest in social programs. And we refer to

Socialism to the more traditional Marxist definition, so the USSR, Communist China and Cuba would be considered Socialist as they never achieved true Communism which is supposed to be this Utopian society where everything is equal which never actually happened in any of these

so called Communist societies. So DakkaDakka what does Socialism mean to you and is it a term that still has meaning?

Lately here in the states... I think "Socialism" = "Statism".

Which is all sorts of wrong.

Socialism in the states has become a scare word. Used when the Govt tries to enact policies that typically go after businesses or the rich.
Many people dont even know what socialism is.

I think the problem is that socialism has never managed to hold a single definitive meaning. It has numerous meanings that perpetuate within certain circles.

Generally in such situations I just fall back to the academic definition but I have a sneaky suspicion that definition will vary on which academics one asks.

 LordofHats wrote:
I think the problem is that socialism has never managed to hold a single definitive meaning. It has numerous meanings that perpetuate within certain circles.

Generally in such situations I just fall back to the academic definition but I have a sneaky suspicion that definition will vary on which academics one asks.

^This.

As it stands now, the PSOE or Socialist Workers' Party of Spain is socialist in name only. During Zapatero's years in office, the party shed off what little remained of its socialist image to become a vaguely liberal/progressive party not to dissimilar to British New Labour. Still, right wing media still make wide (mis)use of the word "socialist" applied to progressive policies such as gay marriage, church-state separation, feminism, federalism or reproductive rights, as if such measures were to drive us to a collectivist nightmare. There are still smaller parties which claim to stand true to "real" socialism. In reality, they do little beyond iterating the same old tiresome anti-imperialist rhetoric and pretending the USSR didn't phase out of existance in the 90s.

In economic matters, both major parties basically agree (though, admittedly, the PSOE is slightly more worker-friendly): The state has an overburdening presence in our economy, and both parties believe it's in their best interests to keep it that way. This is not due to socialism or our satisfactory but inherently weak welfare state, but mostly to the lack of proper checks and balances, our labyrinthine and highly politicized financial system and our appallingly bad administrative and territorial design - one in which the lines between matters of state and private business are often blurry.

Ah, my homeland. Proof that you can have a crippled economy regardless of the "red scare". Bad governance tends to be colorblind.

Socialism - definition...
10 people earn 1$ a day
5 people earn 10$ a day
1 person makes 40$ a day
2 person earns 100$ a day...
The people want a successful person to lead them but not too successful so they elect the guy who makes 40$ to be their leader.
The government says give me 50% of what you earn so that I can give the poor unfortunates 5$ to lift up the poor.

So now:
10 people make 5.50$ a day
5 people make 10$ a day
2 people makes 55$ a day

True socialist: " Look at the inequality of the system"
Liberal: " Look at how those two make 10 times that the majority does"
Moderate: " Well it seems pretty fare"
Conservative: " Where is the incentive to better yourself?"
Ultraconservative: " I am moving my money to off-shore accounts."

Realist... "Hmmm 300$ in total income. 220$ in total payouts. What happened to the 80$?"

Government... " Well you didn't expect me to do this for nothing did you?"
The government guy makes 105$ a day.

"Its good to be the king" Mel Brooks

DAaddict wrote:
Socialism - definition...
10 people earn 1$ a day
5 people earn 10$ a day
1 person makes 40$ a day
2 person earns 100$ a day...
The people want a successful person to lead them but not too successful so they elect the guy who makes 40$ to be their leader.
The government says give me 50% of what you earn so that I can give the poor unfortunates 5$ to lift up the poor.

So now:
10 people make 5.50$ a day
5 people make 10$ a day
2 people makes 55$ a day

True socialist: " Look at the inequality of the system"
Liberal: " Look at how those two make 10 times that the majority does"
Moderate: " Well it seems pretty fare"
Conservative: " Where is the incentive to better yourself?"
Ultraconservative: " I am moving my money to off-shore accounts."

Realist... "Hmmm 300$ in total income. 220$ in total payouts. What happened to the 80$?"

Government... " Well you didn't expect me to do this for nothing did you?"
The government guy makes 105$ a day.

"Its good to be the king" Mel Brooks

As opposed to "guy who makes $100 a day rules the country, no one else is better off for it". Oh, see, I can do gross generalizations too!

Socialism is whatever you want it to be!

Want Socialism to mean the pre-communist USSR ideology?

Want Socialism to mean liberal and progressive ideologies?

Want Socialism to mean an ideology of totally equal societies?

Want Socialism to mean heavy government intervention in social and economic areas of the government?

Well it can! These definitions have all been used!

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

DAaddict wrote:
Socialism - definition...
10 people earn 1$ a day
5 people earn 10$ a day
1 person makes 40$ a day
2 person earns 100$ a day...
The people want a successful person to lead them but not too successful so they elect the guy who makes 40$ to be their leader.
The government says give me 50% of what you earn so that I can give the poor unfortunates 5$ to lift up the poor.

So now:
10 people make 5.50$ a day
5 people make 10$ a day
2 people makes 55$ a day

True socialist: " Look at the inequality of the system"
Liberal: " Look at how those two make 10 times that the majority does"
Moderate: " Well it seems pretty fare"
Conservative: " Where is the incentive to better yourself?"
Ultraconservative: " I am moving my money to off-shore accounts."

Realist... "Hmmm 300$ in total income. 220$ in total payouts. What happened to the 80$?"

Government... " Well you didn't expect me to do this for nothing did you?"
The government guy makes 105$ a day.

"Its good to be the king" Mel Brooks

As opposed to "guy who makes $100 a day rules the country, no one else is better off for it". Oh, see, I can do gross generalizations too!

Sorry for trying to lighten up the discussion. While the point of socialism is good - to take care of the least. It is sadly run by bureaucrats and the inefficiencies that that entails... While no one is pocketing the money, if you take 20$ to help someone but only hand out 10$ or even 18$ it is inefficient.

DAaddict wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

DAaddict wrote:
Socialism - definition...
10 people earn 1$ a day
5 people earn 10$ a day
1 person makes 40$ a day
2 person earns 100$ a day...
The people want a successful person to lead them but not too successful so they elect the guy who makes 40$ to be their leader.
The government says give me 50% of what you earn so that I can give the poor unfortunates 5$ to lift up the poor.

So now:
10 people make 5.50$ a day
5 people make 10$ a day
2 people makes 55$ a day

True socialist: " Look at the inequality of the system"
Liberal: " Look at how those two make 10 times that the majority does"
Moderate: " Well it seems pretty fare"
Conservative: " Where is the incentive to better yourself?"
Ultraconservative: " I am moving my money to off-shore accounts."

Realist... "Hmmm 300$ in total income. 220$ in total payouts. What happened to the 80$?"

Government... " Well you didn't expect me to do this for nothing did you?"
The government guy makes 105$ a day.

"Its good to be the king" Mel Brooks

As opposed to "guy who makes $100 a day rules the country, no one else is better off for it". Oh, see, I can do gross generalizations too!

Sorry for trying to lighten up the discussion. While the point of socialism is good - to take care of the least. It is sadly run by bureaucrats and the inefficiencies that that entails... While no one is pocketing the money, if you take 20$ to help someone but only hand out 10$ or even 18$ it is inefficient.

If the entire point is to make sure that those that are the least well off are better off then it's hardly inefficient. From a hardline capitalist point of view it's inefficient, but the entire point of socialism is to sacrifice extreme wealth for a more caring society. Socialism isn't meant to maximize profit; expecting it to do so is just weird IMO.

The problem is mankind in it's current state is incapable of it. You have people who will mooch the system. You will have people game the system. And you'll have people who provide to the system, and get angry at the others, and then want out.

Until human nature becomes cookie cutter, it's not going to work. And... since that will never happen, it will never work.

Socialism's goal of helping the least is an acceptable and laudable goal. Personnally I am glad for it. However I do not "blanket trust" the altruistic government to hand it out either...

The old Bush point of helping people through private charity is a better ideal than building a government infrastructure to hand it out. However -as is human nature- this tends to be inadequate.

So we are left with a pragmatic approach where we want to help people who are in need but we also don't want to give a government cart blanche to institute a fully socialist society.

Truthfully I think it is the one thing where our democray works. We have liberals and conservatives in an ongoing struggle between socialist straight-jacket helping and capitalist hard-and-uncaring freedom to succeed.

Lol. American definitions on socialism. Cute.

 djones520 wrote:
The problem is mankind in it's current state is incapable of it. You have people who will mooch the system. You will have people game the system. And you'll have people who provide to the system, and get angry at the others, and then want out.

Until human nature becomes cookie cutter, it's not going to work. And... since that will never happen, it will never work.

The same is true in every system. Pretending that there's no gaming the system in capitalist-centric economies (I know that it's not mutually exclusive with socialism, but it's the best description I can think of) is silly; just look at Madoff.

The system certainly won't work while flawed humans are in control, but what about computers? I mean, there'd need to be some system of making sure the programning wasn't flawed and people currently don't like the idea of a computer in charge (probably because of hollywood), but could it work in the future to have a computer in charge?

But computers have to programmed - by a human!

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
But computers have to programmed - by a human!

Yeah, I imagine there'd have to be some way of making sure that the programming was perfect, however if you could be certain of this and somehow convinced everyone that it would work, is it possible that it would?

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
But computers have to programmed - by a human!

LOL ... watch "Office Space." I want to be the programmer and just shave the decimal cents too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hindenburg wrote:
Lol. American definitions on socialism. Cute.

Well I don't want the French or Greek definition of socialism so I guess I am stuck with my American definition.

DAaddict wrote:

 Hindenburg wrote:
Lol. American definitions on socialism. Cute.

Well I don't want the French or Greek definition of socialism so I guess I am stuck with my American definition.

Despite the fact that they're the only definitions that work? And don't say the American definition works, it's obviously cobbled together by right-wing people who know little about what their enemy is.

Excuse me? As I recall riots in France when they decided they couldn't afford the freebies and Greece having to go to emergency austerity measures to right their fiscal ship...

I will take the cobbled together American version of sane socialism. It ain't perfect but its ours.

DAaddict wrote:
I recall riots in France

Frenchmen riots like we get togheter to watch hockey or football. They'd do it even if there was nothing to riot about. Hell, they'd feth up their system just to have an excuse to throw a good riot.

DAaddict wrote:

Well I don't want the French or Greek definition of socialism so I guess I am stuck with my American definition.

There are, of course problems with many definitions of socialism as such as they come from different national histories that inevitabily colors the local perceptions of socialism, not only with the American definition as such But yes as such I think the common american view of socialism is very colored towards the negative spectrum viewing socialist ideas as practially impossible to mantain or as inherently unjust compared to a capitalist society. Such is also the case of other nations with history that has been in conflict with socialist or communist regimes or suffered under communist totalitarian regimes, such as Cambodia. My comment was, well mostly, in jest.

DAaddict wrote:
Excuse me? As I recall riots in France when they decided they couldn't afford the freebies and Greece having to go to emergency austerity measures to right their fiscal ship...

I will take the cobbled together American version of sane socialism. It ain't perfect but its ours.

Let's run with the Norwegian definition then. Or the German. Or the Danish. Or... etc etc etc.

 Hindenburg wrote:

DAaddict wrote:

Well I don't want the French or Greek definition of socialism so I guess I am stuck with my American definition.

There are, of course problems with many definitions of socialism as such as they come from different national histories that inevitabily colors the local perceptions of socialism, not only with the American definition as such But yes as such I think the common american view of socialism is very colored towards the negative spectrum viewing socialist ideas as practially impossible to mantain or as inherently unjust compared to a capitalist society. Such is also the case of other nations with history that has been in conflict with socialist or communist regimes or suffered under communist totalitarian regimes, such as Cambodia. My comment was, well mostly, in jest.

The thing is if you go in with the Marxist perspective communism never really happened as there was still inequality in USSR, Cuba, Communist China, etc but they would be socialist as the working class did rebel against and replace there leaders and there was producing goods and

services directly for use and away from producing for private profit, along with the end of the operation of the laws of capitalism.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

DAaddict wrote:
Excuse me? As I recall riots in France when they decided they couldn't afford the freebies and Greece having to go to emergency austerity measures to right their fiscal ship...

I will take the cobbled together American version of sane socialism. It ain't perfect but its ours.

Let's run with the Norwegian definition then. Or the German. Or the Danish. Or... etc etc etc.

You got me there. The Scandinavians definitely have a working socialist system.

DAaddict wrote:
Excuse me? As I recall riots in France when they decided they couldn't afford the freebies and Greece having to go to emergency austerity measures to right their fiscal ship...

I will take the cobbled together American version of sane socialism. It ain't perfect but its ours.

I never said the socialism worked, just that they've defined it well.

 LordofHats wrote:

Generally in such situations I just fall back to the academic definition but I have a sneaky suspicion that definition will vary on which academics one asks.

Most academics worth their salt will tell you that there is no specific definition of socialism. Instead there are many varying ones, none of which have an exclusive claim to truth. This is why any academic paper in the social sciences will inevitably involve a section regarding the definition of terms, and why you see phrases like "According to Marx's socialism...".

In essence, its best to think of socialism not as a specific theory or ideology, but a broad category encapsulating many of them.

Hybrid systems that try to maximize the benefits of each while minimizing the drawbacks of each are the way to go. And most successful "socialist" countries are running a "third way" economy and government.

 Cheesecat wrote:


The thing is if you go in with the Marxist perspective communism never really happened as there was still inequality in USSR, Cuba, Communist China, etc but they would be socialist as the working class did rebel against and replace there leaders and there was producing goods and
services directly for use and away from producing for private profit, along with the end of the operation of the laws of capitalism.

Yes, that is true. No communist nation has, as such, "succeded" with the marxist utopia and therefore could be seen as not being communist regimes from a marxist perspective.
Of course a socialist could also argue that a socialist state is reached not by revolution like in communist idealogy but with successive reform by an organized working class so...

 d-usa wrote:
Hybrid systems that try to maximize the benefits of each while minimizing the drawbacks of each are the way to go. And most successful "socialist" countries are running a "third way" economy and government.

This is true of pretty much all 1st world governments at present, with much of Europe slanting socialist, while the US slants capitalist. None are vaguely close to a pure strain any more.