Please provide your definition of socialism, as concise as possible. Not asking (or wanting) anyone to lay out a full-fledged vision of what a socialist country would look like, just wondering how people define the word. I post this thread not to be contentious, but just so people can set the record straight. In various threads the word "socialism" is being tossed around and it clearly means different things to different people. Maybe this could help clear up some confusion. Here is the definition I've always gone by: Socialism - an economic system where the means of production are owned by the state
Wow, this thread got derailed in just its first reply. Nice. MojoMan, do you have a definition of socialism?
A mixture of privately owned and state owned industry, where there is still incentive for entrepreneurship but extreme wealth is taxed more heavily and that money goes to pay for services for all. I would say Denmark and Sweden would be the closest examples of that.
Said my piece in the other thread. But, I'd take your definition and give it a slight tweak: Socialism - an economic system where the ownership of the means of production is spread among the people. The socialists of a century ago saw the government as the vehicle for common ownership. Today, everything is so distributive, I don't think that's necessary. I actually think the definition of a democratic socialist is a lot more squirrelly. It seems to me to be a sort of reactionary terminology to distinguish oneself from Bolsheviks. It ends up being rooted in history and defined not so much by theory as by historical precedent. I understand it to be something like welfare socialism, which is essentially capitalism regulated for social justice: run your businesses and make millions in abnormal profits, but just don't tread on the little guy too much, pay him a living wage, educate his children, and give him access to hospitals. I'm all for social justice, so I am generally in favor of those things. But, I wouldn't really call it socialism, and I don't really prefer it to socialism. I think we can have a system in which everyone shares in ownership and we regulate ourselves for social justice.
But it would be the state that is spreading it among the people, right? If so, how is that meaningfully different from my definition?
Who cares? What socialism is irrelevant. If this is a thread about Bernie Sanders, you need to ask what "Democratic Socialism" is, which is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.
This is what I said in the Sanders coup thread. This is probably a better home. Essentially, we now use the stock market as the vehicle for ownership of the means of production. Anyone can participate. We don't need to have government ownership to achieve the socialization of the risks and benefits of ownership. In the classic Marxist sense, we're already more socialist than the Soviet Union ever was.
Depends heavily on the definition of state ownership. What the Saudi state owns is different than what the US state owns. They are almost opposites because in one case the ultimate beneficiary is everyone and in another case the ultimate beneficiary is almost no one. I would say socialism is when all the members of society can effectively choose which means of production to own, control or regulate.
Denmark and Sweden are not socialist. I lived in Denmark, it is not a socialist country, despite the high taxes (which leftists like...). https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion...list-utopia/lUk9N7dZotJRbvn8PosoIN/story.html
Sometimes I wonder if Defining Socialism is like describing the BogeyMan it is whatever someone wants it to be to scare someone else Rocket River
To follow on our conversation from the previous thread I think this possibly too soft of a definition that tries to remove the bias towards the term by assigning much of the negative connotations of central planning to the Bolsheviks. As I stated before Marx did consider that "socialism" would involvement of the state to address inequalities between the classes. So Socialism as just a means of distributing ownership and production is more than that but does require government involvement. If it was just a means of collectively distributing ownership and production then a publicly held corporation would be Socialist and the Wall Street a Socialist institution. I would define "Socialism" as being an economic and political philosophy where the means of the ownership and production is collectively held with the ultimate goal of reducing class inequality. Outside of Kibutz and communes that doesn't exist on a countrywide scale. Perhaps the closest it comes is ironically Singapore where the government indirectly and directly controls much of the internal economy and also engages in social engineering of the population.
The obvious answer " it Depend ..." In theory A social Democratic system = current Canadian system. If a person barely making minimum wage ,with children and such, government pay check can help but also barely help. But assume a person holding a high paying occupation like physicians ,allegedly making an access of 230-300k$ annually. 35-40% goes to overhead expenses ,lability, educational and such , another 40% gone after taxes , add to this unpaid annual vacations or,sick L , no retirement plan in place and you get the picture , everyone should just become a plumber accepting cash only
Sorry if this question is elementary (and goes against what I said this thread was for in my OP), but... There would have to be some sort of entity collectively holding/distributing/etc on behalf of the people, right?
The definition of socialism as collective owning of means of production is not correct in my opinion. Why did that definition get created? It was because Marx thought that would bring more equality to the poor working class. What he wanted was better living for all and not just the rich and powerful, a noble goal you have to admit. What he did not realize was his method of achieving that goal was just not going to work due to human nature. For all practical purpose, many western and north European countries such as Denmark, Sweden etc have achieved the end result Marx wished without using the means he suggested. If you brought Marx back to live today, I bet he would say Denmark is what he was dreaming about when he created the concept of socialism.
Poverty will exist no matter what, at least socialist programs aim to help the poor rather than let them die on the streets because "survival of the fittest".
