What is socialism?

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SeniorBen said:
What's your definition of socialism?
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Good question.

Communism/capitalism is not a binary situation. I see it as a continuum with various combinations in between. Australia is clearly towards the capitalism end of the continuum but I consider us to be a social democracy with limitations on private enterprise imposed by governments to protect consumers and workers. Competition, the driver of capitalism tends to be less effective in countries with smaller populations. Without government imposed checks and balances the consumer is price gouged by greedy corporations.
 

Senter said:
I've probably looked it up a couple of dozen times more than you have. Yes, ongoing income growth. Less than 0.33% per year. That loses against inflation, "BIGLY."
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/50-years-of-us-wages-in-one-chart/


And I'm sure you've seen this one...
https://www.advisorperspectives.com...d-u-s-household-incomes-a-50-year-perspective


So why misrepresent the true picture?
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I looked it up, and it was inflation adjusted and factual! Move on....
 
All,
I need to warn my follow members that posting on this particular post any further is a waste of your valuable time. It seems we have an individual here, senter, that knows so much more than we all do, therefore, we should not really upset him/ her with any additional posts. Our thoughts or opinions. They just don't matter, as the true answers only he/ she knows. So, I suggest we just move on...
 

Timewise 60+ said:
All,
I need to warn my follow(sic) members that posting on this particular post any further is a waste of your valuable time. It seems we have an individual here, senter, that knows so much more than we all do, therefore, we should not really upset him/ her with any additional posts. Our thoughts or opinions. They just don't matter, as the true answers only he/ she knows. So, I suggest we just move on...
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And I need to remind my FELLOW members that only in the USA are we subjected to a taboo against discussing socialism in rational, intelligent terms. The culture has produced an army of ready attackers, willing to insult, malign, and offend anyone who dares discuss socialism in order to stop the discussion and prevent the population from exploring and discovering the facts. This is what "Timewise 60+" is doing. He apparently wants to cause this thread to be locked down by turning it into a fight if he can by making me the subject rather than discussing a subject that scares him.
 
Raddragn said:
That's on the extreme end; there are other manifestations in a decreasing order. Certain political entities have made a ''scare" weapon out of it and vastly exaggerated the effects.
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Yes, the whole point of socialism is to change the relationship between employer and employee to one in which the employee IS the employer.

Government ownership doesn't change it. And that is why Lenin referred to such an arrangement as "state capitalism".
 
Raddragn said:
That's on the extreme end; there are other manifestations in a decreasing order. Certain political entities have made a ''scare" weapon out of it and vastly exaggerated the effects.
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Socialism is government ownership of the means of production and distribution. I suspect that what you refer to is a typical welfare state — free enterprise tempered with abundant regulation, high taxes on the “rich”, and numerous welfare programs, many racially and minority oriented -- in short, well you get the picture.
 
ElCastor said:
Government ownership of the means of production and distribution.
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That more closely defines communism.

Socialism is an economic ideology. It can be the foundation of a government's economy but that government can be communist or have elements of communism, or be a democracy...any type of government can have a socialist or partially socialist economy if that's what they want.
 
ElCastor said:
Socialism is government ownership of the means of production and distribution.
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"a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the COMMUNITY as a whole." Not necessarily the "government." The degree of socialism in any community can vary in it's concentration - from almost none to concentrated. Societies rarely flourish long enough under the highest level long enough to be even noted nor do they at the lowest leval
Some issues are better handled by the government - given the wide range of human empathy from almost none to all encompassing.
 
Raddragn said:
"a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the COMMUNITY as a whole." Not necessarily the "government." The degree of socialism in any community can vary in it's concentration - from almost none to concentrated. Societies rarely flourish long enough under the highest level long enough to be even noted nor do they at the lowest leval
Some issues are better handled by the government - given the wide range of human empathy from almost none to all encompassing.
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And, we always have to ask whether a person says "communism" meaning the typical policies, strategies, and methods of a "communist party" in their effort to establish socialism, or whether they mean a communist system which is stateless, classless, and moneyless. Since it would be stateless, a communist society could not have government ownership of anything.

A communist party could conceivably create a socialist economy if they succeeded at what they do, because every revolution led by a communist party worked initially to establish socialism. That was their goal. So in that sense @Murrmurr is correct. He is also correct about democracy although I don't think he meant it as I do. Socialism would be a "socio-economic system" of both socialist government and a worker-run economy. Limiting "socialism" to an economy or "economic ideology" is incorrect since government always rises and functions in service to the economic base. So a socialist government is needed to mediate the class struggle in favor of the working class and to facilitate the "dictatorship of the proletariat" or governance over capital and capitalists. But such governance must be transparent to work, and so it must be democratic as well. Karl Marx said “Democracy is the road to socialism” because democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people. So democracy is the weapon of socialism and any socialist government. Hence, a socialist government can be described as "democratic".
 
ElCastor said:
Government ownership of the means of production and distribution.
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When the government doesn't represent the people and only represents the leaders -- usually dictators, that's called government run capitalism.

When the government represents the will of the people and the leaders are elected in legitimate elections, it would be socialism -- democratic socialism. Many Nordic countries, such as Norway, have a democratic socialism form of government and economy, which have been extremely successful.

So how many of those countries you listed are actually socialistic? None. And the reason most of them failed is due to the crippling sanctions we imposed on them because of their flawed democracies. Who the hell are we to punish other countries because we don't like their governments? Nearly half of the U.S. populace seems to crave an authoritarian leader, so who are we to punish other countries because they have dictators? We have friendly relations with many other countries that have dictators.

Well, come to think of it, Venezuela took ownership of the oil industries, and that's why we punished them. So that could be considered socialism if the public benefits from it, but I don't believe that's the case.

Cuba might have been successful had their economy not been hamstrung with sanctions imposed by the U.S. And they might have a successful democracy, also. We %$#@!ed them and never gave them a chance. We did the same to Venezuela, too, and several other countries. They don't have anything resembling a socialistic form of economy.
 
The socialist system as I understand it still has a class system. If that is a true statement then how would a person get out from under the working class to be part of the upper class?

I ask only because I've lived under the capitalist system with no education higher than high school I've managed to rise from a poverty upbringing to us living a comfortable life. I think more than likely in a socialist system that would have set my life in the working class.
 
Knight said:
The socialist system as I understand it still has a class system. If that is a true statement then how would a person get out from under the working class to be part of the upper class?

I ask only because I've lived under the capitalist system with no education higher than high school I've managed to rise from a poverty upbringing to us living a comfortable life. I think more than likely in a socialist system that would have set my life in the working class.
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and usually your children would have little chance of climbing that ladder as well.
 
Knight said:
The socialist system as I understand it still has a class system. If that is a true statement then how would a person get out from under the working class to be part of the upper class?

I ask only because I've lived under the capitalist system with no education higher than high school I've managed to rise from a poverty upbringing to us living a comfortable life. I think more than likely in a socialist system that would have set my life in the working class.
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Hi Knight. I'm not going to throw guesses and speculation at you. I've been interested in socialism for over 50 years and I can tell you you are correct that socialist society would be class society, and let me explain why and how it works.

First, in socialist ideology, class is not based on money. It is based on one's relationship to the system and forces of production. And it entails "class consciousness". So there is no "upper class" and "lower class" etc. There is the capitalist class because their relationship to production is their ownership of business and their "right" to appropriate profit from their businesses in the capitalist system.

Then there is the class of people the capitalists exploit for their profit: the working class. This includes about 99% of the public. If you're disabled or too old to work or a child, you are still a member of the working class because you have no prospect for using wealth and ownership of a business to put you in the capitalist class, and, all you really have to make a living is your labor, so you sell your labor to the capitalist class. (We can talk about sole proprietorships and small "mom and pop" businesses if you like.) So to move from the working class to the capitalist class a person would have to own a business, but a window washing business would make you no "better" than a member of the working class because you would have no real power to buy government policy and candidates to do your bidding.

Socialism would nationalize select businesses that are critical to national security and it would prioritize worker-owned worker-managed businesses, while at some point (maybe immediately) banning the creation of any new privately-owned businesses for private profit. Existing corporate America and corporate elite would be properly taxed.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
 
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Raddragn said:
"a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the COMMUNITY as a whole."
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Oh, the “COMMUNITY”. In a country of more than 300 million how do you define Community? No more government, laws, or constitution, just I’ll defined “Communities” running their own show. Sounds like CHAOS to me.
 

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