Not2BSubjugated
Callous Individualist
Watching this thread. . . Jesus, I wish socialists would make up their minds.
You point to Venezuela, they're like, "That's a private economy. Only certain industries were nationalized. That's not real socialism."
So then you're like, "Oh, so only if all of the economy is nationalized, then it's socialism? Got ya. So Sweden and Denmark aren't socialism."
Then suddenly, they're like, "No, they're partial socialism. Mixed economy."
So, when it's a flourishing nation, suddenly socialism just means a healthy welfare safety net. When it's a nation nosediving into economic oblivion and there aren't even any pets left to eat, suddenly it's not real socialism because most of the economy was never nationalized.
Here's the thing. I tend to agree with the first position. Venezuela isn't true socialism. It IS, however, a warning against nationalizing load bearing structures in a nation's economy and giving those reigns to the sorts of nepotic panderers that democratic politics tends to turn out. But that's a different argument. As far as this "mixed economy" nonsense, it's like this: If taking in taxes from citizenry and using that revenue to provide a service to said citizenry is socialism, then ALL GOVERNMENT is socialism. Thus, of these two disparate definitions, only the nationalization of the economy explanation gives socialism a definition that makes it distinct from any other form of government. The alternative is a useless definition.
Why don’t you define “socialism” and give some examples . Cause you Cons don’t seem to have a grasp of the term.
Oh sorry, did I not spell out exactly the two definitions to which I was referring? My bad, bud, I just figured people who were balls deep in a discussion about it might actually know what I was talking about without having to go into that much specification. The one I feel is the valid definition is the one in most dictionaries, which Google brings up when you search.
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.
Some examples? The Soviet Union, maybe. Nobody, to date, has really implemented a true socialist system, to my knowledge. There've been a lot of partial nationalizations of economies throughout the 20th century, the vast majority to disastrous results.
Most of the places that lefties like to call socialist today are just private market economies with large welfare systems and social safety nets. Why, you might ask, can't we just call that socialist, since it IS government/community controlled industry to some degree. There's a very simple reason for that. When the government provides military protection, that involves using community resources to build weaponry and ammunition, which one might argue is the nationalization of industry. When the government provides police protection, same thing. When the government builds roads, that could be argued to be the nationalization of the construction industry. If "nationalizing" such specific functions represents socialism, then ALL GOVERNMENT is socialism, as even the absolute most basic concept of government provides, at the very least, policing and military protection. Defining socialism down to that point would make it indistinguishable from ANY form of government, and synonymous with all of them, which makes it a useless word.