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Is Communism Inherently Toxic?
- Thread starter Debater Slayer
- Start date
Are any of these dictionary definitions cromulent?
(I just searched for "socialism define". These were the top results.)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/socialism
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/socialism.asp
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Not necessarily Marx, but you need to read some stuff. It would be me like trying to say I know about antique engines just from reading your posts about them, and while I could identify a few of them based on your posts, I know absolutely nothing about them.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
This is much more thorough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
But you could know the definition of "engine", & thus be able to see where it applies, & where it doesn't.
Many discussions of socialism fail because so many use personal definitions, instead of dictionary ones.
Now, were I to discuss the detailed history & implementation of socialism, then more extensive reading would be useful.
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But this doesn't answer my query.
This is important because a definition sets forth the essential criteria which must be met for a label to apply.
The Wikipedia article begins with "Socialism is a social and economic system characterised by .....".
This is more of a description of representative examples, rather than a definition.
By analogy, the definition of "addition" would not be just giving examples such as 2+2=4.
I prefer dictionary to personal definitions.
Why?
It helps us avoid people using the word, "atheist", to mean people who hate God.
It seems that many on both the left & the right misuse "socialism".....the former to exalt, the latter to demonize.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
But many other discussions fail because some fail to realize that "socialism" is a general category that has many different facets to it, plus some tend to think in stereotypically and associate all forms of socialism with Marxism, and some also confuse it with fascism.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
But some things in life and some definitions simply are not so simple after all. Again, "socialism" is a category with many facets, much like let's say "free-enterprise". Yes, we know what the basic term implies, but that can sometimes be misleading as others may begin to attach other characteristics to it.
Tis a good reason to comport with the most popular dictionaries, eh?
A thing can have many facets & flavors, yet it still is defined by certain criteria.
If those criteria are met, then the label applies.
If they are not, then it is something else.....or a hybrid, & should be noted as such.
Do you like any or none of the definitions I offered?
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
I can live with this one as found in Wikipedia: Socialism is a social and economic system characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production, as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system.
Where I do have a problem with the above definition is that not all forms involve "democratic control", as we've seen.
Exactly!
Democrat control is not a necessary criterion to be "socialist".
It's a goal of some (what we might call the progressive or liberal wing) adherents.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Did I say otherwise?
Tough to say.
"Socialism" & "communism" are trickier things to discuss than "capitalism" or "feudalism".
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
I don't know what's so "tough to say" since we've discussed this before, but maybe your age has caught up to you, and I'm even older than you, thus more mature than you are?
OTOH, the 2nd sentence I agree with.
Who isn't more mature than I?I don't know what's so "tough to say" since we've discussed this before, but maybe your age has caught up to you, and I'm even older than you, thus more mature than you are?
OTOH, the 2nd sentence I agree with.
Most of my posts today have been Dr Seuss style, albeit in another thread.
dust1n
Zindīq
"The exploitation of human labor cannot be sugar-coated even by the most democratic form of government ... for the worker it will always be a bitter pill. It follows from this that no government, however paternalistic, however bent on avoiding friction, will tolerate any threat to its exploitative economic institutions or its political hegemony: unable to instill habitual obedience to its authority by cajolery and other peaceful methods, the government will then resort to unceasing coercion, to violence, i.e., to political control, and the ultimate weapon of political control is military power.
The modern State is by its very nature a military State; and every military State must of necessity become a conquering. invasive State; to survive it must conquer or be conquered, for the simple reason that accumulated military power will suffocate if it does not find an outlet. Therefore the modern State must strive to be a huge and powerful State: this is the indispensable precondition for its survival.
And just as capitalist production must, to avoid bankruptcy, continually expand by absorbing its weaker competitors and drive to monopolize all the other capitalist enterprises all over the world, so must the modern State inevitably drive to become the only universal State, since the coexistence of two universal states is by definition absolutely impossible. Sovereignty, the drive toward absolute domination, is inherent in every State; and the first prerequisite for this sovereignty is the comparative weakness, or at least the submission of neighboring states...
A strong State can have only one solid foundation: military and bureaucratic centralization. The fundamental difference between a monarchy and even the most democratic republic is that in the monarchy. the bureaucrats oppress and rob the people for the benefit of the privileged in the name of the King, and to fill their own coffers; while in the republic the people are robbed and oppressed in the same way for the benefit of the same classes, in the name of “the will of the people” (and to fill the coffers of the democratic bureaucrats). In the republic the State, which is supposed to be the people, legally organized, stifles and will continue to stifle the real people. But the people will feel no better if the stick with which they are being beaten is labeled “the people’s stick.”
... No state, however democratic – not even the reddest republic – can ever give the people what they really want, i.e., the free self-organization and administration of their own affairs from the bottom upward, without any interference or violence from above, because every state, even the pseudo-People’s State concocted by Mr. Marx, is in essence only a machine ruling the masses from above, through a privileged minority of conceited intellectuals, who imagine that they know what the people need and want better than do the people themselves..- Bakunin
And that's about it.
I see communism as inherently toxic. It is much too oblivious to individual people to allow them to correct its course, thereby dooming itself.