Shadow1980 said:
What socialism is:
What socialism is not:
Have you taken a look outside lately? Go down any main road in your town. Tell me, what do you see? Capitalism. Capitalism everywhere. Even now we're posting on a privately-owned website while using internet service provided by a capitalist enterprise. That same enterprise also likely provides cable, which airs myriad programs created by private enterprises on networks owned and operated by private enterprises. If you were eating while posting, your snacks and drinks were made by a capitalist enterprise. And the food was made by a private for-profit company and bought from a store owned and operated by a capitalist enterprise. The transportation used to get to the store is likely privately-owned (either a personal vehicle or private for-profit public transportation) and the vehicle was manufactured and sold by a capitalist enterprise, fueled by gasoline purchased at a privately-owned gas station and derived from oil dug up and refined by a private company, and you probably passed several other capitalist enterprises on the way to the store. Wal-mart. GameStop. Best Buy. Starbucks. Dollar General. Walgreens. McDonalds. Pizza Hut. BP. Grocery stores and retail chains and restaurants and bars and gas stations and banks and auto repair shops and auto dealerships and various entertainment establishments (movie theaters, bowling alleys, mini golf, etc.) up the yin yang. The list goes on and on and on and on. "Socialism" actually used to mean something. Y'know, like when a government actually nationalizes the private sector (or parts of it), or workers gather to form a co-op or buy out a factory to own between themselves collectively. But now it's been devalued over time to mean little more than "economic policies conservatives don't like." Of course, that should be expected, as debasement of language happens a lot in political demagoguery. Even back in the 40s that dirty socialist George Orwell lamented how the word "fascism" had already been similarly debased: "It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else." That hasn't really changed that much today, with "socialism," "Marxism," and "communism" having been added to the list of debased terms alongside "fascism." The Red Scare and the legacy of Joe McCarthy is still alive and well, and it's been kept alive by people who think that government is inherently bad ("always the problem; never the solution") and that any government services and any government regulations must necessarily be part of a slippery slope towards Stalinism. When Obama or Hillary start going on a tear and start nationalizing everything in sight, then you can talk about "socialism." But most of the things the right gripes about are not "socialism." I've had enough of the red-baiting. It's just as asinine and almost as offensive as when some protestor somewhere holds up a sign comparing politicians they don't like to Hitler. |
Having read Proudhon and Marx, I can say that a greater concept of "socialism" predates your dictionary definition of "public ownership of the means of production." But that is not what my point was. My point was that only socialists, which I define as persons whose primary political goal is the enforcement of an egalitarian wealth distribution (if we consider pre-Proudhonian socialism as well as post-Proudhonian socialism), are the people that will support the forceful and outright redistribution of wealth that a progressive social security tax would entail (unless you also imply that said millionaires will be getting back what they put in.)
Military defense (when funded by government) is indeed socialism even by your definition. The government owns the means of production for national defense. The same is true for police & emergency services (albeit some of them are voluntary organizations many are funded by taxation.)
What I see when I look outside is a mixed-economy, not so disimilar from the fascism that Mussolini and Hitler espoused and the Mercantilism that plauged most countries before the 18th century. Corporations and the state(s) in bed with each-other. The only solution is the same solution that we've applied to religion and government. Separation of economics and the state, just like sepearation of church and state. I do not support the politicization and the democratization of economics because they are less efficient and more destructive than the market options.
If you want a grander understanding of what socialism entails, I think you should read Proudhon's "What is property?" In it, he explicates how socialism is precisely anti-propertarian. For that reason, if you wish to take somebody's property without reparating them, then yes, you are indeed a socialist (or a thief.) The first being a theif who justifies such theft by the argument that lockean property rights are not truly proper.
What is property?
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/proudhon/property/
