What is "socialism"? - An attempt to clear up myths/misconceptions

[o_O.Q]

Leadified said:

o_O.Q said:

"Capitalism started off in the absolute monarchies of Europe"

 

the definition of "capitalism"  : an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

 

were the people in those monarchies allowed to own businesses? no? so why are you calling them capitalist?

I did not call absolute monarchies "capitalist", I said that capitalism began in absolute monarchies. Here is an article about the birth of capitalism in Europe by FEE, a libertatian think tank.

https://fee.org/articles/how-medieval-towns-paved-the-way-for-capitalism/

 

the way you have your argument framed gives the impression that there's some type of link between how the monarchies worked and how capitalism works 

when really its the opposite and the monarchies were socialist in nature

 

this is the point where someone then says "no no no  socialism is when the means of production are distributed across the people of a society"

to get this out of the way now... that's why we have government to distribute resources across a community

with regards to the monarchies the monarchs were the ones distributing the wealth

i just don't understand how people can have things that are so obvious completely confused