DonFerrari said:
Sure summarizing People want higher wages doing less work while also paying less for more product (an antithesis that can only be met by increasing productivity and lowering other costs, unless of course government impose several restrictions that make that balance impossible). That is basically also why Socialism wouldn't ever work. |
Ah the blame socialism excuse when capitalism is in danger, classic 
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| Helloplite said: Socialism = The form of capitalism that strives towards a more economically egalitarian arrangement, usually by focusing on state control of industries and trade, high taxation. In its most typical form, socialism is a mere policy line and in our days it should be seen as an inverse form of austerity economics (where focus is not placed on egalitarianism, but instead on protecting capital and investment at the expense of the low and middle class prosperity). Austerity is now the neo-con equivalent to the left-winger's socialism. Both systems are part and parcel of neoliberal capitalism and form the redemptive and pragmatic faces of the same thing. Scandinavian countries are closest to a healthy form of democracy with socialist aims. Marxism should not be conflated with either socialism nor Leninism. |
The problem with the social democratic definition of socialism is that it throws every other socialist under the bus. Since socdems want to work within the capitalist framework and other socialists want to replace the capitalist system, the two definitions become irreconcilable. Perhaps we should abandon the socialist label in public and just go with Marxism/communism for the Marx inspired ideologies and anarchist for the others.
Also Marx used socialism and communism interchangeably to mean the same thing. Social democrats today are more or less the reformists from Marx's time although most of them have abandoned the goal of replacing capitalism. Chavez was the notable example of a modern social democrat that attempted to achieve socialism through reform with his "Socialism of the 21st century". The 1888 English preface to the Communist Manifesto includes an explanation from Engles why the text is not called the socialist manifesto, since the word 'socialist' has increasingly become associated with a middle class movement instead of a working class movement. Lenin built upon Marx & Engles' ideas in the Russian context and one of his ideas was calling the lower stage of communism, "socialism", essentially trying to reclaim the term. However all this has now done is create more confusion, since now "socialism" (social democracy) is conflated with Soviet "socialism", even though the systems are completely different.
Last edited by Leadified - on 02 February 2018
