Re:The world is socialist
by Semiapies on Saturday January 01, 2011 @07:12PM
(#2058902)
Americans, through blatant ignorance and misuse of the term over the last few years (on both sides of the political aisle), you've ALL forfeited the right to use the world "socialism" until such time as you can prove you actually know what the word means and can use it properly.
[ Parent
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Sorry, but it's a fair cop. Social services != socialism.
Socialism is the government control of production, and it's largely dead outside of Cuba and North Korea.
Socialism is the government control of production, and it's largely dead outside of Cuba and North Korea.
Nope, not necessarily. There are many definitions of socialism, and lots of movements defined as socialists. Many of them don't involve State control of production, eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
You can find a few outliers (such as the usual crop of left-anarchists who want to smash governments and replace them with, um, different organizations that make people in their territories follow rules through coercion), but they are of no significance and give no cover to the sloppy American tendency to call a capitalist society with a welfare state "socialist".