What is Socialism?

[Percivale]

I’d choose option 3. In a fully socialist government whenever a business gets to a certain size it would get bought out by the government, probably about when businesses tend to become corporations in the US.

There are four things a government can do to businesses. They can own them, regulate them, fund them, or leave them alone. The first is socialism, the last capitalism. When government pays for things like healthcare and education but does not own hospitals or schools I think we should call that distributism. So Public schools are socialist, school choice vouchers are distributist, and private schools without vouchers are capitalist. Every country has a mix of all three.

 

[grasping the after wind]

Option 5- government control of all the means of production. That entails everything that is part of the means of production including human productivity and innovation . In order to control all of that government must become totalitarian in nature. After all one individual cannot be allowed to profit individually from that individual's work or ideas as the collective has built all the roads and bridges and deserves all the profit from all the individual effort and innovation.

 

[grasping the after wind]

I’d choose option 3. In a fully socialist government whenever a business gets to a certain size it would get bought out by the government, probably about when businesses tend to become corporations in the US.

There are four things a government can do to businesses. They can own them, regulate them, fund them, or leave them alone. The first is socialism, the last capitalism. When government pays for things like healthcare and education but does not own hospitals or schools I think we should call that distributism. So Public schools are socialist, school choice vouchers are distributist, and private schools without vouchers are capitalist. Every country has a mix of all three.

Public schools are not socialist. They are not controlled by the government. They are funded and regulated by the government. Two different things. Control and regulation are not equivalents. Government does not micro mange schools in a non socialist state. Certainly there are a number of people that wish the government controlled schools as vigorously as socialist states or theocracies do but that is not the case for a school to be a public school.

There are a number of other things a government can do to a business than the four things you describe and socialism is not confined to what a government might do to a business. In a socialist system, government controls not only business but all commerce. You don't get to legally have individual commerce between two individual parties outside of government approved channels. If you wish to purchase a loaf of bread you will pay what the government has decided is the correct price and the baker will charge what the government has decided is the correct price there are no individual negotiations allowed. Individuals do not have individual rights .They are only allowed some privileges the government decides are appropriate and nothing they are allowed to do will ever encroach upon the rights of the state as the collective good requires individual subordination to the state. As the state gets to decide what constitutes the collective good, one can be assured that whatever is seen to be in the individual good of government officials will be declared the collective good by the state.That latter is not unique to a socialist system as those with the biggest guns get to make the rules.

There is a difference in degree of control with both the socialist and theocratic states compared to other forms of governance as the two insist that their rules are innately superior to individual conscience because they are based upon the Will of a Supreme Being, in the case of theocracy, or a Collective Will, in the case of socialism, that transcends anything the individual possesses. And of course the bureaucrats running the theocracy or the socialist state are uniquely qualified to interpret the Will of that Collective or that Supreme Being. As individuals are not wise enough to make decisions of a moral nature through their individual reasoning skills they are to be told what to do by the theocratic and socialist states. Theocracy and socialism are both faith based systems in one the faith is in placed the infallibility of the clergy as representatives of the Supreme Being , able to reveal the Will of that Being to the ignorant masses. In the other the faith is based on the infallibility of the bureaucracy as representative of the Collective Will able to reveal the Will of the Collective to the ignorant masses.

 

[Basil the Great]

The choices are really incomplete, so I chose the closest one to reality.

 

[brinny]

I voted, but would also add:

 

[Albion]

None of the above. Socialism is a system of government in which wealth is redistributed by government, in a deliberate manner, according to a (secular) theory of justice.

Choices 1 and 2 were not to be taken seriously while 3 and 4 are defective since it is not necessary for government to literally own in order to achieve its purposes.

 

[eleos1954]

I’d choose option 3. In a fully socialist government whenever a business gets to a certain size it would get bought out by the government, probably about when businesses tend to become corporations in the US.

There are four things a government can do to businesses. They can own them, regulate them, fund them, or leave them alone. The first is socialism, the last capitalism. When government pays for things like healthcare and education but does not own hospitals or schools I think we should call that distributism. So Public schools are socialist, school choice vouchers are distributist, and private schools without vouchers are capitalist. Every country has a mix of all three.

Socialism is a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism.

 

[Albion]

Socialism is a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism.

Only in theory. And you are referring to a utopian "communism" that is itself only a concept. In other words, it is a quite wrong to use such a prediction as a way to sell or even to define Socialism.

 

[John Bowen]

No more ism's they don't work proven by the fall of communism in 92 . All Isms do is allow a small elite to have power and privileges over the people by creating a system where they are in control. Direct Democracy where the people take responsibility for their governments by voting on issues .Thereby a limited amount of politicians would be reduced to managers of the people's will. True democracy instead of mega corporations with no allegiance to any country only their profits . Controlling everything now through their bought and paid for politicians.

 

[Tanj]

@LostMarbels I told you there was more than one definition.

 

[Percivale]

I am opposed to socialism but don’t feel that things like universal healthcare make a country socialist. That’s where I’m coming from with the first two options.

If a local government controls something is that less socialist than if the central government does the same?

 

[durangodawood]

None of the above. Socialism is a system of government in which wealth is redistributed by government, in a deliberate manner, according to a (secular) theory of justice.....

Whoa. Thats America!

 

[Arcangl86]

Socialism is a economic system in which the means of production are socially owned. That is not the same thing as saying they are government owned. So none of the answers are really accurate.

 

[Percivale]

Socialism is a economic system in which the means of production are socially owned. That is not the same thing as saying they are government owned. So none of the answers are really accurate.

What is the difference?

There sure are a lot of definitions of socialism.

 

[Arcangl86]

What is the difference?

There sure are a lot of definitions of socialism.

Government ownership is one form of social ownership. Another is the cooperative model, where a company is owned either by it's workers or costumers. There are quite a few models of social ownership.

 

[Tiberius Lee]

If I read “Book of Acts” then all early Christians were socialist. Disciples were telling people to sell all their belongings and then disciples were distributing them according to the needs.

 

[RDKirk]

Option 5- government control of all the means of production. That entails everything that is part of the means of production including human productivity and innovation . In order to control all of that government must become totalitarian in nature. After all one individual cannot be allowed to profit individually from that individual's work or ideas as the collective has built all the roads and bridges and deserves all the profit from all the individual effort and innovation.

That would be the same as Option 4.

 

[RDKirk]

Public schools are not socialist. They are not controlled by the government. They are funded and regulated by the government. Two different things. Control and regulation are not equivalents. Government does not micro mange schools in a non socialist state. Certainly there are a number of people that wish the government controlled schools as vigorously as socialist states or theocracies do but that is not the case for a school to be a public school.

Local governments do. Government is government.

There are a number of other things a government can do to a business than the four things you describe and socialism is not confined to what a government might do to a business. In a socialist system, government controls not only business but all commerce. You don't get to legally have individual commerce between two individual parties outside of government approved channels. If you wish to purchase a loaf of bread you will pay what the government has decided is the correct price and the baker will charge what the government has decided is the correct price there are no individual negotiations allowed. Individuals do not have individual rights .They are only allowed some privileges the government decides are appropriate and nothing they are allowed to do will ever encroach upon the rights of the state as the collective good requires individual subordination to the state. As the state gets to decide what constitutes the collective good, one can be assured that whatever is seen to be in the individual good of government officials will be declared the collective good by the state.That latter is not unique to a socialist system as those with the biggest guns get to make the rules.

That would be the OP's Option 4.

There is a difference in degree of control with both the socialist and theocratic states compared to other forms of governance as the two insist that their rules are innately superior to individual conscience because they are based upon the Will of a Supreme Being, in the case of theocracy, or a Collective Will, in the case of socialism, that transcends anything the individual possesses. And of course the bureaucrats running the theocracy or the socialist state are uniquely qualified to interpret the Will of that Collective or that Supreme Being. As individuals are not wise enough to make decisions of a moral nature through their individual reasoning skills they are to be told what to do by the theocratic and socialist states. Theocracy and socialism are both faith based systems in one the faith is in placed the infallibility of the clergy as representatives of the Supreme Being , able to reveal the Will of that Being to the ignorant masses. In the other the faith is based on the infallibility of the bureaucracy as representative of the Collective Will able to reveal the Will of the Collective to the ignorant masses.

And then if you take the next step of believing that the "Will of the Collective" is embodied by a single individual, a Divine Leader, rather than a bureaucracy, you get fascism, such as in North Korea.

 

[Albion]

If I read “Book of Acts” then all early Christians were socialist. Disciples were telling people to sell all their belongings and then disciples were distributing them according to the needs.

I am glad you raised that issue. The early disciples shared their wealth/possessions. However, political scientists will point out that this was not Socialism because 1) it was voluntary, and the 2) the motivation was that sharing was a religious principle; it was not done for any secular standard of justice (that all men should have equal possessions because that is allegedly a "human right" or anything of that sort).

 

[RDKirk]

I am glad you raised that issue. The early disciples shared their wealth/possessions. However, political scientists will point out that this was not Socialism because 1) it was voluntary, and the 2) the motivation was that sharing was a religious principle; it was not done for any secular standard of justice (that all men should have equal possessions because that is allegedly a "human right" or anything of that sort).

While I'd agree it was not socialism, I'd disagree that those are the reasons.

I'd disagree that it was involuntary, as Jesus' teaching was a command instruction that grasping the resources from God as one's personal property conflicted with being His disciple.

Being of the Way was voluntary (ignoring Calvinism for the sake of this discussion), but once a member of the Way, considering the resources from God as one's own was no longer part of the social ethic.