I think some people here have taken a pretty broad view of socialism to encompass any type of mixed economy.

Socialism means the type of economy where the means of adding value to the economy are communal - factories, stores, service companies, etc. are all owned by the people in general, not shareholders. The goal is to maximize the benefit to the people - the thinking goes that without private owners collecting all the benefit, the people as a whole benefit.

Supporting public schools or public roads (whether or not you agree with those concepts in general) does not make one a socialist.

True only the extreme hard right even right of most of the republican party do not believe that.

Apparently KJ left doesn't believe it either.

Private roads suck...

We get charged 18 cents a km here.


You know why???


There is no competition and the idiotic provincial conservatives, leased the highway for 99 years for only 3 billion after spending 1.6 billion building and God Knows how much on buying land.

He said socialist leanings, and I'm not sure how public schools fall outside of your definition anyway. Are they not a means of adding value to the economy and are owned by the people in order to maximize the benefit to the people?

I think you're going too far in the other direction to try not to make these things socialist. By definition, they are -- by your own definition, at that.

We basically all agree that there should be some socialist things in our economy; the only question really is how much. Some of us want more (a national health care plan, for instance).

The difference is in scope. Under socialism, not only schools would be collectivized, but also production of textbooks, desks, uniforms, etc.

Socialist could have different meanings to different people.


In Canada a socialist is a communist.


in the States a liberal is a socialist.

I think the difference is in semantics - socialist is not the same thing as socialized, at least not to me.

And it's probably not a sliding scale in the end. It's one thing to say that you are for socialized healthcare, because a society should take care of its sick, regardless of their wealth (you and I would argue to no end about it, of course). It's quite another thing to say that car factories should be collectively owned because that model produces better economic results than capitalist model.

In Europe a libertarian is a liberal.

Different meanings indeed

By the standard you describe, I'm not sure you could describe any European country as having a form of socialism, since they all have major capitalist components to their economies.

And I'd categorize what you're describing more as communism.

I disagree -- it's still a sliding scale. There are very few who want car factories owned by the government, but it's on the same scale, isn't it?

You seem to be trying really hard not to admit that you agree with some socialist ideas.

The bottom line is that neither pure capitalism or pure socialism works. You need something between the two.

Pure capitalism gives us slave labor wages, no benefits, monopolies, bank failures, depressions, and so on. The economy cannot go completely unregulated, for the good of the economy.

Pure socialism does not advance the economy either because it reduces competition, gets rid of incentives to do better, and can break the country's economy too.

So we need something between the two. In Europe, it goes farther to the left than it does in America, but it is foolish to say that we don't have some socialism in America. Even something as simple as the Federal Reserve is technically a type of socialism, because it's a government control over the economy.

In Canada you have to believe in some socialist policies or else your not Canadian.

I agree completely. It's not black or white. If you are either all or nothing in order to be socialist, then no one is a socialist.

Most of them have mixed economies. There are many countries in which some industries are either completely or partially run by the government (think Airbus) - I would call that socialist.

Communism takes socialism a lot further. Under socialism some market forces are still at play - even in relationships between government-owned entities. Communism abandons all that in favor of complete command economy.

There are few in the U.S., sure, but it's actually quite common in the outside world. The reason I say it's not on the same scale is because the motivation behind two is different. Socialism is about maximizing value (even if it doesn't work), while socialized medicine, for instance, is about providing healthcare to the needy.

Umm no, considering I oppose public roads, public schools and socialized medicine.

You would? Because you said that partially being owned by the government doesn't count and that there's no sliding scale.

Yes, I would. Government ownership of a company that is competing with private entities is very socialist in nature.

Oh and before you jump all over that and give me yet another example of 'OMG what about public schools?', I'll clarify - I'm talking about for-profit enterprise here.

There are only two examples of this in the U.S. that I can think of: USPS and Amtrak.

I wasn't thinking of economics specifically when I asked this question. I'd say in terms of economics I'm on the same page as xiayun, actually.

Socialism is an economic theory, though. What are the non-economic ideas of socialism?

Socialism IS economic. It's the opposite of capitalism. Taken to an extreme, it's communism.

There are some totalitarian governments that have had socialist economies but there are also democratic countries that have socialist economies (like most of Europe and to a lesser degree the United States). In fact, there are some totalitarian governments that are slowly moving to a capitalistic economy (China for instance).

You could technically have a democratic communist country too, and in fact, that was the original plan of the Russian Revolutionaries before Stalin took over and killed all his enemies.

So don't confuse economic systems with political ones.

Actually that was never the plan of the Russian revolutionaries. Lenin started Red Terror less than a year after the revolution.

I think the best example of democratic communism (or the closes to it) is the Indian province of Kerala.

Well, that's what they said to the masses anyway. You are probably right taht they never really intended it. You know these politicians.