Socialists lose, conservatives win big in Spanish elections

[Stark]

Are you guys really bitching about a word having several meanings? Socialism has come to mean different things in different parts of the world; the S in USSR doesn't stand for the same thing it does in other political entities.

Does anyone know when the term first started being used in the weaker, non-Marx manner? In the 30s revolutions it was still used in the 'road to communism' sense.

[K. A. Pital]

snip

Again, to require such an absolute definition of Socialism is just as bizarre as free-market radicals decrying even the slightest amount of socialized medicine (for example) as being anti-capitalist. There is nothing in the definition of capitalism that permits public capital to exist within capitalism itself per se. Nonetheless, you don't seem to have a problem with calling most modern economies capitalistic.

As an aside, socialist sectors and capitalist sectors of the economy are what they are regardless of how far their more uncompromising proponents have progressed in bringing their respective models to all other sectors.

The "socialist sector" idea is even more silly than adhering to the respective goals of capitalism and socialism. Is the Army a socialist sector since there are no private property rights on the capital, and anything done by soldiers is most likely a public works project?

[open_sketchbook]

I strongly support calling out conservatives for being such communists about the military.

[Lord Zentei]

The "socialist sector" idea is even more silly than adhering to the respective goals of capitalism and socialism. Is the Army a socialist sector since there are no private property rights on the capital, and anything done by soldiers is most likely a public works project?

Seeing as there are such things as private armies to contrast it with, do you need to answer that question? And moreover, the education sector and medical sector in Europe is one that is undeniably run on socialist lines.

[K. A. Pital]

The "socialist sector" idea is even more silly than adhering to the respective goals of capitalism and socialism. Is the Army a socialist sector since there are no private property rights on the capital, and anything done by soldiers is most likely a public works project?

Seeing as there are such things as private armies to contrast it with, do you need to answer that question? And moreover, the education sector and medical sector in Europe is one that is undeniably run on socialist lines.

I know that private armies exist; however, nobody calls the Army a "socialist sector" even though there's a private counterpart in the PMCs. Socialism is an overall political system which advocates and furthers common/collectivized use of means of production, or at least that's how I saw it. You can, technically, butcher the word to describe a certain sector (healthcare, military, etc.), but it was meant to be applied to the entire system. A commune is "socialist" when it collectively owns means of production, not when some members of the commune set up a private and others set a collective conflicting structures.

I think that I went a bit overboard, since I'm more used to "socialism = planned economy", but the fact is that among the more common theories of socialism (decentralized socialist economy, centrally planned economy and Langian market socialism) neither proposes any private ownership on capital (if only as a nuisance to be dealt with later). That's why. Note that the transition to "communism" is absolutely irrelevant here, as is the entire Marxist discourse: socialism can be the end goal of a socialist movement, which is a society that has an economy with public ownership of means of production. It does not need to have features such as the withering of the state, etc. This is why there's a multitude of socialist theories. However, none of them relates to private property on capital as being in any way desireable for the system in its end state. Like I said, only as a nuisance which cannot be avoided (because there's a failure to implement non-private ownership on some level).

Same applies to capitalism. The so-called "socialist" mechanisms in capitalism are only tolerated because alternative capitalist mechanisms have failed beforehand, generating significant outrage, or have failed to achieve necessary goals. Private property is not a hindrance or an undesireable result in capitalist welfare-state economies, it is the cornerstone of the economy. Heavy taxation is a form of redistribution of incomes without touching the basic property on means of production.

[Bakustra]

Insofar as the term "state capitalism" was coined to illustrate the potential of state socialism to become exploitative to the same extent that capitalism was, and later as a label for a system with socialized financial sector and heavy regulation but with private ownership of capital, this argument of yours doesn't do much to refute my position. More to the point, you're splitting linguistic hairs; capitalism is understood in modern discourse to imply private ownership of capital resources.

Your position, as far as I can make it out, is that if some proportion of sectors are publicly-owned, that state is socialist, and if some proportion of sectors are privately-owned, that state is capitalist, and that it's possible to have a state that's simultaneously socialist and capitalist according to:

What are you talking about? Who says that there have been no capitalist states? I do not require that all sectors in an economy be capitalist in order for the "capitalist" label to be applied, why do you require the same for socialism?

So again, if we're going to be playing games where you put on a show of "capitalism requires that no public capital exist", then I have to say that what you're fundamentally saying is that you have some perverse need to have socialism and capitalism be exactly as broad as one another in the same dimensions, so that either the two are difficult-to-attain ideals, or else they are two halves of a sliding scale, exactly equivalent in every way. Why must this be the case?

Just wow. Are you trolling? Or are you just ignoring what I said?

So what are you saying? You initially argued that welfare is socialist. I said in response that it isn't necessarily, and that socialized sectors don't make things socialist overall. You got mad when I said that no state in Europe was socialist because it hadn't fulfilled the criteria of socialism (which I later emended to exclude Belarus), and said that:

WTF? Just a moment ago you (erroneously) criticized me for using a definition which in your view would exclude most states of being defined as "capitalistic", now you're concluding that it is better to use a definition that precludes any modern European state from being defined as socialistic?

So I guess either you misread where I said socialist as opposed to socialistic, or you're conflating the two and therefore you are claiming that Norway is socialist along with the majority of Europe, because you called them "socialistic". If you aren't conflating the two terms, then why exactly are you demanding that anything with more than 50%+ of public control of capital be called socialism? Why must capitalism and socialism be precisely identical in terms of breadth of capital control?

[K. A. Pital]

Why must capitalism and socialism be precisely identical in terms of breadth of capital control?

Practice actually shows they are definetely not. Whereas capitalism existed from day one with a significant publicly owned sphere, as the disintegration of mid-feudalist epoch usually saw the creation of large unified nation-states with significant sway over some parts of capital, socialism was devised as the antithesis to capitalism as the entire system. Socialism implied nothing other than public control of property (regardless if that occurs in a market, in a planned economy or in a self-governed commune), but socialism is usually a systemic property (i.e. it should relate to the entire system in question: a nation or a commune, it has to be a unit of administration) and views private property on capital as the relation to be extinguished, whereas capitalism cannot seek to extinguish that property. Any measures taken adversary to private property interests in capitalism are specifically defined as either sector-limited (healthcare) or time-limited (temporary nationalization of bankrupt banks, automakers, etc.).

Socialism is more exclusive since it was born later than capitalism and was designed in theory first and only much later in practice. Capitalism was basically a description of the practical relations that arose before they were adeptly described.

It is easier to put it that way: one can speak about a socialist collective/commune/cooperative/nation, but one cannot speak of a "socialist sector" and indeed nobody except idiots uses the term "socialist" like that, since sector by definition implies a part of a system and a part of an administative unit.

[Lord Zentei]

Your position, as far as I can make it out, is that if some proportion of sectors are publicly-owned, that state is socialist, <snip>

No.

I suggest you read what I wrote again.

[Lord Zentei]

I know that private armies exist; however, nobody calls the Army a "socialist sector" even though there's a private counterpart in the PMCs. Socialism is an overall political system which advocates and furthers common/collectivized use of means of production, or at least that's how I saw it. You can, technically, butcher the word to describe a certain sector (healthcare, military, etc.), but it was meant to be applied to the entire system. A commune is "socialist" when it collectively owns means of production, not when some members of the commune set up a private and others set a collective conflicting structures.<snip>

I am well aware that it was a term originally intended to be used about an entire system; that does not change the fact that the model can be applied incrementally, and that it does make sense to speak of socialized sectors.

It is easier to put it that way: one can speak about a socialist collective/commune/cooperative/nation, but one cannot speak of a "socialist sector" and indeed nobody except idiots uses the term "socialist" like that, since sector by definition implies a part of a system and a part of an administative unit.

Well, I guess that makes just about every "socialist" party in Europe a party of idiots.

[K. A. Pital]

Not idiots, they are just no longer socialist. They used to be reformist (reform capitalism to bring about socialism), but now most "socialist parties" (by that I mean affiliated with the socialist internationale - "Eurosocialist", as they're called) discarded even that. Most of them are now social democratic. Which isn't the same as "socialist", though they kept the old name.

Little wonder, though. Some communist parties also became social-democratic in nature despite calling themselves communist, which is a far stronger call to action. But if your program is capitalism (just slightly tuned) as the end state, it does not really matter what you keep from ye old days.

[Lord Zentei]

While they don't want to reform capitalism to a wholly socialist state anymore, that doesn't mean that they don't advocate more collectivism than their rivals. Words change.