Quote:
Originally Posted by aceventura3
Your definition lacks precision. Based on the above definition capitalism would fall under your definition of socialism. The means of production, distribution and exchange under any economic system is owned/regulated by the community. Example: A corporation only exists based on community standards that allow it to exist. A corporation transacts business only based on community standards that allow it to transact business. Corporate ownership is grounded in members of a community. Consumers, employees (means of production) is the community. All other forms of business have similar characteristics. In the US, private property ownership only has value to the degree that the collective "community" allows for private ownership.
In my view socialism is a vague state between decentralized and centralized control of the means, distribution and exchange of production. In my view pure capitalism is total decentralization. Pure communism is total centralized control. I don't think any society can achieve pure states of either capitalism or communism. In my view a socialist lacks confidence in free market forces to create equilibrium. In my view Obama generally accepts free market concepts, but feels economic and social issues require more centralized control rather than less to create what is in his view, fairness.
So, you are correct - I don't know what "socialism" means to you. And as usual, rather than asking for elaboration, we throw around insults.
---------- Post added at 10:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:21 PM ----------
I am guilty of occasionally being obtuse. I don't read between the lines very well, and once we have established that I don't "get it", being cryptic doesn't help me. The reason I love my wife is that she goes real slow when....oh, never mind...let's just say she understands me.
|
Actually, socialism and so on aren't vague feelings or emotions that each can have their own definition of. Otherwise, it would actually be impossible to discuss politics.
Socialism, in its purest form, is the social ownership of the means of production. The community owns it not in some vague way, like "some members own it," or "based on community standards," but in very real and actual terms in which the means of production belong to the community as a whole. And not "some means," or for "some of the time."
How to get there is obviously a matter of debate, with the communists, in the traditional marxist sense, hoping to get there by making everything state property.
Socialism and capitalism themselves are not really related to centralization or decentralization. Adam Smith and others, for example, certainly envisioned a capitalism of small producers, and decentralization the norm. But anarchists also envisioned a socialism of decentralized communities. On the other hand, people like Hayek and Mises opposed any form of trust busting, de facto defending big corporation capitalism.