this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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Socialism
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I'll take that one step farther - socialism and capitalism are not even concrete tools - they are abstract values that actual tools and policies can be measured against - "this policy is more capitalist because it satisfies capitalist values X and Y, but it's also a bit socialistic because it contributes to socialist value Z". This is true for many things - like progressivism vs conservatism or deontology vs utilitarianism, to name a few - instead of treating them as the directions on the axes people decided to make them their all ideology.
Imagine if this was done with temperature. Alice likes hot weather and Bob likes it cold, so they decide to join the "Hotist" and "Coldist" camps respectively and fight each other publicly over which side of Mercury the Earth should be terraformed to. All this while the actually difference in their preferences is just a few degrees.
I don't advocate for centrism because I don't think we should always strive for the exact middle of every topic. We should strive for some point in the spectrum, because the very extremes are seldom correct (usually because of diminishing returns which make it, at the very least, not worth the complete dehumanization and destruction of the other side), but that point can be much closer to one of the extremes than centrists would be comfortable to even consider. Finding that point, of course, is not easy - certainly not as easy as picking one side (or picking the exact center) as your dogma.
Nope socialism has an actual definition. Capitalism has a definition. These are criteria for a given system (real or hypothetical) to be counted as capitalist or socialist. These are concrete criteria not values.
For socialism this requires that the means of production are owned by the workers.
For capitalism the means of production are owned privately and operated for profit.
There are multiple systems that could fit into either category, but they are mutually exclusive. A system cannot be both truly socialist and truly capitalist. They also are both compatible with the concept of markets - this isn't technically exclusive to capitalism like some people seem to think. You could have a hybrid economy where some means of production are owned by the workers and in other enterprises they are owned by private capitalists or investors; this is the reality of lots of systems.
I agree 100%. You could have a regulated market in economic sectors where that makes sense. But is it socialist, or is it capitalism? If it works, does it matter?
The relationship between economics and ideology is basically the same as the relationship between engineering and marketing. I guess you have to have marketing to sell the engineering to people, but sure as hell don't want marketing people making engineering decisions. That's how you end up with doors popping out of airplanes.
I don't really believe in the left/right/centrist paradigm. It's only useful as shorthand to describe political parties. I can say in my country party X is left, party Y is center-left, party Z is right and you'll get a general idea of the politics of my country. But it's just a made up thing. Different generations face different issues, different countries face different issues and those issues just get grouped together somewhat arbitrarily and the grouping that feels like it's left wing get called that and those that feel like it's right wing get called that. But taking that left/right thing too seriously just results in people opposing something simply because the other side wants it. Or voting against their own self interst simply because they identify as left or right or socialist or anarcho-libertarian-marxist-anti-colonialist or whatever. It's all really silly isn't it?
We have serious problems these days and it feels like people spend more time debating which team they're on rather than actually discussing the actual issues.
You literally have never taken the time to understand what any of these labels mean. If you did you would understand why these people disagree has nothing to do with the labels. I say this as an engineer, who likes the idea of treating economies like an engineering or science problem. The rich capitalists only work to service themselves and engineer society in ways that help themselves only. If you want a society that is engineered to help everyone you need to start with people that want to accomplish that. Hence why socialism encompasses many economic systems, because they are all designed to help humanity, not just the rich.