Why Not Socialism?: The Right’s red-baiting has been far too effective

[patrice]

100. I'm honestly interested in why those things suck. Which ones are you referring to? China?

That's Communism, not Socialism.

Are there others? I really have not looked into this.

I wonder if you agree that one can put certain kinds of ingredients together in many many different ways in order to create something. Give me a sewing store or a grocery store and I can go in and select whatever and create something to eat or to wear. You, or anyone, can go in and select other or the same materiel and create things entirely different and/or similar to some degree to what I produced. However, just because someone could say that we both baked cakes, it would not be logical to assume that those cakes were identical. Just because someone could say that we both sewed clothing, it would not be logical to assume that clothing we produced is identical.

Do you see what I'm suggesting here? The ingredients/materiel that comprise Socialism can be organized in a wide wide variety of ways, some more or less like whatever it is that you are assuming about Socialism, some kind of different, other systems vastly different, but STILL Socialism.

So, what makes Socialism Socialism to you? I will venture that the essence of Socialism TO YOU, the way that YOU put those ingredients together, is that someone takes stuff from those who have it and gives it to those who don't. Right?

If an essential characteristic of anything is somekind of trait without which the thing under consideration would NOT be what it is, that is, without the essential characteristic of __________________ X would not be X, it would be some other thing entirely (Y, A, 2, *, # or whatever . . . ), well then, that trait, TTE, "takes stuff from those who have it and gives it to those who don't" does not meet the criteria of being an essential trait of Socialism. That trait, "takes stuff from those who have it and gives it to those who don't" is characteristic of so many OTHER things, some of which, e.g. Divine Right Royalty, e.g. Capitalism, are the anti-thetical opposite of Socialism.

So, what is it that makes Socialism Socialism and NOT something else? What are its most essential traits? I'd like very much to know what you think about this question.