CDR: Re: would it be so much to ask..

[Ken Brown]

Tiarnan O Corrain wrote:

> You have some strange ideas about what 'socialism' is. Used by you in sentences
> such as the above, it seems to be a catch-all for 'things-I-don't-like'. If
> by socialism you mean Stalinist state-capitalism, you might think about
> using 'Stalinist state-capitalism'. I know it doesn't have the wonderful
> generality of 'socialism', but accuracy is important too.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. For most USAns these days the
word "socialism" doesn't really mean anything specific, it is just a
generalised insult (much the same as the way people on the left
sometimes use "Nazi" or "Fascist").

There were a few big rants on this topic a couple of years back...
<pause for thought while Ken pays a visit to Alta Vista...>

Yep,
http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.98.10.12-98.10.18/msg00019.html
has a rant about Rosa Luxemburg and various people redefining the word
"socialism" so that it included only ideas they didn't like & excluded
ones they did. It was a sort of reply to a thread started by Jim Choate: 

> It occurs to me that there is another potential flaw in current economic
> theory and business practice.
> Currently (ala Friedmann) the parties that reap the benefit of a succesful
> business are the shareholders, this is currently seen to exclude the
> employees in many cases/companies.

(archived at
http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.98.10.05-98.10.11/msg00068.html)

which is exactly the sort of thinking that leads to what most  Europeans
call "socialism", but he got really cross when people used the S word
about him.

> Socialism and statism are not homologous. Refer to Rosa Luxembourg.
> 
>    They allow the morons access to what they
>    shouldn't have.
> 
> Spoken like a true commissar.

Yep. Who is this guy to say what "the morons" should or shouldn't have?
Maybe a supporter of the feudal system? 

Ken Brown


William Morris:
"... I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, 
and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, 
and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men 
have to fight for what they meant under another name..." 

Henry Kuttner:
"'There will be chlorophyll spilled tonight,'
he mused, sprinting.  'That's the trouble with these
Aldebaranese, they're still vegetables at heart.  No
sense of ethics, merely tropisms.'"