Soshulisum

" Socialism " is just a word, like all words. But it ' s a particularly mushy one. It has meant everything from Stalinism, to most of Western Europe for most of the post-WWII decades including what are today the happiest nations in the world (which are Scandinavian, happy despite the long dark winters). Broadly, if it means anything at all, it means believing that government has to manage capitalism for the greater good. In other words it means accepting the indisputable fact (except to libertarians, who are insane) that there is no such thing as a free market ™. Markets are not forces of nature, they are created, and shaped by government, which makes contract and property law, creates money, and creates and maintains the public goods essential to the functioning of capitalism. The question is how markets will be managed, and for whose benefit.So, for example, if you say that taxing rich people to provide some form of benefit to the less fortunate is " socialism, " all you are really saying is a) for unspecified reasons you don ' t like to tax rich people and/or benefit the less fortunate and b) you are calling that " socialism " because you use socialism as a term of disparagement. You aren ' t actually making an argument, you are just putting meaningless words together.
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs