Memes

Would you use a monarch’s definition of democracy to define democracy?

Do you think that definition would be fair or even accurate?

Because you are using a capitalist definition of socialism, which is just as unfair and inaccurate.

Yeah, that's definitely a usage of the word socialism I have heard, but it is not generally a definition most socialists or socialist parties would use and it has some issues in my opinion.

This is such a broad definition of socialism as to make it almost meaningless, as this definition fits every nation on earth today and most through history. ancient Rome used public money to fund public roads, subsidized grain for the poor, public entertainment and land grants for veterans, public aqueducts, and other public programs, yet this was 2000 years before the concept of socialism was really invented and I don't think anyone is holding up ancient Rome as an example of a socialist society.

I would define socialism by two characteristics. One is control over the political economy by the proletariat (workers), as opposed to the bourgeoisie (capitalists/financiers/business owners). In a bourgeois run capitalist state, there is still publicly funded services, but they generally set up to benefit privately run industry (public highways, government subsidized research, police) or they are concessions won by the proletariat through class struggle (universal healthcare, social welfare programs).

The second characteristic is economic organization around common need, rather than around the pursuit of profits. This would require taking the means off production (factories, businesses, utilities, etc) out of the hands of the bourgeoisie.

Okay, you're incorrect

Sorry mate, socialism isn't that. Here's a good place to start learning about what socialism is. check out Richard Wolff, a economics professor, on YouTube for some interesting lecturers about how it works in reality if you want to go a bit further.

socialism can be understood as the transitional state between a capitalist mode of production and a communist one. the US government is a 100% certified capitalist state, any project they have undertaken has nothing to do with socialism

As far as I've ever been aware, socialism is the use of tax dollars to provide goods or services

I've seen others comment but I'll add my own two cents. You don't know what socialism is, and that's not a criticism of you, it's just a fact.

What you're describing is social democracy wherein governments allow a capitalist relationship to the means of production to exist while providing social programs and investing. Socialism and Capitalism are about the worker's relationship to the means of production. Under capitalism Capitalists take money generated by worker's surplus labor as profits and use these profits to create a government that will protect their power to continue stealing from their workers. Under socialism profits are not held privately but publicly, by worker's or socialist governments that exist to redistribute the ill gotten wealth of the Capitalists.

It's not about how many programs a government does or the taxes it collects, it's about the workers relations to the means of production. The problem with social democracy, which Lenin pointed out over a hundred years ago in State and Revolution, is that by letting Capitalists exist they will not allow workers to take away their wealth and power democratically, they will use fascism to secure their wealth. Another problem is that these programs cannot exist for long because Capitalists are parasites and will do everything they can to privatize them and milk as much profit out of them as possible, for examples of this look at nearly every government program that exists in Europe and point to me one that works better now than it did 30 years ago before Capitalists had time to take cuts out of it, it's a really big problem typically with healthcare programs in these countries.