What is socialism?

Example: Government says you, as a business owner, must pay Jamal 15 bucks an hour as a min. wage.

This is the "public", via elected official, deciding what a privately owned business must pay. As opposed to market forces/local economics. If the "public", via elected official, can mandate what you do with your private enterprise....it sort of ceases being a private enterprise, doesn't it?

extrapolate from there.

>>134166358

>I'm told that it's a political/economic system where the means of production are owned by the public.

Yeah, that definition is extremely vague, and the reason for that is the history of the word socialism.

When broken down "socialism" is just a community-based antithesis to the obscenities of Industrial-revolution capitalism. That's it.

Thw hole "Socialism is when the means of production is owned by the state" is just the Marxist interpretation of the word. And since the word and idea of "socialism" predates Marx and Engels by several decades, then Marxists don't get the monopoly on defining it.

Americans whinging about "socialism" are just uneducated or college educated ideologues. They say "wow that's socialism" (like a dirty word) when you talk about tax hikes or public spending, but National Socialist Germany had a top nominal tax rate of 13%.

>>134166611
okay that makes a lot of sense. so a government and/or its people basically decides *how* socialist it is going to be. so even the GOP is a little bit socialist, in that many of them support a welfare state to keep people from being too sick, not having any opportunites etc.

If it's such a broad spectrum, why do people accept the label of "socialist?"

If I said something like, "I'm a socialist" that would be a vague statement, wouldn't it? Would I really be conveying much at all by saying that?

>>134166716
>that's the marxist definition, and not the one people are using all the time
So Google really shits the bed on this one, huh? All the results either a.) try to say what you are saying but not concisely in any way, or b.) gives the marxist definition of socialism

Socialism is the destruction of Charity

>>134167187

Yes. A Marxist says that "socialism" is what they define it to be, because then whenever someone uses the word, it's free advertising and gives them political authority. And since the people that run Google are a bunch of left-liberal regressives, their particular definition cannot be trusted.

>>134167484
imagine how much Charity there would be if Socialism didn't exist

imagine how little fraud waste and abuse there would be. people would choose the the Charities that had the highest impact. instead we have government mandated choices who do more harm than good with the money

it is insane

>>134166358
Screw the definition, when these people say socialism, they mean free stuff, and I shit you not that's the pinnacle of their political thought. Free stuff.

These retards you will see in real life all have this a priori sentence on everyone successful, and they have to pay up, they already decided in their heads that they "cheated, didnt pay taxes, are privileged, its unfair!" and now its time for free college, free healthcare, and free yachts.

>>134167537
also if we lived in a world of Charity, people would actually be grateful for the money they receive - and it wouldn't be unconditional - people would have to deserve the charity and be nice/grateful for receiving it to get it

It would solve Racism. Instead of giving trillions of dollars to black people who then resent white people, charitable giving to Black people would force them to improve their communities in order to receive it. They would also appreciate the money given and have trillions of dollars of gratitude like they should

The Jews have been trying to destroy Charity for over a century. Charity defeats Marxism that is why so much money goes towards taxes is to squeeze the life out of any potential significant Charity

>>134166358
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_economy

retarded burgers use the word socialism interchangably with welfare state or high taxes

>>134166358
By definitions and Marx and whatnot, it's when the workers control the means of production. Today, when government decides everyone's paycheck.

They think that the workers are creating all of the wealth by their manual labor (hence the sickle and hammer), and that if you are rich, you are rich because you stole it. By exploiting people.

For them, wealth = manual labor, and that's the end of story. They dont understand that someone might be rich because he discovered a new way to be more productive, new technology, new trading route, new solution, new chemical element, new anything.
No. Wealth = manual labor. And if you have more, you are a cheater, exploiter, and you need to be killed and your shit redistributed.

This is why they killed the best farmers in Ukraine, and starved. This is why they killed best officers in Red army, and half of them died. This is why they killed everyone wearing glasses in Khmer Rouge, and half of them again died.

It's a pure envy of success, murder of the best and most productive, and giving it to the helpless and unproductive, and reality steps in at the end to finish it off.

>>134167520
so thats why so many young people liked bernie, because he was a socialist but not a marxist?

>>134167484
that agrees with me

>>134167537
>imagine how much charity there would be
hmm I am more wary of my fellow humans than you

>>134167678
damn that's brilliant (sarcasm)

>>134167728
my friend who also thinks this basically lives his life half for other people. he's a very charitable guy who always likes to help people with things.

he literally assumes that if socialism went away, the dystopian ghettos and degenerate pop culture would disappear and everyone would just do right by each other due to good nature and stuff

sounds like a fantasy

>>134167905
>>134167966
thank you that's informative

Sliding scale my negro.

Also, it's not the government's money.

>>134169039
when we go to prison for not forking it up, it's as good as theirs