Rember that those against the Vietnam war are not quite willing to agree that they favored Communist victory, and Pol Pot and Killing Fields.
Yet they oppose the US fighting more in IndoChina against communism.

Partly laziness, partly a stupid anti-Americanism (wanting Unreal Perfection), but mostly because of a desire to be NOT responsible for the civilian deaths that would be an inevitable part of any fight.

That’s still the case in talking about Iran — few in the US are willing to support invasion for regime change in order to stop them from getting and using a nuke.

Privilegentsia — what a nice word. But “elite” is so much easier, and increasingly means the same thing.

Socialism works if, and only if, it is implemented by peaceful, voluntary agreement of individuals who agree to sacrifice their own interests for that of their group.

It fails as soon as force must be applied to punish those individuals who disagree — and of course the disagreement itself indicates the flaw about all collectivist socialisms, that some group of people must decide what is the “collective good.” And such a group of people is never able to divorce their own personal interests.

As I wrote about voluntary socialism, I was thinking about monastaries. But it also sort of applies to corporations — one works for the benefit of the whole corporation (to the best of one’s ability), and one gets enough money (for one’s needs, or else looks elsewhere for a better job). In my job, I’m certainly working for others, under Board of Director (central) planning.

Fascist success in the economy (who wouldn’t rather be a non-Jew in Nazi Germany than a non-Jew in Stalinist USSR?) was based on such nationalist corporatism/ socialism.

Similarly, government should be structured such that a nation can survive being run by bad men without too much damage…because sooner or later, it will be.

The bottom of the ocean and the top of Mt. Everest also differ only in degree.

Exactly. They both represent altitudes. Absent a discontuity, they can be described with the same parameterization.

Enough degrees and one needs a new definition.

No. Enough degrees and one may want a new definition, but without a discontinuity, none is needed. They represent degrees on a continuum.

Fascism implies one party government, I know of no definition that requires any specific economic or socio-economic system.

Fascism evolved from the confluence of War Socialism in WWI Germany and Mussolini’s experience in the same war. The two influences married socialism with nationalism to produce…national socialism (as opposed to international socialism, i.e., of which Marxism is an example). The difference is that the latter looked to unify the working class across national boundaries, whereas the former sought to unify all classes within a national boundary. But both endeavored to yield control of the economy to a central authority. Put another way, what was Albert Speer’s role in the 1939-1945 timeframe? Answer: to run the German economy to maximize output of war materiel.

I think of Marxism (a specific type of socialism) as an accidental discovery of modern times that turned out to be ideal for controlling populations by a central authority controlling the economy and welfare.

Marxism evolved concurrently with socialism, not consecutively. Recall that Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848, and hence predated, e.g., the Paris Commune by a generation. Socialism necessitates individuals pursuing the interests of the collective rather than their own. This is why socialists invariably talk of creating “New Socialist Man.” Socialism necessarily and inevitably entails controlling the economy; it’s the raison d’etre of socialism.

Nonetheless societies, many in fact, have dumped the central control idea but kept the welfare programs.

Hence my comment about “mealy-mouthed” socialism. Central planning is key to socialism; without it, there is no socialism. A basic tenet of socialism is that capitalism is inefficent because it lacks central planning, and instead relies on “inefficient” competition to allocate resources. Socialism without central planning of the economy is a nonsense, a contradiction in terms.

The progression is not inevitable, as you noted, some societies cannot even conceive of any form of government other than democracy.

Of course it is, if one is serious about implementing socialism. Individuals will not generally put the state’s interests before their own, unless coerced to do so. That is the key point. Israel and Britain babble about socialism, but don’t actually have it, nor indeed want it. North Korea and Cuba have it, but their populations don’t want it.

Every society can conceive of a form of government other than democracy, does so on a daily basis, but thankfully generally rejects it. For now. In extremis, democracy is a luxury no society can afford. I know you’re a big fan of Israel, so let me ask you: does the IDF make its decisions democratically? Do IDF troops vote on the tactics to be employed? Of course not. Democracy is too inefficient, too messy, for exigent situations. Commanders command. Troops obey, or face the consequences.

Now expand that principle to the nation as a whole. On a national basis, when a whole people considers (rightly or not) its existence at risk, it’s capable of anything. It was true of Germans, it was true of Turks, it is true of the Japanese, it is true of the Arabs, it is true of the British (who tied sepoy mutineers across cannon muzzles as a form of execution, and formed concentration camps during the Boer War), it is true of Americans, and yes, it is true of Israelis too. (Israelis’ hands have been stayed by world, and especially American, opinion; if the Israelis really cut up rough with the Arabs, we’d hang them out to dry, and they know it.)

People are people, for better or worse. We all — all born of woman — are capable of scaling the greatest heights, and plumbing the lowest depths. It is foolish, and utterly ahistorical, to think otherwise.

This is why limiting the power of government is key. Unchecked government power leads to these tragedies as surely as night follows day. Socialism — giving the government overweening power to do good, as socialists see it — necessarily and concomitantly gives government the overweening power to do evil as well.

The bottom of the ocean and the top of Mt. Everest also differ only in degree. Enough degrees and one needs a new definition.

Fascism implies one party government, I know of no definition that requires any specific economic or socio-economic system.

I think of Marxism (a specific type of socialism) as an accidental discovery of modern times that turned out to be ideal for controlling populations by a central authority controlling the economy and welfare. In light of that I can see where you are coming from by noting a natural progression from a little central control for our own goods can lead to total control for the good of the controller’s ego (clearly Obama’s goal with Obamacare). Nonetheless societies, many in fact, have dumped the central control idea but kept the welfare programs. The progression is not inevitable, as you noted, some societies cannot even conceive of any form of government other than democracy. Also total economic control is a dictator’s dream, in reality economies can be directed, not controlled.

See two different definitions of socialism, economic and social welfare.

Neo, Occam and everybody, I wish you all would stop using the term Socialist you mean left-wing fascist or Marxist. There are literally hundreds of definition of socialist.

Marxism and fascism are subsets of socialism (specifically the international and national versions, respectively), the philosophy that exalts the primacy of society/ the collective/ the state over the individual, and that considers good citizenship to reside in comporting oneself for the public good as opposed to one’s own good.

There are so many definitions in large part because socialists keep trying to redefine the term to escape the stigma attaching to their previous attempts. It’s much the same as the progression “relief” to “welfare” to “AFDC,” or “socialist” to “liberal” to “progressive;” the underlying concept is odious, so when people come to realize that the new term refers to the old odious concept, those promoting that concept need to coin a new name.

Israel can call itself a socialist state, as can North Korea and Great Britain, how much do they have in common?

A great deal, in fact. They differ only in degree, as a cold is to influenza is to a hemorraghic fever. If Israeli or British socialists finally got pissed off enough at individuals pursuing their own self-interest instead of that of the collective (as they think individuals should), they’d institute measures to force individuals to do as they (the socialists) thought they should behave. When they realized that individuals only obeyed those measures when watched, they institute undercover (aka secret) police and informers so no one would know when he was being watched. When their policies failed (as they inevitably would), they’d blame those who didn’t go along with the program — i.e., those who were in their eyes bad citizens – and put them in gulags.

The progression is inevitable. Any serious attempt to implement socialism leads ineluctably to secret police, informers, and gulags. Israel and Britain are, fortunately for them, a) good at heart, and b) mealy-mouthed in their socialism, talking a good game but not seriously trying to implement it. Marry socialism to a culture that doesn’t shrink from distasteful measures and you have the USSR, PRC, Nazi Germany, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and closer to home, Jonestown.

Actually if its meaning is not precise and easy to understand, doesn’t make it a poor definition of anything? Also if I do understand its implications, it is against authoritarian government, yet all left wing authoritarian movements include the term socialist, and use it as a weapon against democratic governments, not fascist (although that is the term they use on their enemies). The term “socialist” simply has so many definitions that it can mean virtually anything, IMHO.

Here’s a story of over use of a term, during college during the Viet-Nam war I was called a fascist pig because of my ROTC membership. I requested to be called a fascist cow as I am Jewish and try and keep some kosher laws.

What do you think?