Is socialism liberal?

[mmonk]

In reponse to some postings, I'd like to know (according to definitions) if you think so or not.

socialism n. 1. A social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods. In Marxist-Leninist theory, the building, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the material base for communism.

liberal adj. 1. Having, expressing, or following social or political views or policies that favor nonrevolutionary progress and reform.

My contention is that many who profess socialism in the US think capitalist based countries that also have government medicine or progressive taxation and redistribution are socialist.

definitions are from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. They Are Not Technically Socialist....

They are mixed economies...

[Darranar]

2. "Liberal" and "conservative"...

no longer match their dictionary definitions.

A "conservative" president has given us a huge deficit.

Your definition of socialism, in my view, is liberal; in fact, I support that form of socialism. What I can't support is the complete elimination of a profit-based system in every industry. Such can and should be done in some industries, with the government paying the workers who would otherwise be paid by the consumers, but not in all. Greed is a major human motivation, and the most effective means of getting people to work without a tyranny.

[Jonte_1979]

3. Not really

But since practically every government program that is in any way beneficial to the poor and the working class has been deemed "socialistic" by the american right, I guess I'd be concidered a socialist in the US even though I'm really not worthy of that label.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. The models address different aspects of human dynamics.

Capitalism energizes the greed factor in humans; socialism addresses the basic needs. Neither one of them is perfect in its pure form because they are not self-propelling. Greed, left unchecked, will destroy a society. Great need will do the same.

[rogerashton]

5. I prefer the definition by the Nobel laureate

economist Arthur Lewis: socialism means a society without distinctions of class. The dictionary definition given is a necessary but not a sufficient condition.

That said, if we have no further information, socialism might be either revolutionary or "liberal" in the sense of the other definition quoted. NB I would have taken that as a definition of "progressive" rather than liberal. I would define "liberal" as a view that limits government action to cases in which it is a necessary means of advancing the general welfare in some utilitarian sense. This has the advantage of encompassing classical as well as modern liberalism: the opinion of the modern liberal is that a great deal of government action in the economy is necessary to advance the general welfare. It also stresses that all real liberals are social libertarians. Socialists may also be liberals, or not, in this sense.

However, we don't have to stop here because we do have more information. Revolutionary dictatorships have not created socialist societies. The Russian Republic of today is very much the mature product of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Conversely, successful progressive policies have consistently undermined the domination of the working class by the capitalist ruling class. That is the truth in the conservative claim that "liberalism" is "creeping socialism." Conversely, the current round of "liberal (classical sense) market reforms" is bringing back all the problems the "liberal (dictionary sense)" measures were intended to solve. A liberal has to be a socialist, whether he intends it or not, and a socialist has to be a gradualist, whether she knows it or not.

[MrPrax]

16. um...you read too much

and suspiciously think too much after you read

Your post is likely to screw up carefully manufactured American political 'labels' that the political parties and media have spent decades forming.

um...ABB!!!

[HPLeft]

6. I don't know if Socialism is liberal...

but I do think that, as an institutional force, it is both naive and ultimately likely to hinder cultural evolution and individual initiative.

The real way to accomplish what the socialists want to accomplish, in least in my view, is to change people one person at a time, and by extension fundamentally change the nature of society. Peggy Noonan created a great line for Bush 41 - "a thousand points of light". At the end of the day, IMHO, we'd be a better world if more people bought into Noonan's phrase, and voluntarily chose to make a difference in the environment, in the lives of other people, and even in the distribution of wealth (through charitable giving), etc.

It strike me that any system involving compulsion ultimately involves the point of a gun - and the strong likelihood that people will look to cheat whenever big brother is not watching.

[Kamika]

7. No it is not

Socialism is a forced undertaking where the individual is forced to help his fellow man.

In liberalism said man would have the choice of helping his fellow man or not

[Mairead]

10. I think you should check your facts.

because you've been listening to too much Capitalist propaganda.

Socialism is about fully distributing power, risk, and profit. That's all. It's about sharing those things, not concentrating the power and profit in the hands of a few while pushing off the risk onto the rest of us.

As of 1995, over 700 MILLION people around the world were voluntarily practicing socialism in their daily lives. In the midst of Capitalist hegemony, they were voluntarily choosing a different system. Why would they do that, when they could just go with the flow?

[SuffragetteSal]

20. I appreciate your answer but...

my friend who lives in Sweden which is socialist, claims NOT to be a liberal. We had a big argument and later ended our friendship because of a misunderstanding of the word 'liberal'. Apparently one can even live in a socialist environment and not want to share all those things, in theory anyway. So, my point is one may even be a socialist and not be a liberal. It is a good subject though and I appreciate this post.

P.S. My friend did not like 'liberals' and she lived in a socialist country. I still don't understand that one.

[Mairead]

24. That's confusing!

Which did your friend not want to share, the risks, the profit, or the power? And what were her politics, if not leftist?

Just to keep the record straight, Sweden has what we usually call a 'social democratic' economy rather than a socialist one: wealth-producing entities are privately owned, though there are mandatory socialist-type policies in force that mean people have the right to food, shelter, education, and healthcare.

Sweden actually did contemplate shifting to pure socialism in the '70s. The only reason they didn't go through with it was that the way they're currently set up makes it too hard to go any further without handing all power to the trade-union stewards, and they decided that would be too unbalanced. But to put a balanced socialism in place would require more upheaval than they wanted to endure at that point in history. So they felt the best thing to do, at least for the present, was go on as they were til something major needs fixing, and then re-visit.

[iverglas]

29. nope -- not confusing to anyone outside the US!

... or anyone over 45 or so.

The Stan Goff quote in this thread expresses what "liberal" means to us, as did Phil Ochs' song, "Love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal" back in the 60s.

And these days, we just can't figure out what a USAmerican does mean by the word, most of the time. ;)

The notion that there is more than a straight left-right line in politics is more understood out here, and that's the main source of the intercultural confusion. To begin with, there is the "personal liberty" scale -- and then there is the scale that could be called "security" or "equality" (which is necessary in order for there to be security). We don't confuse them.

What we do recognize is that the two kinds of interests -- liberty and security -- are both important to individuals. Nobody wants to be at risk of imprisonment for voicing an opinion, but nobody wants to starve to death (or get blown up by a bomb) either.

"Liberals" are somewhat wont to explain away this conflict, based on some nebulous notion that greater personal freedom will lead inevitably to greater security. That's just disingenuous. As would be the reverse.

They also (since the 18th century, when they were big news) insist on confusing true personal liberty -- freedom to do things that are private in nature -- with "liberty" to do things in the realm where other people are affected. Like the economy. The notion that the "personal liberty" value/paradigm can be transposed from the private realm to the public realm is the hitch that I see. Personal liberty in terms of the things one does that do not affect other people directly is very different from, say, "personal liberty" in terms of what one does with one's property, which can have enormous effects on other people.

"Liberal" means "laissez-faire capitalism with an apology and a few sops" to much of the world. What USAmericans call "neo-conservatism" is what was initially called "neo-liberalism", a more accurate term, historically speaking. True "conservatism", in the sense that the rest of us have used the word for the past couple of hundred years, involves a sense of collective responsibility that is inimical to classical liberalism.

A libertarian socialist, a term already used here that I'm relatively comfortable with, values both (his/her own and others') personal liberty *and* (his/her own and others') security. And recognizes that security is not achieved without a reasonable level of equality; without equal opportunities, individuals are vulnerable to exploitation by others exercising their "liberty" in the realm of economic activity, for instance. And an exploited person is not really very "free", after all.

So where a classical "liberal" pretends that security derives from liberty and only from liberty, a libertarian socialist acknowledges both that there is unlikely to be either one without the other, and that there will inevitably be conflicts between someone's liberty interests and someone else's security interests, and that the best solution is the one that promotes both to the greatest extent.

And that answer, of course, will always be a matter of opinion. ;) "Social democratic" is the most common consensus in that respect these days -- private ownership with strict public regulation and wide collective control and benefits. (For instance, Canada's health care system: physicians and labs and so on are private enterprises, and patients choose their own providers, but they all operate within a framework that covers all costs to individuals and prohibits individuals from purchasing, and providers from selling, on the private market. Private ownership, public control.)

The disagreement with the Swede was entirely predictable, because in fact a different language was being spoken. I'd 'a thought that if the two people had addressed the underlying notions to see whether and on what they actually disagreed, they could have got over the translation problem though! -- as I guess it appears they eventually did.

.

p.s. Someone's probably already posted it, but this site does some explaining of the x/y axes involved (although I disagree with its characterization of the horizontal axis to some extent):
http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/questionnaire.pl

The "three generations of rights" concept (liberté, égalité, fraternité -- liberty, equality, solidarity) takes it a little farther:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=109242
this one seems to have been taken off line at this source (it's a Britannica, for-fee article), but can still be read at that link to Google's cache.
Also: http://www.journal.law.mcgill.ca/arts/453gonth.pdf
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: The Forgotten Leg of the Trilogy,
or
Fraternity: The Unspoken Third Pillar of Democracy
The Honourable Mr. Justice Charles D. Gonthier" (recently retired from the Supreme Court of Canada)

.

[Scott Lee]

27. A conservative republican could hijack your thesis

without a hitch. They, too, claim to be the ideology of Voluntary Good Samaritanism.

[sam sarrha]

8. we all depend on and support many socialist institutions.. police,

fire departments, water departments, sewer management, public highways, street lights, stop signs, health departments...CDC, schools, senior centers.... many essential, all important aspects of a civilized society..... However there is a difference between Capitalism and Fascism. "FASCISM: n, a philosophy or system of government that advocates or exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, 'TYPICALLY THROUGH THE MERGING OF STATE AND BUSINESS LEADERSHIP' together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism". from an older American Heritage Dictionary, its been changed in the newer ones... emphasis ' ' is my own. when "business leadership" makes campaign contributions to buy favor through legislation there ceases to be a FREE MARKET. the only way one can compete is to be able to give politicians more money than the "competitors". "Business Leadership" is scared crapless about socialism... 'legislation for the common good'....and they MUST Demonetize it at all cost.. mostly to the cost of our quality of life, I think i read somewhere that we had a government "Of the people, by the people and for the people." No mention of Corporations there...

[Dogmudgeon]

9. The Fallacy of Names

These labels have uses, and I don't take the position they are worthless, but it's much more "productive" to use them as descriptions rather than identities.

Mussolini's Fascism was a kind of Socialism. It was certainly Conservative. It was also Corporate. There's a lot of contradictions to the Conventional Wisdom there, but it existed, and if you read any of the founding writings of the Fascisti, you'll see it was a coherent ideology. (Evil, but coherent.)

The Right loves to use names as identities. It allows them to control the direction of discourse as much as they want. They do it well.

--bkl

[RichM]

11. No, the 2 things are fundamentally different, though not wholly unrelated.

Liberalism accepts the basic tenets of the capitalist model: private ownership of the means of production, no limits on individual amassing of wealth, & the market mechanism as the ultimate arbiter of economic decisions. Liberalism's position on these things is "It's just about right, though sometimes government must modify outcomes, in the interest of social justice."

Socialism doesn't accept those 3 basic tenets at all. It believes that all of them fundamentally contradict any possibility of social justice. It believes that liberalism is a modification of capitalism akin to, say, modifying slavery by encouraging masters to be nicer.

There is some connection between liberalism & socialism, in that both agree that untrammeled capitalism produces both grave injustice, and systematic irrationality in the allocation of resources.

It is common on DU to confuse Western European-style "social democracy" with socialism. This laughable confusion exists only because Americans are so unbelievably ignorant.

[sam sarrha]

12. I agree, do you think this Truly Unbelievable Ignorance is a deliberate

institution to prevent us from ever figuring out what the government/corporations are doing to us.

[RichM]

13. Sure.

Americans grow up in a cocoon. The entire educational system is mainly a socialization process, intended to instill values like obedience & respect for authority. The entire culture teaches us 24/7 to worship material acquisition in an unquestioning piggish way.

[MrPrax]

18. Ignorant!!!!

Your just jealous!!!

Here's the proof!!



Please note that the Founders are informed by DIVINE LIGHT and not the Hammer and Sickle, pal!!!
Old Europe should go back to...um...er...North Korea!!!
Morans indeed...


:crazy:

[RichM]

21. Admittedly, that IS an impressive picture. Thank you for setting me

straight. Now that I've seen that big guy standing in front, with his chest all puffed out, trés macho, all bathed in the DIVINE LIGHT, I truly realize what a great country we have, after all. May the Gipper forgive me.

[kalian]

14. Definition is wrong....

look at the root word: social.
As for the definition used here, I would state that COMMUNISM fits
the bill more than socialism.
You see, many European countries are socialist but they do not
have political power of producing and distributing goods.

Let's separate the meanings please...socialism is quite good when
done correctly.

[sam sarrha]

15. Communism is today confused with what the USSR did which wasn't communism.

you need to look at the defination... actually Carl Marx got the idea for this bureaucratic totalitarianism from an anthropological study done in 1778 on the Iroquois nation and their social structure where the wealth was shared equally among all.. the able helped the not able.. you seem to be jumping thru an Apriori loop...common to the Right Wing in this country.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

17. Moral Socialism is reasonable, economic not.

I'm a moral socialist, but I'm also a social democrat. For me moral socialism follows the tenets of the French Revolution - Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. Words to live by.

[JanMichael]

19. Hmm. Stan Goff summed it up nicely.

"I should say that I am not a liberal. I find most liberals to be conservatives who want to be forgiven."

http://truthout.org/docs_03/073103A.shtml

I consider myself a Libertarian Socialist.

[SuffragetteSal]

22. Don't you mean the libertarians

are the conservatives who want to be forgiven. Well, that is how I see it. The whackiest of them all!

[JanMichael]

25. I would include the Economic Libertarians as well.

When I use it in my own self label I mean it in the Civil Libertarian meaning.

As in Personal, Civil, Rights regarding simple issues such as which sex partners you wish to involve yourself with. Certainly not the Zero (or close enough) Regulation, Zero (Or close enough) Labor Protection, Libertarian type that lurk around here.

[Selwynn]

23. I don't think you understood your own definition...

socialism n. 1. A social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods.

In other words, a system in which the laboror has real political power, a classless system, which would necessitate a redistribution of wealth, which is just a fancy way of saying - cut the huge gap between the insanely rich and the deparately poor. Social programs such as universal health care, a living wage, etc would be part of a system controled by the laboror/produceres.

In Marxist-Leninist theory, the building, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the material base for communism.

Marxist-Leninist theory is communisim. It is obviously related, but not identical with socialism. Marxist-leninist theory can definately not be equivocated with socialism at all.

So in short, yes socialism and what is called in American "liberalism" are complimentary.

[mmonk]

26. Thanks

Didn't get to see the replies after I posted because I went to the Panthers/Bucs game.

Seems to me the terms are still a little murky (to me, even with dictionaries and the like). Depends in my view by who the person is using the terms and where they are coming from.

Two people could use the same terms, but mean two different things. The right uses the term sometimes to describe things that really may not be liberal or things that things that might not be socialist (at least in my view). They use the terms, however, to distort.

[Scott Lee]

28. Depends on what "liberalism" you are using

Classical liberalism is akin to Jeffersonian thought, the strict "government hand out of my pocket" that has been coopted by modern conservatives. It also adopts the "toleration" theme to an extent.

"Whether a man has one God or many Gods makes no matter to me...it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg" - Thomas Jefferson

Modern (post 60s) Liberalism is a slightly different animal. It actually embraces government involvement in the life of the citizenry in order to establish and protect justice, equality under the law, and tolerance of diversity.

Industrial Age Socialism, in my view, would not mix with either of these ideologies, as it is a system of governance in which the means of production are owned and distributed by the State.