From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Nov 01 2002 - 17:45:26 MST
On Thursday 31 October 2002 13:54, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> Charles Hixson wrote:
> > Ah... Socialism. Which, if any, of these schemes is socialist? I
> > have an idea of what fair means. It means that all parties to an
> > agreement believe that they are better off agreeing than not
> > agreeing, and that nobody is taking advantage of a dominant position
> > to impose onerous constraints on others. But I still don't know what
> > socialism means... Though we seem to be getting a lot closer, once
> > governments were dropped from the loop.
>
> ### Sounds like the description of the ideal free market (before the
> emergence of monopolies). Isn't socialism just a slightly misguided type of
> libertarianism?
>
> Rafal
I don't know. Which is my point.
So far I have one example which many people agree is Socialist, i.e., a
worker's cooperative. However, many people also say it is Capitalist.
Including some of those who say it is Socialist. And some appear to be
denying that it is Socialist (though I haven't noticed anyone denying that it
is Capitalist, or at least capitalist).
So *is* socialism a special kind of capitalism? If so, then we seem to have
made a lot of progress. If not, then how do I recognize it when I see it?
(N.B.: I was earlier defining what I thought was "fair". Not what was
socialist. I'm still trying to find some definitive agreement on that. It
appearantly won't be consensus, but I'm not that strict. General agreement
suffices for me [though consensus is nice, if you can get it].)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:55 MST