From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu Nov 07 2002 - 16:33:13 MST
On Thursday 07 November 2002 14:39, Dehede011@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 11/7/2002 3:02:59 PM Central Standard Time,
> charleshixsn@earthlink.net writes: Why do you keep asserting that I desire
> socialism merely because I want a useable definition? Once I know what it
> is, then I would be in a position to decide whether I was desirous of it or
> not. Lacking that, I don't even know what it is you are accusing me of.
>
> Isn't it amazing that you keep making this assertion but rejecting every
> definition attempted be those definitions personal or the ones asserted by
> scholars whether anti or pro socialist. Taking that position sort of lets
> you keep the thread going doesn't it? In the meantime you claim to know of
> no definition. I don't think you are being forthright with us.
> Ron h.
There was a definition based on employee control over their working conditions
that I accepted, but found to be incomplete. Actually, it is currently my
assumed meaning of the term, but I definitely recognize that there is another
meaning that is in common usage, but which isn't covered by this. The
comment about India being socialist because it (paraphrase) "Tightly
controlled it's internal economic activity" seemed to point in a useful
direction, but nobody has expanded on this. (This definitely needs
expansion, as the Persians before the time of Alexander had a tightly
controlled internal economy, but definitely weren't socialist. [Interesting
that they were in the same area of the world, though.])
It's true that I found a definition from www.dictionary.com to be unacceptable
( http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=socialism ). This may be partially
because it was oversimplified, but it's mainly because any assertion that
socialism is dependant on marxism is non-historical. I believe that Marx may
have asserted that socialism was an intermediate stage, but this doesn't make
it so. He was wrong about most things, so why should I take him as an
authority on this.
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