Socialism Is NOT A Political System

 

Rocky Racoon 

Her name was Magill,
and she called herself Lil
But everyone knew her as Nancy. 

Names don’t matter if we truly understand something. They do matter if we don’t. 

Socialism has become a common slur in American politics applied by those on the right to policies promoted by the left.  Senator Mitch McConnel opposes a $2000 COVID stimulus because it is socialism for the rich.  Silly Senator!  Socialism is an economic system, not a political system. Just as, Capitalism is an economic system, not a political system. 

And socialism is also NOT communism, any more than the regulated American form of capitalism is unregulated capitalism.  Communism is where ALL means of productions and outputs of production are the property of the state, society.  Unregulated capitalism is where ALL means of production and outputs are the property of individuals.  However neither extreme is perfect. 

Under Communism, if all means of production and outputs are the property of the state, there is no incentive for individual members of that state, society, to seek more efficient solutions. 

Capitalism assumes, among other things, that all buyers have perfect knowledge and that all sellers have unlimited access to buyers. 

Socialism, as practiced in the Nordic Countries, is where, among other things, only SOME  economic sectors, for example health care or energy, are controlled by the state and all other economic sectors are controlled by individuals. 

Regulated Capitalism, as practiced in the United States, is where sellers are required to disclose certain things so that buyers have more perfect knowledge (e.g. Food Labels) and  are prohibited from keeping others from entering the market (e.g. anti-trust laws). 

The fact that some proponents of an economic system (e.g. Karl Marx, or Vladimir Lenin) were also atheists only means that they were atheists, not that communism, or socialism, is inherently atheistic, any more than capitalism is pro-religion.  A religious or philosophical  system is NOT an economic system. 

Game theory would characterize capitalism as a user optimal solution and communism as a system optimal solution.  The sum of user optimal, equilibrium, solutions is often NOT the system optimal  solution.  Regulated capitalism or socialism, which again is not communism, are both less extreme systems that seek to make the sum of the user optimal equilibrium solutions closer to the system optimal solution. 

A $2000 stimulus is a political solution intended to work for any economic system.  Characterizing it as socialism is a blatant attempt to change the discussion from the merits of a political solution to the merits of economic systems.