No Commie Socialism… or whatever it is you want! You can’t have any NAH NAH NAH NAH AHHHHH I CAN’T HEAR YOU!
(via Jezebel) Photo: ALBANY, NY - APRIL 13: Participants at a Tea Party Express rally display a sign critical of the Obama administration on April 13, 2010 in Albany, New York. The Tea Party Express will head to Boston on Wednesday where the headline speaker at an afternoon rally will be Sarah Palin.The group will conclude its national tour in Washington, D.C. Thursday with a Tax Day rally at the Washington Monument. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
There are a billion definitions of Socialism and Communism, just as Liberalism or Conservatism can mean a billion different things… so, these are only my definitions:
Socialism (modern Democratic Socialism) is a system of regulated capitalism, a managed economy whereby private ownership exists but there are mechanisms in place to ensure that there is a greater distribution of wealth and a strong safety net for the vulnerable. Part of that safety net is the common ownership of key industries, such as energy, healthcare and water. While inequality remains in a Socialist state (though by no means as stark as the inequality in a purely capitalist state) that’s okay because human beings are not equal in terms of talent, intelligence or their work ethic. Within Socialism, there is room for difference. It humanizes capitalism and makes it more responsible, not so morally reprehensible. This kind of Socialism is democratic and it believes in democratic institutions such as trade unions, co-operatives, a free press / freedom of speech and most importantly, elections. The ultimate goal is an equal, just and prosperous society for the benefit of all, but Socialism proceeds by consent.
Communism abolishes private ownership and centralizes political and economic power. Essentially it strives to create total equality, but what it ultimately leads to is a concentration of power within the party; party cronyism and oligarchy. While it is supposed to be, “each to his own talents, each to his own needs”, that is not the case in practice more often than not, and it replaces the oppression of inequality with the lesser, but still oppressive notion of, “everybody must be exactly the same”. To that end, there are no elections, no freedom of speech or of the press and the suppression of, “difference” and dissent (usually deemed counter-revolutionary). Communism suffers from utopianism, and frequently when confronted with reality, it responds by betraying its’ own principles and suffers the same fate as other utopian ideas like fascism, religion and Chicago School economics; it leads to state violence, state capitalism, imperialism and murderous corruption.
Again, these are personal definitions, my own political philosophy rather than any strictly historical definition. I’m sure many Marxists will utterly disagree with me, but you know, part of the problem is that there are so many groups on the left and it can be bewildering reading Marx then Lenin then Trotsky, then reading Socialist Worker or SPUSA or the Communist Party, and they’re all talking about Socialism and Communism and they’re all talking about slightly different (or radically different) things. And if we’re still grappling with these concepts, what chance do these old hags have? So… this is my truth, tell me yours.
There is however one thing that we can all agree on: we hate the Teahad.
