Poll: 53% of Democrats have positive view of socialism

The other 47% don’t understand that what they support is essentially a form of socialism — the new socialism: as opposed to the old classic and traditional form of socialism that almost no one tries to implement anymore. Socialism has evolved. They are essentially useful idiots.

Even most of the 53% who have some favorable views of socialism do not really understand it.

All of these people need to have some long talks with people who lived behind the Iron Curtain for a couple of decades, especially with the ones who left and fled to the US and the West.

farsighted on November 29, 2012 at 11:07 AM

A common misconception is that socialism is equivalent to communism. It is not. Communism is a form of socialism, and only one form of socialism.

Socialism in all of its forms is fundamentally antagonistic towards and is practically defined in terms of free markets, free enterprise, and capitalism. Marx coined the term “capitalism”.

Marx’s theories of economics and history postulate various transitional forms of socialism along the way to the most extreme form of socialism, communism. He thought communism was inevitable. Today’s modern socialists do not usually agree with him on point, though they agree with him on most other things. They also studiously avoid ever using the words communism and socialism. However, the term “social justice” is essentially equivalent to socialism, as “social justice” is the ultimate goal of socialism, its reason for being.

farsighted on November 29, 2012 at 12:02 PM

1) A political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole

Saltyron on November 29, 2012 at 12:14 PM

The new modern version of socialism concentrates on the “regulated by” part of this. Why bother going through the trouble of taking outright ownership when the government can exercise what are essentially ownership rights — that is, control — through regulation, restriction, mandate, and taxation?

This form of control has the advantage of avoiding blame when the corporation fails due to government meddling, regulation, and intervention. The socialists can point at and blame management and evil greedy capitalists for the failure. Useful idiots and fools will believe it. Then the government engineers some kind of socialist version of bankruptcy, à la what happened with Government Motors. This is also the plan for the soon to be bankrupt health insurance corporations. They will be driven into insolvency by Obamacare.

Socialist government also asserts control without ownership by declaring some corporations to be “too big to let fail” and essentially giving the government one or more seats on the board. Dodd-Frank does this, more or less, with some financial institutions.

The new socialism is all about government control over economic activity and economic enterprises. Traditional socialism, government ownership of industry/means of production/etc, is largely obsolete — mostly because it has failed every time it has been tried, but also because it has a bad reputation and is not (yet) politically palatable in “democracies”.

Socialism in all of its forms also strives for “economic equality”, AKA “social justice”, by any means necessary. The new modern version of socialism uses wealth and income confiscation and means tested redistribution, in one form or another, by government (politicians and bureaucrats).

farsighted on November 29, 2012 at 2:17 PM