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Communism is state ownership of all property. The parent gave the proper definition of socialism. It is the state ownership of the means of production. Europe i

• rorykoehler 11y ago
  Reading Lenin's letters in the Lenin museum in Tampere was very eye opening and educational. Communism was never meant to be the state ownership of all property. It was meant to be the centralized state ownership of the means of production (mainly mining and large infrastructure) with cottage industries (local farmers and makers etc) existing and operating in a free market. Shortly before his death Lenin warned the politburo that Stalin was no good and should be purged from the party. When Stalin came to power he corrupted the original aim of Communism and installed new rules for state ownership to encompass the means of all production and also the proceeds of all production and we all now what happened next. The commons is a very old concept in Europe. In the UK for example common ownership of agricultural land was the norm until the tragedy of the commons in the early/mid 1800's. Today Europe is largely a social democracy which aims to walk the line between socialism and capitalism. Again social ownership of the means of production does not necessarily mean state ownership. As vezzy-fnord pointed out Mondragon is a cooperative who came about from the anti-Franco socialist movement in Spain in the mid 1900's. This is most definitely a socialist philosophy operating within a capitalist framework. Socialism has had a major impact on European politics. The Nordic countries have an immensely strong welfare states due to this, the labour party in the UK (the blip of Tony Blair is an anomaly and they are swinging back to the left now), Sinn Fein (IRA political wing) in Ireland, François Hollande's Socialist party etc etc. Sure Europe operates within a capitalist framework but there is not such a fervent religious belief in unbridled capitalism as one would find in the States. All one needs to do is look at all the anti-trust lawsuits we have in the EU, against the likes of Google and Microsoft, to see how Socialist philosophy manifests itself in contemporary times.
  • maratd 11y ago
    > Reading Lenin's letters in the Lenin museum in Tampere was very eye opening and educational. Since when is Lenin an authority on communism? He was a thug, same as Stalin. > cottage industries (local farmers and makers etc) existing and operating in a free market. To his credit, they did do some very interesting things in the 20s. Then Stalin came to power and that ended. > Again social ownership of the means of production does not necessarily mean state ownership. Yes, it does. The USSR was NEVER communist. United Soviet SOCIALIST Republics. It was a truly socialist state. All the means of production were state controlled, but private property did exist. The GOAL was to eventually reach communism. > Today Europe is largely a social democracy which aims to walk the line between socialism and capitalism. Ok, but the line between socialism and capitalism isn't socialism. As previously mentioned, a welfare state seems a more apt description. > Socialism has had a major impact on European politics. Agreed. > there is not such a fervent religious belief in unbridled capitalism as one would find in the States There is no "fervent religious belief in unbridled capitalism" in the US. Zero. Capitalism is a mixture of free market and government subsidy. The government doesn't manufacture anything, but does get heavily involved in the markets through subsidies, regulations, financial instruments, outright purchases of goods, etc. Generally a 70/30 split is considered the norm, where 30% of all market activity is government controlled. Nobody is excited over this. There is a "fervent" belief in the free market and the idea that capitalism isn't ideal and that we should tweak that split and reduce government involvement. That we should move toward a free market. That gets people excited.
    • rorykoehler 11y ago
      >There is a "fervent" belief in the free market and the idea that capitalism isn't ideal and that we should tweak that split and reduce government involvement. That we should move toward a free market. That gets people excited. Serious question. How is this any different than unbridled capitalism? No government involvement and a laissez-faire approach to the market is exactly what unbridled capitalism looks like in my understanding. Just because Socialism is in the name USSR doesn't necessarily mean anything. If we are to look at the name Nazi which was the National Socialists Party and their Italian counterpart was a major proponent (even father of) of Corporatism, a rather extreme form of capitalism (though in the case of USSR it might be true, as I said earlier Communism is a form of Socialism). The Welfare State has it's roots in Socialism. Socialism is an umbrella term. Anarchism is a main branch of Socialism (the other two being reformism and Marxism) and to be fair extreme Anarchists don't want a State at all so Socialism cannot and does not mean State ownership. This is one of the major confusions into what Socialism means and kills any possible meaningful discussion around the topic, especially in the USA where Communism and Socialism are used interchangeably. The spectrum of allowable political ideology in the USA is so narrow that only center-right and far-right exist. This is a very unhealthy situation as there are great ideas to be found from across the political spectrum. Just to be clear I'm not saying this to say Europe is better or anything but I do find it an unfortunate state of affairs. Also Lenin didn't kill 50m+ people just because he was paranoid. You can't lump them together. Stalin was arguably worse than Hitler. While Lenin was certainly not a saint, he was an intellectual with brilliant ideas, operating in an extremely difficult environment.