4 ms·

I believe we are on the same side in this particular ideological (no-)food-fight, but I think your criticism is off the mark. Chavez and, to lesser extend, Mad

I believe we are on the same side in this particular ideological (no-)food-fight, but I think your criticism is off the mark. Chavez and, to lesser extend, Maduro, were/are, under most any definition, socialists. What I believe makes you want to avoid the association is that naturally, some intellectually dishonest people will turn around and use a completely different definition of the word to jump from arguing against, say, rules prohibiting forced arbitration clauses (to use an appropriately arbitrary example) directly to painting the spectre of Venezuela-style breakdown of civilisation in our future. Personally, I believe it's more use to argue against instances of the latter folly (which really deserves its own debate-ending "...fallacy" designation). Otherwise, it's that No-True-Scotsman thing.

arielserafini 8y ago
I'm not even trying to get into the "true socialism" debate, but what they are trying to refer to is dictatorial policies, not socialist policies.
- lucozade 8y ago
  I would tend to agree with you. What was state socialism has evolved into totalitarian dictatorship. In fairness, pretty much every state socialist regime has, fairly quickly, evolved into a totalitarian dictatorship so it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. It's clear that Marx was right in the sense that societies evolve, but wrong in that state socialism evolves to communism: it clearly doesn't. It's why I find intelligent people advocating for socialism to be particularly heinous. What they are, effectively, advocating for is totalitarianism.