Comments by "Regis" (@Timbo5000) on ""TIK's definitions are wrong!" (about Socialism & Capitalism)" video.

  1. Hello TIK, thank you for clarifying your viewpoints. I understand them better now. Still, I have a few issues with your position that I will share. 1. Regarding socialism, you rightly quote various socialists' own definitions of socialism as, roughly speaking, public ownership of the means of production. What you have not considered, however, is WHY socialists want this. They do not want public ownership for the sake of public ownership, they have a specific goal to achieve with this public ownership of the means of production; socialism aims for (a representative government of) society as a whole to take control over the means of production, so that the economy is run in the interest of the entirety of society, rather than just a small, wealthy subset of it. Egalitarianism is a very important goal of socialism. By just quoting socialists' definition of socialism as "public ownership of the means of production" and stopping there, you end up missing a lot of the context surrounding what socialism as an ideology is. Essentially, you end up defining socialism by the means by which it means to achieve its goals, while ignoring the goals as such (and I hope we agree that the goals of any ideology are an absolutely central part of what that ideology is!). This is why I think you rightly point out the connection between socialism and public control over the economy, but wrongly end up with an absolutist point of view that EVERY type of public control over the economy automatically is socialism. To apply this to calling publicly owned shares in a corporation a form of socialism; yes, technically this is (limited) public control over a corporation (i.e. a part of the economy/means of production). Does this however fit within the ideology of socialism? No, because socialism does not aim for limited public control over a part of the economy, it aims for a complete seizure of the means of production in order to ensure that the economy is run in the interest of society as a whole. That is the entire point of socialism; creating an egalitarian economy by having the government take control over it on behalf of the working class/society. A few hundred/thousand individuals buying shares is NOT the same thing as wishing for all means of production to be used in the interest of the broader society rather than individual interests. You already seem to partially see this by naming that you see this as more of a hybrid between public and private (which I would agree with), but you still choose to call this socialism (which I disagree with for above reason). 2. Also regarding socialism, I want to point out you almost exclusively quote authoritarian socialists that want a dictatorship of the proletariat in the from of a government taking direct control over the economy, but there are many other forms of socialism that do not share this view. Especially libertarian or anarchist forms of socialism may not fit this definition well. By quoting mainly authoritarian socialists, you may end up equating only this specific form of socialism with socialism as a whole. I understand this focus on authoritarian socialism, because historically we have for the grand majority of instances seen authoritarian socialism in practice (and failing all the time). But remember when speaking of socialism as a whole, libertarian and even anarchist socialism also exists. I feel like you have too little attention for this, which I understand, but then you must specify you are only/mainly speaking of authoritarian socialism.
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