I think the way we argue over labels hurts us. If I use heavy regulation and government aid to limit the abuses in a capitalist system, at what point does the label change to “socialism”? I think we do ourselves a disservice to create these strict conceptions of systems like capitalism, socialism, or communism. Then when one fails we get to say “well that wasn’t true x”. And the labels allow people to boogeyman an idea. And worst of all, we eliminate the possibility to take good lessons from multiple different systems and incorporate them into our system. I think we would be better served promoting policies on a case by case basis instead of using these huge words. And to be clear, I’m a bit of a hypocrite here. I’ve been mostly telling people I’m a “social democrat” or that I support “capitalism with heavy regulations”. But even those words can get picked apart and don’t really capture nuance. My main point is that I think this thread is a perfect encapsulation of how these arguments stop us from getting behind good policies when we bicker about the definitions of words that mean different things to different people.
Yeah. Like saying you believe that companies beyond a certain size should be legally required to seek a vote from their employees before implementing certain types of changes is a real policy to argue about. Call it democratizing business or whatever you want. And then that’s an actual concrete issue we can argue about. Or if you believe in the government buying out businesses beyond a certain size, that’s a specific conversation we can have and we can discuss the hypothetical implementation of that. Call it business seizure or whatever. Just saying “I believe in socialism” doesn’t dig enough into the details of how you perceive socialism or how you would implement it. And frankly, I think it hurts the socialists or communists or whoever is trying to persuade the current culture away from what we have more than anybody else. Ideas grow when you make real, concrete proposals. These exceedingly large scale labels usually end up killing a conversation rather than feeding it. Someone gets mad at a label and then everything shuts down on that sticking point.
Then when one fails we get to say “well that wasn’t true x”. And the labels allow people to boogeyman an idea.
Essentially a No True Scotsman fallacy.
I think it’s better to simply state that things like Stalin’s USSR weren’t communist. Period.
It wasn’t “almost communist”; it was a dictatorship. So to say it wasn’t “real communism” is like boiling a sock and saying it’s not “real dinner”. It’s not dinner at all, it’s a sock.
There was a soviet joke about a banner “our party is fighting for the title ‘communist’”. I can not translate it well, but it shows that people sensed the absurdity of the continious slogans about fighting for something they forgot is related to the meaning of the world communism. In the last decades especially, thd pride in building a better future through emancipation was replaced by simply nationalist pride and the pride in ww2 victory.
I find this arguing over labels more and more as I browse online, and it is sooo exhausting. I have noticed so many instances of arguing and discourse where both sides have similar ideals and want the same things, but argue with each other over stereotypes of labels on the other side, and point to the faults of the vocal rabid minority on the other side as if to prove a point. Sigh.
I think the way we argue over labels hurts us. If I use heavy regulation and government aid to limit the abuses in a capitalist system, at what point does the label change to “socialism”? I think we do ourselves a disservice to create these strict conceptions of systems like capitalism, socialism, or communism. Then when one fails we get to say “well that wasn’t true x”. And the labels allow people to boogeyman an idea. And worst of all, we eliminate the possibility to take good lessons from multiple different systems and incorporate them into our system. I think we would be better served promoting policies on a case by case basis instead of using these huge words. And to be clear, I’m a bit of a hypocrite here. I’ve been mostly telling people I’m a “social democrat” or that I support “capitalism with heavy regulations”. But even those words can get picked apart and don’t really capture nuance. My main point is that I think this thread is a perfect encapsulation of how these arguments stop us from getting behind good policies when we bicker about the definitions of words that mean different things to different people.
IMHO, by this point those labels are nothing but thought-terminating clichés.
Yeah. Like saying you believe that companies beyond a certain size should be legally required to seek a vote from their employees before implementing certain types of changes is a real policy to argue about. Call it democratizing business or whatever you want. And then that’s an actual concrete issue we can argue about. Or if you believe in the government buying out businesses beyond a certain size, that’s a specific conversation we can have and we can discuss the hypothetical implementation of that. Call it business seizure or whatever. Just saying “I believe in socialism” doesn’t dig enough into the details of how you perceive socialism or how you would implement it. And frankly, I think it hurts the socialists or communists or whoever is trying to persuade the current culture away from what we have more than anybody else. Ideas grow when you make real, concrete proposals. These exceedingly large scale labels usually end up killing a conversation rather than feeding it. Someone gets mad at a label and then everything shuts down on that sticking point.
Essentially a No True Scotsman fallacy.
I think it’s better to simply state that things like Stalin’s USSR weren’t communist. Period.
It wasn’t “almost communist”; it was a dictatorship. So to say it wasn’t “real communism” is like boiling a sock and saying it’s not “real dinner”. It’s not dinner at all, it’s a sock.
There was a soviet joke about a banner “our party is fighting for the title ‘communist’”. I can not translate it well, but it shows that people sensed the absurdity of the continious slogans about fighting for something they forgot is related to the meaning of the world communism. In the last decades especially, thd pride in building a better future through emancipation was replaced by simply nationalist pride and the pride in ww2 victory.
27 million Russians died. This is a “victory” in the same way a chihuahua is a dog. Nationalism is a brain disease.
I think labels are still useful for discussion, but I completely agree that we should regularly rediscuss what they mean and how they evolve.
I find this arguing over labels more and more as I browse online, and it is sooo exhausting. I have noticed so many instances of arguing and discourse where both sides have similar ideals and want the same things, but argue with each other over stereotypes of labels on the other side, and point to the faults of the vocal rabid minority on the other side as if to prove a point. Sigh.