Hacker News Reader

Comment by captainmuon | Hacker News Reader

In principle, yes you are right. However, there is only so much hedging and differentiation I can put into a post without turning it into an essay.

What I wanted to say is "realsocialist" a la former Soviet Union or East Germany. I think part of the confusion is that I live in Germany, where socialist always means that kind of one-party authoritarian system. By this definition, e.g. Bernie Sanders would be a (left-wing) social democrat, but not a socialist.

I know for example in France, the middle-left-wing party calls themselves socialist... I believe they are slightly left of what you'd call "liberal" in the US.

View on HN

> ... hedging and differentiation ...

How is the distinction hard to understand? Socialism is a system characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to capitalism, which is characterised by private ownership of the means of production. Both are ideologies.

You could have compared to Soviet or East Germany directly if you wanted to make a point about totalitarian regimes.

Also, I'm pretty sure Germans don't consider socialism to be an authoritarian ideology. Maybe you're confusing it with national socialism (nationalsozialismus => nazism).

>Also, I'm pretty sure Germans don't consider socialism to be an authoritarian ideology.

I'm not sure why the opinion of Germans matters here, they have the same capitalist economy that the US and the rest of Europe do.

There are the proper political science definitions and then there are the meanings on the ground (so to speak). Unfortunately, the latter are fluid depending on the country and don't always line up...

> Socialism is a system characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to capitalism, which is characterised by private ownership of the means of production. Both are ideologies.

Historically, every attempt to build a socialistic society has led to tyranny. One can wonder, if this might be an inevitable consequence along the path to attempt socialism.

But we have managed to build several capitalistic societies which did not fall into tyranny (although some did).

> Historically, every attempt to build a socialistic society has led to tyranny.

http://wrightstories.com/attempts-to-fly-before-the-wrights/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_perpetual_motion_ma...

> I live in Germany, where socialist always means that kind of one-party authoritarian system.

No, it doesn't. There are plenty of anti-authoritarian self-styled socialists in Germany.

Come on, authoritarian and totalitarian aren't that much longer than socialist. There is no need to write an essay.

You would never think of signing such a petition in Pinochet's Chile or Stroessner's Paraguay and those weren't socialist.

In the UK, the Labour part is moving back (rejoining?) it's old Socialist roots. The flawed but gracious and honourable leader of the party at present has been a socialist his entire career, but could hardly be called authoritarian.

Corbyn stands virtually no chance of being elected Prime Minister, however honourable and gracious he is. I doubt the Labour Party will survive in its current form much beyond the new few years. I think there's a schism coming between the more socialist Corbyn supporting group and a more centrist group.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com