that would lead to more inflation.
That is almost the definition of totalitarianism.
That's how hundreds of millions of people died (either by execution, war, work camps, or starvation[0]) as dictators pursued Marxist ideals during the 20th century.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
I appreciate your deep dive into these scholastic studies. I always appreciate learning new things.
When an idea has resulted in the deaths of a significant portion of the world's population at the time, it's healthy to regard it (and similar ideas) with a bit of skepticism.
I'm specifically trying to avoid the whole "no true Scottsman" argument by saying these aren't necessarily examples of how an actually functional communism economy would be, but I do wish you could be consistent with your terminology as socialism and communism are distinctly different ideas. I'd also like to emphasize the mild sarcasm when I used words such as "merely" and "complete and total cooperation",to close out this conversation which I have little more to contribute to.
"If only every single person would..." is not how you create policy where people are actually free.
(Seriously, have you read about all the escape attempts over the Berlin Wall?)
Philosophically, communism is the goal of Marxist theory -- where no ruling class even exists, ownership of the means of production doesn't exist, and everyone shares everything.
Socialism as a form of government (and not socialist economic policy within a republic or democracy) is an intentional, totalitarian stepping stone to that theoretical end goal. When I said "socialism" I meant these totalitarian governments and not anything that exists in northern Europe today. The communist parties of the "communist" (but really socialist) nations of the 20th century promised that the socialist totalitarianism was a stepping-stone and that it would be temporary until true communism was achieved (which has only ever actually occurred in small religious communities like monasteries, and which are often subsidized from the outside anyway). Those promises of temporary totalitarianism were part of how the dictators gained power.
What we call "socialist" economic policy (like the nationalized services in many European nations today) is an entirely separate and mostly unrelated issue (to me at least). I think many Americans' concern here is not a fear of totalitarianism (at least not as an immediate consequence), but that the more things are nationalized, the less freedom people have to choose where their money goes, and the less efficient the economy becomes -- but that's all entirely distinct from and unrelated to the evils of Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.
The only modern, truly "socialist" nation I know of is North Korea.
Look, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but that's a pretty weird definition of socialism which seems likely to perpetuate confusion and disagreement with people who don't share your definition.
If you want to keep using the word like that, I'd suggest defining it the first time you use it.
> 3. (in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of Communism.
Thanks for the feedback though. I'll try to define my terms more carefully in the future.
Ah now, that's clearly not how the world is commonly defined, given that it's the third definition with a parenthesis.
But anyways, all good, not that big a deal (although you're likely to have confusion around this term in the future).
It was the liberals who wanted to put unvaccinated people in internment camps and/or prison in 2022.