Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: What is socialism? Message-ID: <1340@dciem.UUCP> Date: Wed, 30-Jan-85 17:39:00 EST Article-I.D.: dciem.1340 Posted: Wed Jan 30 17:39:00 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 30-Jan-85 18:53:58 EST References: <309@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <329@topaz.ARPA> <501@fisher.UUCP> Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 49 Summary: >> >The epitome of socialism, ... >> >--JoSH >> >> ... Goebbels spent much ink on explaining ... >> And you fell for it!!! >> David Rubin > >Nope, I never read Goebbels. I just applied the rule of thumb, >"If a government kills more than a million of its own citizens >inside a ten-year period, it's probably socialist." > >> P.S. JoSH's critically wrong assumption is that all "state-first, >> individual-last" philosophies are socialist. Actually, there are many >> varieties, some socialist, some not. The Nazis fall in the latter >> category. > >Right. I use the term as a catchall. If you want to nitpick about the >various denominations of that religion, go ahead, I won't argue about it. > >--JoSH I guess the "H" in JoSH stands for Humpty-Dumpty .... Words mean exactly what I wish them to mean, no more, no less .... It all depends who is to be master. (Sorry I can't quote exactly). Sorry, JoSH. If you want to participate in a debate, you should attempt to use key terms in a way something like the way other participants use them (which usually doesn't require strict adherance to dictionary definitions). For what it's worth: to me, a socialist cares about all the people in a society, and believes with John Donne "Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." Libertarians (as self-defined on this net) care only for themselves. In the absence of any possible demonstration, no-one can refute the apparently fantastic claims of utopian life in Libertaria; neither can one refute the claims of those who argue the merits of a true socialist state. All the same, one can look at the performance of different states that tend (slightly) in one direction or the other. After accounting for the ENORMOUS natural wealth of N. America, it is astonishing that it is NOT the country in the world with the highest quality of life. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmt