April 3, 2003

Socialism v Capitalism

And a bit earlier in the day Gregory Markle found himself in "..the old socialist/capitalist debate..." and as so often seems to be the case in these discussions it is not at all clear what the participants mean when they use these terms. If the debaters would simply provide a 2-3 sentence definition with their first use of one of these words (plus others like democracy, fascism, liberty, etc) these discussions would become instantly more meaningful to their readers (and I suspect the particpants as well). A link to a more detailed exposition would be even better.

My task, before I get too involved in similar debates will be to write my brief expositions or pick the variant closest to my position from the many that already exist on the web. Then, if I say something like "...was built on the shoulders of capitalist democracy..." you, the reader, might be able to figure out what country/society is being referred to and whether the writer means something like free market capitalism based on protecting individual rights or, as exists today in many variations, a state regulated and subsidized corporate economy (and no matter how many times some form of the latter is called capitalism...it isn't).

Posted by Steve on April 3, 2003
Comments

I think we can settle on the dictionary defintion. Perhaps for ease of reference we could use http://dictionary.com ?

Posted by Brian at April 5, 2003 12:26 AM

Brian,

If you would like to use the dictionary.com definition that is fine. Though it is not at all clear that its incomplete (see democracy) and or confusing (see capitalism) definitions are what you want.

Using dictionary.com I think the original phrase I was confused about, captitalist democracy, would be more appropriately rendered statist democracy.

I will soon choose or write my own definitions that cleary represent what I mean when I use these terms and will link to them when using these terms.

Posted by Steve at April 5, 2003 5:53 PM
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