drose: You're certainly correct about the dictionary definition of
socialism. I respect that. We have a common language and ought to use it
properly, however political movements often disregard technically
correct meaning in favor of a good public relations label. Communism,
for example is defined as a situation where the state has withered away
altogether and government no longer exists. In that sense, the USSR was
never a Communist society, far from it. The state controled everything.
By the same measure, its hard to imagine that the People's Republic of
China is really a Republic. Even in our own country, one hundred years
ago the Democrats were the conservative party and Republicans defended
the federal government as emphatically as they attack today. And
remember that "the left" was concieved before Marx himself. The
right/left distinctions in politics were born in the wake of the French
revolution, which was about 50 years before the Communist Manifesto was
written.
Precise definitions are indespensable, but so is historical experience.
David B
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