The obvious failure of capitalism to define itself, even with minimum consistency, as a reasonably coherent economic system (it can hardly sustain even its historical outlook, where mercantilism, for instance, cannot be seriously looked upon as a “stage of capitalism,” because it trivializes both, within the framework of the economic history of mankind) can perhaps be explained by the fact that it has never existed in nature as a self-sustained economic system, just like certain chemical elements discovered in a science lab cannot survive in the real world. In fact, its life story of the past hundred years or so is that of a political system at best, or a religion-supplanting ideology at worst, and only as such complicated interwoven hodgepodge can it possibly start making sense. (This kind of brings to mind the feeble attempts to define being Jewish: As a religion, this amounts to nonsense, considering millions of non-religious Jews who call themselves Jewish; and as a race, or ethnicity it does not work either, taking into account the large numbers of African Jews for instance, who are officially recognized as Jews by the State of Israel, although they have distinctive Negroid characteristics, and nothing in common, except the religion, with their Semitic brethren.)
The situation gets even more confusing in the case of socialism. While many of its opponents love equating it with “communism” or Marxism, both seen as sworn enemies of the West, others perceptively observe the obvious linguistic connection between “social” and “socialist,” and are ready to identify it with the Western way of life, particularly those happy beneficiaries of social socialism in Europe.
…Now, is socialism good or bad? Well, it actually depends on what we would like to call “socialism.” The said mishmash becomes outright hilarious as we juxtapose certain characteristic quotations from some well-known historical personages.
“Socialists, Communists, and Nihilists strive to uproot the foundations of civilized society,” declares Pope Leo XIII in 1878. (Quod apostolici muneris.) Fifty-three years later, Pope Pius XI observes that “Socialism is drifting toward the truths, which the Christian tradition has always supported. It cannot be denied that its program often comes close to the just demands of Christian reformers.” (Quadragesimo anno, 1931). The only way to harmonize these two "infallible" statements ex cathedra is to recognize the validity of the logical syllogism AÞ BÞ C and to conclude that Christian reformers, like the socialists, have striven “to uproot the foundations of civilized society,” which, considering where civilized society is today, may not even be such a bad thing…
Prince Otto von Bismarck, who, as Chancellor of Germany, outlawed all political organizations advocating “socialism” in Germany, also made this odd statement that “the state must introduce even more socialism in our Reich,” which certainly points to the same subconscious association of the words social and socialism, which I have previously pointed out.
There are even stranger instances of the word’s use, or perhaps, misuse:
“We are all Socialists nowadays,” said the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII of England, in his speech at the Mansion House in London in 1895.
On the other hand, this:
“Socialism is a fake, a comedy, a phantom, and a blackmail,” said Benito Mussolini in a speech in Milan in 1919. He would surely moderate this view in later years, vis-à-vis his national-socialist Comrade Hitler.
The list of these predictable oddities can go on and on, but what has already been cited should be enough. No wonder then that, as early as in 1845, Friedrich Engels openly grumbled that the notion of socialism in Germany was “vague, undefined, and indefinable.”
The quick question that comes to mind is what exactly is socialism? Here is Webster’s Dictionary. Among its three definitions, the second talks of the political movement, and the third of the Communist doctrine, so both of those can be dismissed at once for our purpose, observing however that the obvious confusion of its several meanings is one of the main causes of the comic word-usage mess. But let us focus on just the first Webster’s definition of socialism:
“Socialism is the theory or system of the ownership and operation of the means of production and distribution by society or the community, rather than by private individuals, with all members of society or the community sharing in the work and the products.”
The pertinent question now is whether socialism as-such has ever existed in reality. The Soviet model may have come fairly close to socialism, in proclaiming its spirit, and also in certain technicalities, yet not close enough. The first years of a “proletarian dictatorship” in Soviet Russia were explicitly class-discriminatory, anti-democratic, and patently anti-socialist. Lenin’s New Economic Policy was a calculated recourse to the practice of private enterprise. Stalin’s expectation of an imminent mortal clash with Germany turned Russia into a giant military camp, ironically, the closest she had ever come to socialism, but of the peculiar martial type, which I much hesitate giving the name of socialism to. What came after Stalin was a gradual slide into corruption and spiritual decline. Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign, ironically, did less real damage to Stalin’s memory than to the Soviet nation’s belief in itself and in its socialist ideal. His direct assault on the sanctity of the Soviet statehood itself, psychologically identified with the name of Stalin, brought out a deep disillusionment and cynicism in people toward their Socialist State, and thus demoralized the socialist spirit in the USSR, eventually contributing to the latter’s collapse.
Thus, I think, socialism had failed in its most promising stronghold. Let us be honest about it. Considering that the spirit of socialism is the best moral foundation for any society, had socialism ever existed anywhere on earth, that spirit should by now have long triumphed and established a socialist paradise on earth. Which only proves that, to cut the story short, real socialism, that is, the necessary combination of an idealistic faith and the practical implementation of the socialist political, economic, and social principles has never existed in objective reality.
The best practical alternative to theoretical socialism is perhaps a government-regulated private system of production, coupled with a socialist system of distribution, achieved by means of taxation and a centralized and comprehensive national system of social services, also including free medical care and a frequently re-adjusted minimum standard of living, guaranteed through the minimum wage figure and certain entitlement programs for the disadvantaged citizens. Some people may want to “recognize” such a system in existence in America, without paying attention to such necessary prerequisites of socialism as free medical care and a self-evident degree of economic fairness toward the working poor which certainly does not exist in America at all. Whether the presumably fairer European socio-economic system can be qualified as socialism cannot be defended either, as the current socio-political structure of even the richest European nations has been so utterly undermined by Europe’s immigration policies, turning the continent into a giant camp for displaced persons having no national, cultural, or any other kind of allegiance to their host states, demolishing, even theoretically, I am afraid, the very foundation of socialist society, with the long-term prospect of an eventual improvement going from bad to worse.
Remember that only in a nation-state, where the upper classes can identify with the lower classes more than with their upper-class peers in other nations, does the socialist idea stand a chance of becoming a reality.
The situation gets even more confusing in the case of socialism. While many of its opponents love equating it with “communism” or Marxism, both seen as sworn enemies of the West, others perceptively observe the obvious linguistic connection between “social” and “socialist,” and are ready to identify it with the Western way of life, particularly those happy beneficiaries of social socialism in Europe.
…Now, is socialism good or bad? Well, it actually depends on what we would like to call “socialism.” The said mishmash becomes outright hilarious as we juxtapose certain characteristic quotations from some well-known historical personages.
“Socialists, Communists, and Nihilists strive to uproot the foundations of civilized society,” declares Pope Leo XIII in 1878. (Quod apostolici muneris.) Fifty-three years later, Pope Pius XI observes that “Socialism is drifting toward the truths, which the Christian tradition has always supported. It cannot be denied that its program often comes close to the just demands of Christian reformers.” (Quadragesimo anno, 1931). The only way to harmonize these two "infallible" statements ex cathedra is to recognize the validity of the logical syllogism AÞ BÞ C and to conclude that Christian reformers, like the socialists, have striven “to uproot the foundations of civilized society,” which, considering where civilized society is today, may not even be such a bad thing…
Prince Otto von Bismarck, who, as Chancellor of Germany, outlawed all political organizations advocating “socialism” in Germany, also made this odd statement that “the state must introduce even more socialism in our Reich,” which certainly points to the same subconscious association of the words social and socialism, which I have previously pointed out.
There are even stranger instances of the word’s use, or perhaps, misuse:
“We are all Socialists nowadays,” said the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII of England, in his speech at the Mansion House in London in 1895.
On the other hand, this:
“Socialism is a fake, a comedy, a phantom, and a blackmail,” said Benito Mussolini in a speech in Milan in 1919. He would surely moderate this view in later years, vis-à-vis his national-socialist Comrade Hitler.
The list of these predictable oddities can go on and on, but what has already been cited should be enough. No wonder then that, as early as in 1845, Friedrich Engels openly grumbled that the notion of socialism in Germany was “vague, undefined, and indefinable.”
The quick question that comes to mind is what exactly is socialism? Here is Webster’s Dictionary. Among its three definitions, the second talks of the political movement, and the third of the Communist doctrine, so both of those can be dismissed at once for our purpose, observing however that the obvious confusion of its several meanings is one of the main causes of the comic word-usage mess. But let us focus on just the first Webster’s definition of socialism:
“Socialism is the theory or system of the ownership and operation of the means of production and distribution by society or the community, rather than by private individuals, with all members of society or the community sharing in the work and the products.”
The pertinent question now is whether socialism as-such has ever existed in reality. The Soviet model may have come fairly close to socialism, in proclaiming its spirit, and also in certain technicalities, yet not close enough. The first years of a “proletarian dictatorship” in Soviet Russia were explicitly class-discriminatory, anti-democratic, and patently anti-socialist. Lenin’s New Economic Policy was a calculated recourse to the practice of private enterprise. Stalin’s expectation of an imminent mortal clash with Germany turned Russia into a giant military camp, ironically, the closest she had ever come to socialism, but of the peculiar martial type, which I much hesitate giving the name of socialism to. What came after Stalin was a gradual slide into corruption and spiritual decline. Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign, ironically, did less real damage to Stalin’s memory than to the Soviet nation’s belief in itself and in its socialist ideal. His direct assault on the sanctity of the Soviet statehood itself, psychologically identified with the name of Stalin, brought out a deep disillusionment and cynicism in people toward their Socialist State, and thus demoralized the socialist spirit in the USSR, eventually contributing to the latter’s collapse.
Thus, I think, socialism had failed in its most promising stronghold. Let us be honest about it. Considering that the spirit of socialism is the best moral foundation for any society, had socialism ever existed anywhere on earth, that spirit should by now have long triumphed and established a socialist paradise on earth. Which only proves that, to cut the story short, real socialism, that is, the necessary combination of an idealistic faith and the practical implementation of the socialist political, economic, and social principles has never existed in objective reality.
The best practical alternative to theoretical socialism is perhaps a government-regulated private system of production, coupled with a socialist system of distribution, achieved by means of taxation and a centralized and comprehensive national system of social services, also including free medical care and a frequently re-adjusted minimum standard of living, guaranteed through the minimum wage figure and certain entitlement programs for the disadvantaged citizens. Some people may want to “recognize” such a system in existence in America, without paying attention to such necessary prerequisites of socialism as free medical care and a self-evident degree of economic fairness toward the working poor which certainly does not exist in America at all. Whether the presumably fairer European socio-economic system can be qualified as socialism cannot be defended either, as the current socio-political structure of even the richest European nations has been so utterly undermined by Europe’s immigration policies, turning the continent into a giant camp for displaced persons having no national, cultural, or any other kind of allegiance to their host states, demolishing, even theoretically, I am afraid, the very foundation of socialist society, with the long-term prospect of an eventual improvement going from bad to worse.
Remember that only in a nation-state, where the upper classes can identify with the lower classes more than with their upper-class peers in other nations, does the socialist idea stand a chance of becoming a reality.
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