Greg, below is a definition of socialism. Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist - you might read the highlighted section on that. Just pointing out that there are many types of socialism. And you do realize, of course, that you currently live in a socialist state? How did we get highways? Schools? Fire departments? Police?
We got these things and more thru the allocation of capital collected by a central authority from the masses. That's socialism in action.
Socialism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the economic system and political philosophy. For other uses, see
Socialism (disambiguation).
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Socialism is a range of
economic and
social systems characterised by
social ownership and
democratic control of the
means of production,
[7] as well as the political ideologies, theories, and movements that aim at their establishment.
[8] Social ownership may refer to
public ownership,
cooperative ownership,
citizen ownership of equity, or any combination of these.
[9] Although there are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them,
[10] social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms.
[5][11][12]
Socialism can be divided into both non-market and
market forms.
[13] Non-market socialism involves the substitution of
factor markets and
money with engineering and technical criteria based on
calculation performed in-kind, thereby producing an economic mechanism that functions according to different
economic laws than those of
capitalism. Non-market socialism aims to circumvent the inefficiencies and
crises traditionally associated with
capital accumulation and the profit system.
[22] By contrast,
market socialism retains the use of monetary prices, factor markets, and, in some cases, the profit motive with respect to the operation of socially-owned enterprises and the allocation of capital goods between them. Profits generated by these firms would be controlled directly by the workforce of each firm or accrue to society at large in the form of a
social dividend.
[23][24][25] The feasibility and exact methods of resource allocation and calculation for a socialist system are the subjects of the
socialist calculation debate.
The socialist
political movement includes a diverse array of political philosophies that originated amid the revolutionary movements of the mid-to-late 1700s out of general concern for the social problems that were associated with capitalism.
[10] In addition to the debate over markets and planning, the varieties of socialism differ in their form of social ownership, how management is to be organized within productive institutions, and the role of the state in constructing socialism.
[2][10] Core dichotomies associated with these concerns include
reformism versus
revolutionary socialism, and
state socialism versus
libertarian socialism. Socialist politics has been both centralist and decentralized; internationalist and nationalist in orientation; organized through political parties and opposed to party politics; at times overlapping with trade unions and at other times independent of, and critical of, unions; and present in both industrialized and developing countries.
[26] While all tendencies of socialism consider themselves democratic, the term "democratic socialism" is often used to highlight its advocates' high value for democratic processes and political systems and usually to draw contrast to other socialist tendencies they may perceive to be undemocratic in their approach.[27]
By the late 19th century, and after further articulation and advancement by
Karl Marx and his collaborator
Friedrich Engels as the culmination of technological development outstripping the economic dynamics of capitalism,
[28] "socialism" had come to signify opposition to capitalism and advocacy for a
post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production.
[29][30] Socialism proceeded to emerge as the most influential secular political-economic worldview of the twentieth century,
[31] and while the emergence of the
Soviet Union as the world's first nominally
socialist state led to socialism's widespread association with the
Soviet economic model, many economists and intellectuals have argued that in practice the model functioned as a form of
state capitalism[32][33][34] or a non-planned administrative or command economy in practice.
[35][36] Socialist parties and ideas remain a political force with varying degrees of power and influence in all continents, heading national governments in many countries around the world. Today, some socialists have also adopted the causes of other social movements, such as
environmentalism,
feminism and
liberalism.
[37]
