Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Admiral Yi]

That's a bit broad - under that definition pretty much every functioning regime was socialist: from Bronze Age Egypt to the Roman Empire to Wilhelmine Germany to Eisenhower Era 1950s America.

What's your alternative definition?

[Grey Fox]

His paternal grandfather, WHJ Musk, did.

On which side?

Ours.

Haldeman is the racist one.

[DGuller]

I'm starting to wonder whether the Democratic Republic of North Korea really is a democracy. 

[The Minsky Moment]

That's a bit broad - under that definition pretty much every functioning regime was socialist: from Bronze Age Egypt to the Roman Empire to Wilhelmine Germany to Eisenhower Era 1950s America.

What's your alternative definition?

A system in which the state plays a significant role in capital allocation, typically through direct control of the "commanding heights" of the economy (communications, finance, mining, etc).  In this sense, the Nazi economy was at best semi-socialist.  Hitler pursued prestige projects like the "Volks"products, but even this was done through and in cooperation with private industry.  The Nazis also implemented complex credit controls, but it was all for the purpose of funding arms.  The Nazi's arrangement with the industrialists is that they would be allowed to operate business without much interference, and gain the benefit of lucrative arms-related contracts, in return for accepting the political domination of the one-party state.

[Valmy]

Although they're not the only options

Well to the people who typically insist the Nazis were socialists, they are.

[Admiral Yi]

A system in which the state plays a significant role in capital allocation, typically through direct control of the "commanding heights" of the economy (communications, finance, mining, etc).  In this sense, the Nazi economy was at best semi-socialist.  Hitler pursued prestige projects like the "Volks"products, but even this was done through and in cooperation with private industry.  The Nazis also implemented complex credit controls, but it was all for the purpose of funding arms.  The Nazi's arrangement with the industrialists is that they would be allowed to operate business without much interference, and gain the benefit of lucrative arms-related contracts, in return for accepting the political domination of the one-party state.

OK.  I will roll this around in my head for a while.

Question though.  Who owns the naming rights to socialism?  Is there an authority we can turn to and say if these guys say you need A B and C for socialism?

[garbon]

Yes

[The Minsky Moment]

OK.  I will roll this around in my head for a while.

Question though.  Who owns the naming rights to socialism?  Is there an authority we can turn to and say if these guys say you need A B and C for socialism?

The Socialist International Terminological Bureau of course.

Anyone can use the term however they want.  But a super broad definition makes the term less useful because it doesn't make helpful distinctions between different kinds of regimes.

The Nazi=socialism argument doesn't really have anything to do with defining socialism in any useful way.  Present day GOP Trumpies just use the word "Socialism" as a term of abuse to attack anything they don't like.  And the Nazi=socialism is really just a rhetorical way to attack modern social democratic states by suggesting an affinity with Nazism which is an historical inanity. The real life SDs and Nazis were (literally) mortal political enemies.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't disagree with any of that.  But the question still remains.  To ask it differently, what thought process did you undertake to arrive at that particular definition?

My thought process was this.  When you socialize the costs of a public service that is socialism.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't disagree with any of that.  But the question still remains.  To ask it differently, what thought process did you undertake to arrive at that particular definition?

My thought process was this.  When you socialize the costs of a public service that is socialism.

I think there is a different threshold for saying a specific policy is "socialist" versus an entire country's economic system is socialist. E.g. a country like the United States that has a few socialist Federal policies and some rarer state level ones, but is overwhelmingly structured as a liberal market economy, doesn't meet the threshold for being a "socialist country."

[The Minsky Moment]

I don't disagree with any of that.  But the question still remains.  To ask it differently, what thought process did you undertake to arrive at that particular definition?

Find a definition that isn't so broad that every modern regime not run on strict libertarian lines doesn't qualify as socialist, but not so narrow that nothing qualifies. Under my definition the Wilson era UK qualifies as socialist, but Thatcherite Britain doesn't. Under the one you proposed, they both are. 

[Josquius]

I would agree with the "government do stuff" definition of socialism as much as that's more normally a liberal smear.
Though with the disclaimer of that being stuff directly related to improving the lives of its people.
Military spending et al is unrelated.

Basically zero modern nation in history has ever been completely socialist. The early Soviet Union certainly dabbled with "great success" but they soon backtracked on that and I'm not sure on counting transitional periods, it has to last.

By the same token no nation in history has ever been completely the opposite, whether you want to call it capitalist, liberal, libertarian, anarchist, whatever. Victorian Britain certainly had vibes then there's the typical example of Somalia but that's hardly the intent.

Bacially every nation for as long as the modern concept of nations and government as we know it has been in place is some mix of the two.
Fascism is of course where things get weird and trying to split the world into a nice neat dichotomy really falls apart. They were decidedly illiberal conservatives despite having many of the trappings of liberals.

[The Brain]

Is Social Democracy Socialist?

[crazy canuck]

When did socialism stop being about the control of the means of production, and instead become government services?

[Josquius]

Is Social Democracy Socialist?

It's the dominant form of socialism.

When did socialism stop being about the control of the means of production, and instead become government services?

Late 19th century.