[ExI] Socialism

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 17/10/2026 17:50, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 16, 2026, 8:41 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> >     socialism
>
> You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.

On 17/10/2026 17:50, spike wrote:
> Piker is openly promoting European-style socialism.

I have been learning a bit about the different types of socialism, and it's not surprising that the word generates a lot of heat. The word on its own is almost meaningless, and I think it always needs qualifying. Spike's use of the term 'European-style socialism' is puzzling, because his comment implies that he regards it as a bad thing, whereas to me, it means the kind of socialism used in the scandinavian countries ('social democracy': https://www.eurosocialists.org/what-is-social-democracy-explained/), which score very highly on economic, freedom and happiness indices. I presume this is not spike's intention, and he's referring to the type of socialism that is the theoretical stepping-stone to communism (but always becomes a de-facto end point, which is why no actual communist states exist).

Could you clarify, spike?

The terminology is confusing, and I'm sure there are going to be people who will argue with the definitions used in the website linked to above, but it looks very reasonable to me.

In keeping with spike's idea of numerically quantifying complex things, it might be useful to create a system for representing exactly what someone means, instead of using a word that's certain to be misunderstood by at least some people.

Some suggested features which could be scored on a scale:

market-based economy (capitalism)
democratically determined boundaries on capitalism (regulation of capitalism)
worker and community representation that affects the above regulation

welfare state, paid for via taxes:
free education
free healthcare
free, or subsidised, childcare
unemployment benefit
state pensions ('state' doesn't necessarily mean individual states, could be federal govt.)
tax the rich more than the poor

A high score on all the above would correspond to Social Democracy.

An alternative would be something like the comparison table in the above website (https://www.eurosocialists.org/what-is-social-democracy-explained/#comparison-table-key-differences), which summarises the four systems that the site discusses, in terms of five features, including an overall goal of each system. I would quibble with one item in it, the Workers Rights under 'Socialism' (which might be clearer if it said 'Communist Socialism') shows "Worker control". I'm pretty sure that, although that's the theory, in practice no actual (communist) socialist country allows that, and workers rights are firmly under state control.

I noticed that the Social Democrats of America website uses 'Social Democrat' and 'Democratic Socialism' interchangeably, which adds to the confusion, but I /think/ they are actually social democrat, and not advocating for a transition to communism.

Comments, and proposals for alternative ways of clarifying what someone actually means when they say 'socialist', are welcome.

-- 
Ben
"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." - Pablo Casals, via Albert Einstein