[ExI] Socialism and Environmentalism are inevitable

[Tara Maya]

On May 26, 2014, at 5:42 PM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com> wrote:

> What was the name of this political entity? The ISSR, the Indian Soviet Socialist Republic? Sorry, you're just plain wrong about India being a communist or socialist country. Private property, banks, democracy, etc. these are hardly the hallmarks of a communist or extremely socialist country.


My grandmother, a socialist, never confused socialism and communism. Communism is socialism by force. To her, socialism was compatible with democracy--what we would today call the welfare state. She believed that the last capitalist vestiges would fade away, but mustn't be crushed, so that for a while, capitalist and socialist institutions, or government-run and individual-run businesses would exist side by side. It was in this sense that I described India as socialist economy.

I think it's a hugely important difference, and we shouldn't concede to the Communists the monopoly of the word "socialism", nor let the extreme Right Wing insult socialists who believe in democracy by conflating the two either.  

Tara Maya
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