General Definition of Socialism for newfags and Holla Forums Invaders

I think it's time to remind everyone what being a Socialist means broadly and/or generally, since we've been getting a lot of traffic from Holla Forums and B████crats lately and will probably get more once the Richard Wolff endorsement happens:

Socialism is a term which describes any individual, movement, or party which:

-advocates for workers owning their own means of production (AKA their workplace or tools of labor) and democratically distributing the yields of labor amongst themselves

-this goes for all workers regardless of gender or race

-in a "Statist" Socialism some type of government which safeguards this right of labor to control its own productive forces or in "Antistatist" Socialism (Such as the various strains of Anarchism or Libertarian Marxism) a Federated series of workers councils which meet on a regular basis to decide the affairs of their communes and/or co-ops

Yes I realize the Statist/Antistatist dichotomy has problems but this is meant to be a rough primer for newfags so please forgive my oversimplification here

Socialism stands in opposition to Capitalism wherein:

-the means of production are privately owned by individuals and/or corporations

-the government works ultimately to safeguard the right of private ownership and capital accumulation

-The accumulation of Capital is considered more important than the rights of workers and ultimately, whether directly or indirectly, the owner of the MoP decides the way society is run

When discussing Socialism (and in turn Communism which is a moneyless and stateless society in which anyone who performs labor is the one who has control over it and there is no private property (means of production) but personal property (your house, your toothbrush etc) still remains) whether you are criticizing or defending it please refer back to this thread

Of course Socialism is not:

-Keynesianism
-Liberalism
-Neoliberalism
-Nazism
-Fascism
-Social Democracy (this one is a bit debatable since most modern Social Democratic parties were founded by Marxists and in turn some people think there can be a return to an earlier form of Social Democracy which is Socialistic but I am personally in the camp that doubts this)

I hope this helps!

Other urls found in this thread:

youtu.be/ysZC0JOYYWw?t=11m20s
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I disagree somewhat OP.

Socialism is production for use (it can be rationed based on need or available resources including labor)

Socialism is older than Marx, and was theorized differently throughout time. Worker ownership is an essential component to it, but many people here would agree with me when I say: somehow transitioning away from markets and employment and instituting production for use (guaranteed healthcare, food, housing, transport, etc) is also essential to socialism and totally necessitated by automation.
establishing gift economies and forms of unremunerated social labor (like open-source software and volunteering) are essential to developing communism

liberal pls go

Just watch this video:

youtu.be/ysZC0JOYYWw?t=11m20s

Don't let Holla Forums dictate it to you–too many dogmatic tankies and such here.

if you think production for exchange is socialism, you are the liberal
i 100% support worker coops as a step forward from capitalism

What alternate history is this guy even talking about?

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Good post. Defining socialism as solely >le worker ownership of le means of production is a huge oversimplification, and basically a meme.

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The manor system is not the same as the weird package of literally every aspect of the middle ages known as feudalism, and mercantalism was a thing.