This is a nice summary and a powerful suggestion that there has been a very well-organized propaganda campaign to negativize the connotation of the word "socialism:" “Socialism in many dictionaries is defined as the state ownership of the means of production. Now this definition is due to certain historical changes. That is to say, the U.S.S.R. and the fact that supporters of capitalism—particularly in America—labeled the U.S.S.R. as ‘socialist’ in order to make socialism seem authoritarian and totalitarian and quite inefficient as an economic form, while U.S.S.R. bureaucrats and worshippers of Stalin used the word to describe their society to gain (for their society) the positive implications that the word ‘socialism’ had. So, in both cases, we have propaganda, and the ensuing result is that ‘socialism’ (now) means a totalitarian, state-controlled society. Now, prior to the arrival of the U.S.S.R. and the awful ideologies such as Leninism, socialism was understood as the advocacy of a society in which the means of production are owned in common and in which there is worker self-management of the means of production. Now, the common usage of the word, ‘socialism,’ has changed, except to socialist circles, indeed to all of them unfortunately, (in which) socialism has that historical definition, but outside that you’ll get individuals who say ‘Obama is a socialist’ or say ‘Hollande (in France) is a socialist,’ which is just ludicrous, or, as it were, North Korea is socialist. This shows that the common usage of a word is not always correct and is itself the product of historical changes.”
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 16:50:40 +0000
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