Who knew the socialist revolution would be won not by an uprising of the proletariat, but rather changing the definition of socialism?

Seriously though, I realize that the American right calls welfare socialism, but that's just rhetorical slight of hand. There's also some actual American socialists who cynically label such things socialism to get more members, believing they'll be able to just slip in abolition of capitalism later in a bait and switch strategy - similar to the one attempted during the early American labor movement.

But welfare isn't socialism. If it was, that would mean that a fair chunk of the world has been socialist centuries before the term was coined - including American colonies where free public education was first instituted in the 17th century. It would render the entire socialist movement, for most of its existence, nonsensical.

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henearkr 16 hours ago | parent [-]

You persist not seeing that this is a different meaning of the same word.

And this is the other way around, "socialism" had the softer meaning of "welfare" way before the communist dictatorship even happened in History.

Here, in the "etymology" section of this WP page, you will read that all definitions (Émile Littré, Paul Janet, Émile Laveleye, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Adolf Held, Thomas Kirkup, Émile Durheim, August Bebel, and Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition of 1911), i.e. all definitions given before 1911 except one by Pierre Leroux, point to the general meaning of "improving society by better distributing wealth and caring more":

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_socialism

And that's why new terms were used for the subsequent authoritarian events: marxism, communism, etc. They exist because "socialist" was too ambiguous as it was already taken for the meaning of "with caring for society welfare".

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Aloisius 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Those definitions are mostly from out of context quotes. Many are cherry picked from large works that go into substantially more detail about how the person defined socialism.

Paul Janet stated socialism is generally used to refer to a doctrine which undermines the principle of individual property.

Émile de Laveleye stated socialism demanded a laborer reap the whole fruits of his labor and if other factors like land and capital contributed, then they must be unified with the labor. In other words, worker ownership of the means of production.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, of course, believed property was theft and most certainly did not believe the continuation of property rights was an aspiration towards the amelioration of society, his definition of socialism.

Thomas Kirkup, who actually contributed the Encyclopaedia Britannica entry on socialism in 1887, stated that "Socialism means: 1) That the working people aim at gaining, by combination or association, the control of land and capital which they lost in the individual struggle. (2) That order, economy, and prevision should remedy the confusion, waste, and demoralisation caused by competition. (3) That industry should be carried on not for private gain, but for the common good."

Émile Durheim was describing Saint-Simon who called for centralized state regulation of production and distribution.

And the 11th edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica states that "Socialists believe that the present economic order, in which industry is carried on by private competitive capital, must and ought to pass away, and that the normal economic order of the future will be one with collective means of production and associated labour working for the general good. This principle of socialism is cardinal and fundamental."

Never mind that these are but a handful of definitions for socialism in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

	▲	henearkr 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm making you a favor, if you did not understand, to avoid you many trouble in your future. Also, I'll combine it with the symmetrical warning to European people lol: - to US guys: when speaking with people of European education or culture, the words socialist and communist have very different meanings. Mixing those will anger your interlocutor. You can avoid it easily by using common "synonyms" (in US) such as communist or marxist. - advice to EU people: be aware that in US they only think of "socialist" as meaning "communist" and are very obtuse about it. Danger zone!