"Individuals use them to start their own businesses which succeed or fail based on the market."
Sounds like Capitalism to me, except the part where they take money at the point of a gun to subsidize this program.
See the problem here is you insist on calling the fruits of Capitalism Socialist at any opportunity. Nothing done under the Marcora laws requires Socialism to be implemented. In fact the majority of the policies it contains are implemented in some form in other countries, and none of them are calling it Socialist."Individuals use them to start their own businesses which succeed or fail based on the market."
Socialists like these laws because they put the means of production into the hands of the worker who would otherwise have to sell his labor for the rate dictated by some capitalist, or live off of the government unemployment benefit indefinitely.
I don't know anything about money being taken at the point of a gun and no one in the american socialist party would condone such so we are all on the same page here.
To you Socialism is some nebulous warm feeling blanket of a term that wraps you up in visions of utopia, equality, and rainbows. The real world has rainbows, that's about it, and real Socialism has a quite a body count every time some one tries to implement it at scale.
Nope, to me socialism is simply workers and communities having freedom and control over their own labor and production.
I find people such as yourself always think they have it all figured out, and all I need to do is just read more because I just don't understand it. I do. I was you.
. You still are me. We have the same views on just about everything here. The main thing we disagree on the semantics of the word socialism. You have switched the words capitalism and socialism and think that I (and all dictionaries as well as the American socialist party) are the ones who have switched them. I understand that you are basing your definition of socialism on the behaviors of governments that have operated under the name "socialist" or "communist" party and that is probably a position shared by people who lived in the former soviet union. I will concede this because it is not worth arguing over what word to use to classify an economic system by when we all agree on basic principles that are is bad and good.
Lets just call them System 1 and System 2.System 1: People are oppressed by a power hierarchy. The fruits of labor are stolen by force or contract. People do not have the liberty to do what they want with their own lives. In the end, needs are not even met.
System 2: People live in freedom and have control over their own lives. People are entitled to the fruits of their labor and have the opportunity to be innovative entrepreneurs. Morale is high.
Why quibble over silly semantics when we could discuss actual differences with respect to the correct means to the same end? We all (correct me if I'm wrong) hate system 1 and want system 2. That means it is not productive to continue to talk about how system 1 has failed in the past. We agree on the end but perhaps we differ on the means to that end. Why not talk about that instead of arguing about which word to use to describe things we agree on.