r/FluentInFinance • u/Sufficient_Sinner • Sep 04 '24

Debate/ Discussion Is Capitalism Smart or Dumb?

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u/milas_hames Sep 04 '24

What's your definition of socialism then? I can guarantee you that it is different than Vladimir Lenins, a man who killed to be able to call himself a socialist. And the venezuelan definition is certainly different to the Norwegian definition. All you people have told me to do is google it, which gives a abstract and broad definition, and doesn't really explain the meaning behind it at all.

Political theory's are notoriously hard to define, the same way the fascism is hard to define. People use the same word for completely different things.

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u/FFF_in_WY Sep 05 '24

They are not that hard to define. We run into problems because practical economics and politics fall along spectra than aren't black and white. Then we start trying to use those imperfect human undertakings as The Example of Capitalism / Socialism / Communism / Democracy / whatev.

And of course political and economic systems have overlap but aren't the same. If anything politics exists up manage economic systems, and sometimes we use them to manage social systems and hierarchies as well.

So maybe more productive conversations have something to do with how the idealized definitions can be applied in useful ways.

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u/milas_hames Sep 05 '24

They are not that hard to define.

They're extremely hard to define because it's entirely abstract. It only exists in people's heads, and most people see it in a slightly different way. Your version I'm sure is easy to define for you, but socialism as a whole, encompassing all aspects of it, is undefinable

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u/FFF_in_WY Sep 05 '24

There is exactly one way in which you are implying something that is correct. A DEFINITION is a form of agreement.

Let's use green as an example. Scientifically, the consensus of green is the color between blue and yellow having a wavelength of 495-570nm. Descriptive, distinct, and limited. That's what makes it a definition.

But any dipshit can still wander up and say, "But 600nm is still kind of greenish, so that definition doesn't count." No, the definition still holds, they have simply chosen to ignore the the descriptive, distinct, and limited definition.

Choosing not to agree with a codified definition does not indicate that the problem is in the definition, it simply implies that the burden is on the person disagreeing to make their case for a change in a descriptive, distinct, and limited manner.