[stale2002]

> Dude, the cold war is over, the communists are gone

Correct, that is kind of my point. Socialists and communists are becoming more and more irrelevant in the modern era. That does not change the definition of what "The means of production" are though.

I am not too worried about socialists taking over. They lost, and aren't going to take back the means of production from anyone.

> is not about taking away all of your stuff

Well yeah. That is because they are no longer relevant, because of how significantly they lost, and because of how much capitalism has become the defacto government system, all around the world, even in many places that used to call themselves socialist.

If socialists want to redefine socialism to be actually be just capitalism, but with a slightly more expansive social safety net, with more free healthcare and government programs, I guess that is fine by me.

But I am not going to call that socialism.

[dragonwriter]

> Socialists and communists are becoming more and more irrelevant in the modern era.

Leninists and their descendants might be; socialists aren't any more than capitalists are, as pretty much every advanced economy is some hybrid of the two. Because of the Cold War (by which point that was already largely true), it's become fashionable to call those mixed economies “capitalist”, that is not particularly accurate (though it comports well with Leninist propaganda.)

[ClumsyPilot]

The capitalist state you are celebrating is grafting on increasingly more socialist elements. Stop thinking about the cold war and start thinking about the past 200 years. There didn't use to be public education, police, justice system, etc. This trend is going to continue.

[stale2002]

I already said that if you want to redefine socialism as to be capitalism with a slightly bigger safety net, and some government funding of education/healthcare you can do that.

But I am not going to call that socialism.

That's just capitalism, with a slightly larger safety net.

[dragonwriter]

You are expanding the definition of capitalism. Why is that expansion to be preferred over what you call expanding the definition of socialism? Especially since socialists defined both?

[stale2002]

Sure, so I can explain why my definition is better, using an example that you gave.

You said that a reasonable definition of socialism was the following: "means you can't own those goods while renting labor"

This situation, is so far removed, so far out there, so far significantly different than the current state of the world, that it makes no sense at all to call the current state of the world "socialist".

The situation you gave, is far, far outside the norm of how the world currently works, and is borderline unimaginable as to how such a society would even look like.

But my situation, of "Capitalism countries put more money into existing social safety net programs" is easily immaginable. It require no restructuring of society. It merely requires a bit more money, being put into existing programs.

Or in other words, not much would change.

Wheras making it so "you can't own those goods while renting labor" would mean that basically every major company in the world would have to be shutdown or restructured. It is such a massive change, that I cannot even begin to guess as to what such a world would look like.

If you want to make up a new word, or something, that describes giving a bit more money to existing social safety net programs, go ahead.

But whatever you decide to call it, please do not pretend that it is any way similar to if people "can't own those goods while renting labor". The situations are so extremely different, that it makes no sense to describe them using the same word.