[nicoburns]

> "Socialist" and "capitalist" aren't party alignments, they have concrete meanings.

I agree that they're not party alignments, but do they really have concrete meanings? In my experience they seems to mean different things to each person who uses them.

[jskdvsksnb]

>Socialism is a political, social and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management of enterprises.

> Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.

Both of those definitions encompass a wide range of economic systems, but they are fixed definitions. There's never going to be some inversion where "socialism" suddenly describes the private accumulation of capital.

[nicoburns]

A practical example:

Is a market-based system with strong progressive taxation and a large basic income capitalist? Is it socialist?

IMO it's not obvious and you could argue it either way for both terms.

[jskdvsksnb]

But compare that to trying to say whether that system is "Democrat" or "Republican". Either party could advocate for that policy, or the inverse policy, and they could change their stance at any time.