[cercatrova]

> People get confused because they've conflated socialism and communism, where communism is a means of controlling and distributing the means of production across the people; an economic model that differs from socialism which puts the needs of the people in control of the state; but allows innovation outside of that.

This is incorrect. Socialism is workers owning the means of production. Communism is a post-capitalist classless stateless society. When people say socialist in terms of the Nordic countries, it is more about social democracy than workers owning the means of production.

[dijit]

The problem with our understanding of the term is that it's used by people who mean socialism to be communism, and have conflated them. (perhaps unintentionally).

Even in Marxist theory, which is the point of reference to communism, Karl Marx States: ‘socialism is the first stage of the worldwide transition to communism’

Ergo it is not communism in of itself.

I'll leave this little prose from the bottom of the dictionary definition for socialism:

> The term ‘socialism’ has been used to describe positions as far apart as anarchism, Soviet state Communism, and social democracy; however, it necessarily implies an opposition to the untrammelled workings of the economic market. The socialist parties that have arisen in most European countries from the late 19th century have generally tended towards social democracy

[mbg721]

"True Communism" has always been the promise of heaven-on-earth without a God. It never happens, of course--any power vacuum is immediately filled by greedy people with no scruples. At least in a society with a God, there's something for the power-brokers to be afraid of.

[dijit]

I fully agree.

Autocrats are pervasive and sometimes they feel inevitable, which is why it's nice when we are able to build social structures that are resistant to corruption.

Unfortunately even they are fallible.

But why did you say this in response to my comment?