[EliRivers]

That's kinda the basic premise of socialism - whereby an employee's salary is dissociated from the economic benefit they bring.

The basic premise of socialism is that the means of production are in social ownership. Paying employees based on the economic benefit they bring is not contradictory to socialism.

People call this socialism because, after so long hearing the term bandied about as a catch-all fear word, they simply apply it to anything that doesn't match their view of the one true God's own capitalism.

[omonra]

As someone who actually lived in a socialist country (the one that started the whole socialism business :), take it from me. While the original framework devised by Marx in the 19th century referred to means of production, in actuality the socialism that came to pass meant that salaries were set for a given position / seniority with no relation to the person's education or how good of a job they were doing.

Ie that was the socialism as it was practiced 'on the ground' (which was in no small part responsible for why USSR economy collapsed).

[EliRivers]

Sure, that's one set of data, but there are other organisations of various sizes and various degrees of socialism. To tar them all with the brush of the former USSR hardly seems fair.

[omonra]

At one point half the world was living under socialism - that's a pretty big set. Perhaps other species would have a better way of executing it :)