Socialism is Communism.

[Sideroxylon]

You can curb them, not get rid of them.
You think that wanting to make money is evil and the profit motive should be eliminated. Good luck with that.

I think “wanting to make make money is evil”? That would be a weird essentialist take.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

All socialists are in essence advocating for communism (the total abolition of private property)

And those who aren't are not true socialists!

The comparison always bogs down because capitalism is an economic system, but communism is both an economic system and a political system.

When a political ideology is based on an economic system it becomes political. That applies to capitalism too.

I have a hundred cows. My neighbors decide I have too many cows and take 50 of them.
I have a hundred cows. My neighbors all vote on a government that will take 50 of them because they think I have too many cows.

What's the difference?

When your neighbors think you have too many cows it's just the opinion of a few (and if they take them it's stealing). When the majority of the country thinks you have too many cows it's you against society. You may not like it, but that's democracy.

The CEO and board have to turn up to the Company Shareholders AGM and explain themselves and their actions, and if they have screwed over the shareholders to the point that the majority of vote-able shareholders are upset, then those shareholders can get rid of them.

But who are those shareholders?

What happens when the government "messes up"? What happens, when, god forbid, someone like Trump is in control of virtually every important aspect of your life?

Well Trump was in control of an important aspect of my life, and he did screw it up. That makes the Republican party communist, right?

God, a Goldbug.
Do you consider crypto currency to be honest money?
I smell an Ancap at work.

Not just honest money, its the future of ponzi schemes money!

In fact, North Korea might be an example of the only actual socialist regime, according to the rigid definition, because it's pretty clear that all property is owned by the state, but it hasn't yet achieved Marx's vaunted classless state, because of the existence of a murderous dictator, and his privileged inner circle. They continue to exist with a spectacular standard of living at the expense of everyone else, in a class system.

That's the difference between communism and capitalism. In capitalism having a spectacular standard of living at the expense of everyone else is the stated goal, not a flaw.

 

[PhantomWolf]

But who are those shareholders?

Well, I thought that I'd made that quite clear in the first post, but as so often happens here, someone else took an irrelevant part of the analogy and bogged it down into minor details that had no effect on the overall analogy, just like a kid taking off and kicking the ball into a goal three playing fields over and then looking smug because they were able to totally miss the entire point of the original post.

The initial point was that the shareholders would be the people of the country through their voted-in representatives in the Government.

 

[theprestige]

When a political ideology is based on an economic system it becomes political. That applies to capitalism too.

I reject your taxonomy. Capitalism says nothing about how a society should be politically organized. Democracy, monarchy, autocracy, and others can all allow for private ownership of capital and free markets in their political system. Communism is a political system that explicitly proscribes those things.

Saying I have a preference for capitalism as an economic system doesn't make it a political system in the sense that communism is a political system.

The two have distinct and important differences.

 

[Thor 2]

In another thread, a poster suggested that there is a material difference between Communism and Socialism, and claiming that while Communism is a failed ideology (or at least implying that the Marxist/Leninist iterations were), Socialism is not. This could not be further from the truth. First, lets start with some definitions:

How do you come to that conclusion?

I like the ideals of communism, but think we haven't seen a good example of it as yet. These things get corrupted by those who attain power and totalitarian regimes have been the result. It doesn't mean it can't be done.

The Australian aborigines tribal "government" could be likened to communism, it has been suggested by others.

 

[abaddon]

How do you come to that conclusion?

I like the ideals of communism, but think we haven't seen a good example of it as yet. These things get corrupted by those who attain power and totalitarian regimes have been the result. It doesn't mean it can't be done.

The Australian aborigines tribal "government" could be likened to communism, it has been suggested by others.

OP has no clue what any of those term mean. Good luck.

In principle, communism is not a bad system. It took people to make a total mess of it. The works of Marx were largely not written by Marx at all. Marx was a louche. He relied on Engels to write the lot. Marx was a capitalist. He relied on sponging of the efforts of others all his life. Like Capitalism. The autobio of Marx is hilarious and bears no relation to actual communism. Engels drove all that nonsense. Marx merely lived of donations from Engels like the sponge he was.

How did Engels fund that? By siphoning off funds from his fathers company for Marx so he could maintain his various mistresses. and bastard children.

The US right wing do exactly the same, which makes it hilarious.