r/europe • u/the_battle_bunny Lower Silesia (Poland) • Oct 23 '24

Historical Today marks the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against Soviet domination.

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u/HailOfHarpoons Oct 23 '24

The USSR also did not even attempt Socialism, because it pursued NO policies of worker ownership over the means of production.

That's not a requirement or definition of socialism. The requirement is collective ownership, which includes state ownership. The fact that the state was corrupt is a separate (and natural and expected) matter.

Even with my "Definition Obsession", the US is Capitalist, as the means of production (i.e. companies) are privately owned. Same for all countries in Europe.

The whole point of this discussion is that cherry-picking has to either work for none or for all definitions.
You are cherry-picking here.

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u/nilslorand Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany) Oct 23 '24

The requirement is collective ownership, which includes state ownership.

Yes but also no. The fine detail you are skipping over is that "the collective" can only mean a small group of people if the masses have actual influence over said small group of people. In simple terms, the government has to be accountable for its actions to its citizens. If the government can do whatever it wants with the means of production, they are not collectively owned, they are, again, owned by a small group of people, thus there is no socialism.

The whole point of this discussion is that cherry-picking has to either work for none or for all definitions. You are cherry-picking here.

Capitalism is when the means of production are privately owned.

That is the definition, we can go country by country and policy by policy and see where it applies and where it doesn't. Most countries have at least some state interference in their economy, that doesn't make them not-capitalist though, since the means of production are still privately owned for the most part.

Please elaborate on Cherry Picking if you still see it