{"id":4600,"date":"2011-03-07T10:20:33","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T18:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=4600"},"modified":"2025-12-15T20:33:55","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T04:33:55","slug":"on-the-meaning-of-socialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=4600","title":{"rendered":"On the Meaning of Socialism<\/q>"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a previous entry, I discussed the meaning — or lack<\/em> of meaning — of the word capitalism<\/q>.<\/a> With an eye towards future entries, I want to write now about the word socialism<\/q>.<\/p>

The OED<\/abbr><\/cite> (and the New SOED<\/abbr><\/cite>) provide the original definition of socialism<\/q>:<\/p>

A theory or policy of social organization which aims at or advocates the ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land, property, etc., by the community as a whole, and their administration or distribution in the interests of all.<\/blockquote>

It's pretty straight-forward: collective, communal ownership of the means of production, and administration for the collective benefit. But there's at least three<\/em> points to be raised here. First, and most important, is that different conceptions of the community are possible<\/em>. The community in question might be the whole world; it might be every human being within a particular jurisdiction; it might be a particular religious community; or it might be members of an ethnic<\/em> group of some sort. Second, the definition here does not intrinsically entail comprehensive<\/em> communal ownership; that is to say that it doesn't declare that all<\/em> means of production must be communally owned for a system to be socialistic. Third, those who indeed advocate a comprehensive<\/em> communal ownership of the means of production often fail to note that labor<\/em> is an important means of production, so that such ownership would mean that an individual must work when, where, and how the community or its representatives told him or her to work.<\/p>

Merriam-Webster gives us set of definitions, each somewhat different from that original definition:<\/p>

1:<\/span> any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a:<\/span> a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b:<\/span> a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3:<\/span> a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done<\/blockquote>

The first three M-W<\/abbr> definitions here (1, 2a, and 2b) all ignore the issue of for whose benefit<\/em> the means of production are employed. Definition 1 is additionally broader than the original, in that it includes state ownership as possibly different from collective ownership. Definitions 2a and 2b are each otherwise narrower, as one precludes any private property, and the other insists upon state ownership. The final definition is introduced because Marxism, an important school of thought, made peculiar use of the term. Jointly, this set of definitions illustrate how a word can lose usefulness when popular use is uncritically accepted.<\/p>

My 1975 copy of the AHD<\/abbr><\/cite> defines socialism<\/q> as<\/p>

1.<\/span> A social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods. 2.<\/span> The theory or practice of those who support such a social system. 3.<\/span> In Marxist-Leninist theory, the building, under dictatorship of the proletariat, of the material base for communism.<\/blockquote>

In the case of the first definition, one might begin by asking why the system should be called soci<\/u>alism<\/q>; there is no mention of soci<\/em>ety or of community here, except in-so-far as this is a social order (as would be many in which producers would not have ownership or political power). Even if we regard the relevant community as that of the producers, the definition says nothing of them owning qua<\/span> community; all<\/em> property could be private<\/em>, so long as the producers had means of production and distribution! Frankly, the author was so swept-up<\/em> in his or her theory<\/em> of socialism (recall the definition of capitalism<\/q> that appears in the same edition) that he or she lost sight<\/em> of its essential structure. (And perhaps the author was too enraptured to note that different folk would have different ideas about whom one should take to be a producer<\/em>.) The second definition is purely derivative of the first. The third definition pushes-aside Marxism more generally in favor of Marxist-Leninism in particular, but is roughly a reïteration of the same notion, for about the same reason.<\/p>

The 1993 version of the AHD<\/abbr><\/cite> defines it thus<\/p>

1.a.<\/span> A social system in which the means of producing and distributing goods are owned collectively and political power is exercised by the whole community. b.<\/span> The theory or practice of those who support such a social system. 2.<\/span> The building of the material base for communism under the dictatorship of the proletariat in Marxist-Leninist theory.<\/blockquote>

The first definition here has nearly restored the original sense: collective, communal ownership of the means of production, and administration for the collective benefit. (The three points that I raised in response remain germane.) But now there's an insistence that political power is exercised<\/u> by the whole community<\/q>. This is a response to the great embarrassment<\/em> of decidedly undemocratic<\/em> regimes claiming to represent the community in the administration of the means of production. (The reference to political power<\/q> in the earlier edition was probably an ineffectual attempt to deal with that embarrassment.) The second definition is again purely derivative of the first. The third that from the earlier edition, with a non-substantive reördering of words.<\/p>

All right now. When someone else<\/em> has introduced the word socialism<\/q> into the discourse, I've tried to respond to it based upon how that someone else is or at least seems to be using it, Or I've explicitly asked what he or she means by it; but when I've introduced or will introduce the word socialism<\/q> into the discourse, what I've meant is<\/p>

collective, communal ownership of the means of production and administration for the collective benefit<\/blockquote>

And I do plan to be writing again about socialism, very soon.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a previous entry, I discussed the meaning — or lack of meaning — of the word capitalism. With an eye towards future entries, I want to write now about the word socialism. The OED (and the New SOED) provide the original definition of socialism: A theory or policy of social organization which aims at […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,36,9,4],"tags":[947,946,150],"class_list":["post-4600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-economics","category-ideology-philosophy","category-public","tag-definitions","tag-dictionaries","tag-socialism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4600"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12734,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4600\/revisions\/12734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}