I have written about this topic before. I am fairly intellectual and have spent more than half my life learning stuff. I have reached what in Germany is the highest title one can reach in Academia, Herr Professor Doctor. I also have experienced the scourges of Socialism, including the murder of some family members and the loss of assets that should have been mine. Therefore I feel very qualified to write and express my opinion on the subject. I am disappointed, but not surprised, by the lack of response to my previous writings. Nevertheless, I will try once more to explain the meaning of the word SOCIALISM. It amazes me how many people do not know what Socialism is and ignore people like me or the many that have escaped from Socialist countries and continue to believe the BIG LIE that the workers’ paradise proffers. The root of the word “social” comes from the Latin “socialis” which means “an ally,” and “sociare” which means “to share.” Many words stem from these words:
Society – an enduring group that works together, from a society of artists, doctors, athletes and goes up to a nation of relatively like-minded people. The root word gives the flavor of closeness but not necessarily, the entire meaning of the word.
Social studies encompass the study of how society works, the history, government, and civics of a nation.
A social worker is not a Communist worker but a person that helps underprivileged and maladjusted people.
Social security is a government program that assures basic subsistence for the aged, the unemployed, and the widow or widower.
Social welfare is the public or private services that provide assistance to disadvantaged groups.
Social diseases are diseases that are contracted through close contact, and you can’t get much closer. So you see, the word “social” does relate to humans in close contact, but the final meaning can be as diverse as getting Syphilis to studying civics.
Socialism does deal with doing things together but has an entirely different meaning from all those other words that have “social” in them. Social Welfare was actually invented by the ultra-right-wing German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. It is he who came up with Workman’s Compensation, Old age pension insurance, and health insurance. He started this in 1881 to actually combat more radical Marxist proposals. If there ever was someone who did not have a socialist bone in his body, it was Otto von Bismarck. He wrote a letter to the Reichstag, the German Parliament, “…those who are disabled from work by age and invalidity have a well-grounded claim to care from the state.”
Socialism is something quite different. It is not Social Welfare; it is not Social Security; it is not Social Service or social diseases, even though I call Socialism a disease of society. The definition of Socialism, once and for all, is “when the state owns or controls the means of production and distribution of goods.”
It is a philosophy that first was mentioned in a Parisian journal, Le Globe, in 1832 and followed shortly by Henri de Saint-Simon, who proposed the concept of shared ownership. In 1867 Karl Marx published his first version of Das Kapital. Here he laid down the principles of state ownership and elimination of private property.
And incidentally, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway are Democracies, and not Socialists or Democratic Socialists, if you look it up! They gave that up thirty years ago, sold all their publicly owned businesses, and reverted to a market economy along with India, Israel, New Zealand, England, most of the ten USSR’s client states, and of course Russia itself. Someone should clue in Bernie Sanders along with the Squad and any newly trained Marxists to stop holding them up as Socialist success examples. They are successful but not Socialists!
So often, I see people equating Socialism with Social Welfare, Medicare, and Social Security, and pretty much any government-funded program. Just because the word “social” appears or some benefit from public funds does not automatically make it Socialism. Medicare and Social Security are in fact funded by us over our work life, and Social Welfare is by no means related to state ownership or control of production, distribution, and elimination of private property. I know many people think that any publicly funded program is Socialism, including some presidents of the United States, but that does not make it factually correct. What “they” say Socialism is, is not what it actually is. They are just plain mistaken. The Oxford Dictionary is still the principal historical dictionary of the English language, and Socialism is defined as already stated. To be precise, it is worth repeating, so I copied it directly from the Oxford website: “ A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” The second definition is a bit more sinister, “a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of Communism!” for those of you from Peoria.
I have up close and personal experiences with the real deal of what Socialism is. Both my parents had to run for their lives from a variety of forms of Socialism. My Uncle was shot in the head in the streets of Bucharest by Communist troops in the early 1940s for being “rich.” Needless to say, he did not make it. My Grandmother was imprisoned in a Siberian Gulag for ten years for political reasons. She amazingly survived and was released in 1953 in her mid-seventies when Stalin died. My parents lost all their possessions twice because of the miracles of Socialism, just like many Venezuelans or Cubans. If you render your opinions, you should at least have the basics down and not spread more ignorance. I see it as a duty and have an uncontrollable urge to set misguided people on the right track!
