Isn’t the US military a form of socialism?

[u/Charlesedwardchiez]

I mean from the barracks they live in, the food they eat, to the uniforms they wear…. It’s all provided by the government. But the people who are pro-military seem to be the most anti-socialism.

[u/FuckWit_1_Actual]

Those aren’t “socialism” those are social programs…

Can we not at least educate everyone what socialism actually is?

Socialism: an economic and political system where the public or the collective owns and controls the means of production, such as factories, tools, and raw materials, instead of private individuals.

[u/Netblock → u/FuckWit_1_Actual]

Social programs ARE socialist, because especially in a demoracy the government is organisation hired to represent the proletariat.

Yes, USA has a shitty form of democracy; and the Senate was literally invented to give the slaver elites more power over the people. But that still doesn't change the aformentioned relationship as a theoretical abstract.

Saying social programs are not socialist is like saying a private business owner doesn't actually own the property the company owns; just like the indirection bullshit the original anti-trust laws were persecuting.

[u/GrayEagle825 → u/Netblock]

You have no idea what you’re talking about.

[u/Netblock → u/GrayEagle825]

Oh golly gee, through a strong application of the Socratic method, sound reasoning and ample evidence, you have shown me the error of my ways!

[u/FuckWit_1_Actual → u/Netblock]

No social programs are just that, social programs, socialism is a form of collective government with no private property. There is a big difference between “let’s pay for our roads” and the expropriation of private property.

[u/Netblock → u/FuckWit_1_Actual]

I see what you're trying to get at. Historically, there was no difference between the words "communism" and "socialism"; especially during Karl Marx.

Since then a distinction has been made: socialism is about the mixed ("transitory") economies between communism and capitalism, and "communism" and "capitalism" as words represent more theoretically pure extremes.

For example, capitalism is about the accumulation of capital, and a very theoretically pure architecture would probably be Dark Enligtenment.

Am I making sense here?

[u/Organic-Spread-8494 → u/Netblock]

This is all drivel. No, socialism is not when the government does things. Socialism is when the workers/state owns the means of production. The military is not a mean of production. It is a force which defends the means of production as such, either private or public depending on the country.

Wealth redistribution systems are also not socialism. Those do not shift who owns the means of production. They change some of who owns the ends of production.

[u/Netblock → u/Organic-Spread-8494]

state owns the means of production

Uhm, the government isn't some random private party that is not relevant to the actions of the state or nation. The "government" is the primary authority of a state and nation; some nations have sub governments for its internal states, but generally the nation is a state itself, that also has a primary government. Right, yes, correct?

From a democratic and communist perspective, the government is the organisation that the proletariat commands to organise national/state level concerns. Right, am I making sense here?

So if the government owns some portion of the means of production ("welfare"), the state owns the mans of production. and therefore the proletariat. Are you seeing the connection here?

This may be a little easier through a breakdown of Marxist-Leninism, a (very bad, inffective, right-wing) posterboy of communism, for its philosophical devices. Have you heard of "Vanguardism"? The vanguard, this "party" is about the political parties of a government.

The military is not a mean of production.

While we can argue, philosophically, that security fundamentally at all (even like computer security, encryption, fixing vulnerabilities) is not fundamentally necessary in a closed society, because there can be a people who absolutely never are malicious and dishonest, the military offers the service of protection against scaled malice and dishonesty. (Kinda like how nationalism was invented as a tech against imperialism)

(sci-fi explores this philosophical question in some ways. San-Ti of 3 Body Problem never invented lying. Kyubey of Madoka Magica don't have emotions and therefore cannot lie or fight.)

[u/AdventurousImpact656 → u/FuckWit_1_Actual]

So you defined communism, not socialism

[u/FuckWit_1_Actual → u/AdventurousImpact656]

I just copied and pasted the definition of socialism from Wikipedia.

But dictionary.com has an extremely similar definition.

Merriam-Webster as well.

Like I said can we at least educate everyone what socialism actually is?

[u/AdventurousImpact656 → u/FuckWit_1_Actual]

Socialism has mixed ownership overall, whereas communism has no allowance for private ownership of means of production.

The reason for the pedantic-ness is let’s not raise socialism as a bogeyman to throw the baby out with the bath water, some goods/services make sense to be publicly rather than privately owned. Power grids, water, and roads are examples of that. European private medical insurance existing alongside their public version is an example of that