This is never true in the real world, everything is a spectrum. Do you think there are any countries that are 100% socialist in today’s world? If yes, then I highly doubt it’s actually true, if not, I suppose you count them as “100% capitalist”, which is a classic “no true Scotsman” fallacy.
it’s not a no true scotsman, if it were I could use this argument against you if you tried to claim all cats are dogs, you fundamentally misunderstand how that fallacy works, these societies do not meet the well defined criteria and I would say no they are not socialist but may be attempting to build it. The point of this fallacy is when you baselessly claim something is not what it is not according to the defining characteristics but rather by a vague feeling. If I said no true cat mates with other dogs successfully, similarly, I would not be committing a fallacy.
i am stating that socialism is when the workers own the means of production, if they do not then it is simply definitionally not socialist in the same way that if it can only breed with other cats it is a cat and not a dog.
No, there is not a single currently socialist country. It is not a spectrum, either the workers own the means of production or they do not.
if it can only breed with other cats it is a cat and not a dog.
By this overly simplistic definition you would count infertile cats as non-cats. You also completely lose the ability to differentiate the species of non-sexually reproducing organisms. And then there’s the insanity that is hybridization. Is a mule a horse or a donkey? They can occasionally reproduce with either of them.
In reality, differentiating species is a complicated science/art that involves not only the reproductive isolation, but also morphology and genetics, all with the goals of coming up with the most useful definitions for species.
In just the same way with economic systems. Workers in different societies and periods exercise different levels of control (which is the underlying meaning of ownership) on the means of production, it’s not black and white. It can be very roughly defined as (workers control over the state) * (relative assets of state-controlled enterprises) + (relative assets of co-ops or other directly worker-owned enterprises). There is of course a lot more nuances to be discussed, such as the exact distribution of control between different subclasses of workers, or the social hierarchies arising from the structures of control. Once again, the goal is to come up with a useful scale to gauge how much a certain country or region has progressed on its way to socialism, to learn from their mistakes and to build better governance systems in the future.
By this overly simplistic definition you would count infertile cats as non-cats. You also completely lose the ability to differentiate the species of non-sexually reproducing organisms. And then there’s the insanity that is hybridization. Is a mule a horse or a donkey? They can occasionally reproduce with either of them.
this is not the point at all… yes it was an overly simplistic way to explain how you’re using the fallacy wrong. You still used it wrong.
In just the same way with economic systems. Workers in different societies and periods exercise different levels of control (which is the underlying meaning of ownership) on the means of production, it’s not black and white. It can be very roughly defined as (workers control over the state) * (relative assets of state-controlled enterprises) + (relative assets of co-ops or other directly worker-owned enterprises). There is of course a lot more nuances to be discussed, such as the exact distribution of control between different subclasses of workers, or the social hierarchies arising from the structures of control.
no it cannot because it’s referring to whether or not the workers control them and on a societal scale this is a binary flip, at some point the workers are more in control than the bourgoeis and at that point it is socialism and at any point before it is not.
no it cannot because it’s referring to whether or not the workers control them and on a societal scale this is a binary flip, at some point the workers are more in control than the bourgoeis and at that point it is socialism and at any point before it is not.
Aha, so you do agree that different societies have different levels of control the working class and the bourgeois have over production, but you seem to be convinced that if that “relative level of proletarian control” is below 50% the state is fully capitalist, and otherwise the state is fully socialist. Why do you think this definition is more useful than the obvious one, where we retain the scale instead of quantizing it into a binary form?
This question is especially relevant because you also seem to believe that there currently aren’t any “socialist” countries by your definition. By retaining the spectrum, we can then make analytical statements like “China is more socialist than the US”.
marxism does not define socialism as “more worker influence than before” but as an actual change in the relations of production. really the decisive question is which class controls surplus and exists and continues itself as a ruling class.
the binary is not 50 percent versus 49 percent. it is whether bourgeois property relations have been superseded.
it’s not a no true scotsman, if it were I could use this argument against you if you tried to claim all cats are dogs, you fundamentally misunderstand how that fallacy works, these societies do not meet the well defined criteria and I would say no they are not socialist but may be attempting to build it. The point of this fallacy is when you baselessly claim something is not what it is not according to the defining characteristics but rather by a vague feeling. If I said no true cat mates with other dogs successfully, similarly, I would not be committing a fallacy.
i am stating that socialism is when the workers own the means of production, if they do not then it is simply definitionally not socialist in the same way that if it can only breed with other cats it is a cat and not a dog.
No, there is not a single currently socialist country. It is not a spectrum, either the workers own the means of production or they do not.
By this overly simplistic definition you would count infertile cats as non-cats. You also completely lose the ability to differentiate the species of non-sexually reproducing organisms. And then there’s the insanity that is hybridization. Is a mule a horse or a donkey? They can occasionally reproduce with either of them.
In reality, differentiating species is a complicated science/art that involves not only the reproductive isolation, but also morphology and genetics, all with the goals of coming up with the most useful definitions for species.
In just the same way with economic systems. Workers in different societies and periods exercise different levels of control (which is the underlying meaning of ownership) on the means of production, it’s not black and white. It can be very roughly defined as (workers control over the state) * (relative assets of state-controlled enterprises) + (relative assets of co-ops or other directly worker-owned enterprises). There is of course a lot more nuances to be discussed, such as the exact distribution of control between different subclasses of workers, or the social hierarchies arising from the structures of control. Once again, the goal is to come up with a useful scale to gauge how much a certain country or region has progressed on its way to socialism, to learn from their mistakes and to build better governance systems in the future.
this is not the point at all… yes it was an overly simplistic way to explain how you’re using the fallacy wrong. You still used it wrong.
no it cannot because it’s referring to whether or not the workers control them and on a societal scale this is a binary flip, at some point the workers are more in control than the bourgoeis and at that point it is socialism and at any point before it is not.
Aha, so you do agree that different societies have different levels of control the working class and the bourgeois have over production, but you seem to be convinced that if that “relative level of proletarian control” is below 50% the state is fully capitalist, and otherwise the state is fully socialist. Why do you think this definition is more useful than the obvious one, where we retain the scale instead of quantizing it into a binary form?
This question is especially relevant because you also seem to believe that there currently aren’t any “socialist” countries by your definition. By retaining the spectrum, we can then make analytical statements like “China is more socialist than the US”.
marxism does not define socialism as “more worker influence than before” but as an actual change in the relations of production. really the decisive question is which class controls surplus and exists and continues itself as a ruling class.
the binary is not 50 percent versus 49 percent. it is whether bourgeois property relations have been superseded.