# Western Europe and Socialism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 29, 2008, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-europe-and-socialism/470025 "2008-10-29T01:48:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2008, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-europe-and-socialism/470025/21 "2008-10-30T19:27:05Z")
> [@glee](#): > > For example, much of Western Europe has Universal Health care (in the UK it’s called the National Health Service). There does seem to be some weird obsession with health care in the US - health care being paid for by taxes is socialist, but roads, schools, the military and a billion other things aren’t. It’s like it’s singled out a some kind of sacred cow. What’s so\* special \*about it, as opposed to the aforementioned roads, emergency services, schools, etc.? It’s just it’s always the example we Americans cite as proof of “they’re socialist and we’re not”. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2008, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-europe-and-socialism/470025/22 "2008-10-30T20:24:14Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > There does seem to be some weird obsession with health care in the US - health care being paid for by taxes is socialist, but roads, schools, the military and a billion other things aren’t. It’s like it’s singled out a some kind of sacred cow. What’s so\* special \*about it, as opposed to the aforementioned roads, emergency services, schools, etc.? Because it helps people, and Americans as a whole HATE helping others. As a nation, we admire ruthlessness, being “tough” and a willingness to trample others for our own profit; we despise compassion. And we tend to be too arrogant to think that WE might need help, or to hold a double standard that we personally ( and possibly friends and family ) are the only ones who deserve help. And there’s plenty of opposition to funding schools as well. ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2008, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-europe-and-socialism/470025/23 "2008-10-30T20:58:24Z")
[QUOTE=IClaudius] No, I’ve been consistent the whole way through in stating that socialism does not define European-style organisation of political and economic life. But you keep retreating from this central contention to discuss tangential arguments about egalitarian movements which bear socialist labels. [/QUOTE] I have not been retreating from anything, I am actively fighting it. Your extremely narrow definition of socialism is simply incorrect. > [@](#): > > Yes, the accepted definition of socialism: the one you will find in history books and companions to political philosophy. A definition, but not the one and only definition. I would love to see cites stating otherwise, because all my history and political philosophy books spend a good chapter on the socialist movement and all its offshoots, especially Marxism - but I have yet to see one that claims Marxism is the only accepted form of socialism. > [@](#): > > You’re equivocating between the terminological nomenclature of state systems of organisation and ideological movements again. > > It’s pretty simple: we know what socialism means as a system. There is no mystery about it; it is defined by revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist class - as embodied by the nationalisation of the means of production. That is what the system of state socialism means, and as a system it has no functional or descriptive relationship to the European system of political economy and political philosophy under discussion here. That’s the end of the discussion. Hardly the end… why use the predicate ‘state’ in your ‘terminological nomenclature’ description? Why offer a redundancy in your definition if ‘state socialism’ and ‘socialism’ have the exact same meaning? You keep attempting to put socialism into a box that it has never fit into. > [@](#): > > No amount of further discussion about the real, authentic tradition of “socialism” or modern self-identifying socialist movements changes that. To do what you’re trying to do, you would have to explain why your special no true Scotsman definition of socialism displaces the accepted nomenclature, and crucially, why it ought to be thought to best describe and capture the European or Scandinavian model of political and economy organisation. You are the one claiming the one true Scotsman. I think it is on you to prove that your definition is the only [accepted](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism) [nomenclature](http://www.reference.com/browse/socialism). As I said above, I have not seen any texts that do so. > [@](#): > > My argument is actually the equivalent of referring to Catholicism by way of the institution of the Church, against a competing claim to the heart and soul of Catholicism, based in some reformation offshoot. Then please tell me how the Socialist International are the Lutherans and the Communist Party is the true Catholic church when history, including their organizations own histories, give them the opposite roles. Marx co-opted socialism with the Communist Manifesto. Socialists retook the reigns in 1951 with the creation of the modern organization. > [@](#): > > Which is again, you admitting my point without realising it. Social democracies aren’t state socialism. You simply want to rescue the word socialism by purging it of any negative connotations through an act of Herculean will, but it doesn’t work like that. I am not claiming that social democracies are state socialism. That is a branch that is dead. Social democracies are the living breathing fruit of modern socialism, democratic socialism - which needs to be qualified as such to distinguish it from the dead. I am not trying to ‘rescue’ socialism from its history or any negative connotations. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was an abomination and other socialists groups will have to bear the burden of its history, just as capitalism, Catholicism and others will have bear the atrocities committed in their names. I am merely trying to emphasize its present form and its positive connotations - those aspects that the right wing in America ignores when it criticizes socialism and commits the same fallacy you are - mistaking one part for the whole. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-europe-and-socialism/470025/24 "2008-10-31T20:34:01Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because it helps people, and Americans as a whole HATE helping others. As a nation, we admire ruthlessness, being “tough” and a willingness to trample others for our own profit; we despise compassion. And we tend to be too arrogant to think that WE might need help, or to hold a double standard that we personally ( and possibly friends and family ) are the only ones who deserve help. > > And there’s plenty of opposition to funding schools as well. How do, say, roads not help people? Or police forces? Or any of the other gajillion public services paid for by the taxpayer? What makes healthcare so magically special that it must be singled out as “socialism”? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-europe-and-socialism/470025/25 "2008-10-31T20:50:22Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > How do, say, roads not help people? They help everyone at once, and denying them to the less wealthy would be impractical. And not even Americans can delude themselves that they don’t need roads. > [@Candyman74](#): > > Or police forces? Americans are authoritarian in inclination; they love uniformed authority figures. Especially when they spend a lot of time beating down the lower classes, or foreigners, or racial minorities, or gays. And THAT’S why the cops and soldiers are so popular. > [@Candyman74](#): > > Or any of the other gajillion public services paid for by the taxpayer? Most of which are opposed by the typical American, as long as he thinks HE doesn’t need them. > [@Candyman74](#): > > What makes healthcare so magically special that it must be singled out as “socialism”? It’s only singled out because the government presently doesn’t take care of it for most people. And because Americans find it easy to convince themselves that they’ll never need medical care. This is the same country where many people tried for years to pretend that AIDS only struck down the wicked. ---
**Author:** ![Jesus\_Harold\_Christ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f14d63/32.png) [@Jesus\_Harold\_Christ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesus_Harold_Christ)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-europe-and-socialism/470025/26 "2008-10-31T20:52:55Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because it helps people, and Americans as a whole HATE helping others. As a nation, we admire ruthlessness, being “tough” and a willingness to trample others for our own profit; we despise compassion. And we tend to be too arrogant to think that WE might need help, or to hold a double standard that we personally ( and possibly friends and family ) are the only ones who deserve help. > > And there’s plenty of opposition to funding schools as well. How do you explain the levels of private charity in the US? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-europe-and-socialism/470025.md?page=1)