This question is mainly for Bernie Sanders supporters, although anyone can chime in:
What makes socialism good, but Communism bad? (I’m assuming that’s the viewpoint; if you consider socialism and Communism to *both *be good, or *both *be bad, then this thread isn’t very applicable.) Is it simply a matter of how forcefully the system is enforced on the general public? In other words, redistribution of wealth and “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is good, but gulags and totalitarian governance are bad?
Socialism is usually linked with a democratically elected government, which prevents the excesses that dictatorships bring.
Your sort of have to define your terms here to get a solid answer.
To use the way those terms are USUALLY used though, the reason “socialism” is considered “good” is because that word is used to describe relatively benign things, like universal health insurance or welfare, usually in the context of a democracy. “Communism” is considered bad because it is used to describe a system of governance that devolves into dictatorship and authoritarian rule.
Now, in actual fact one could point out that in technical terms that isn’t what those words were supposed to mean. But it’s how people use them, which is why they get the perceptions they do.
Well, Sanders generally describes himself as a democratic socialist, which I think caries a clear understanding of being, yanno, democratic. Is that what you mean when you ask about socialism vs communism?
Of course, communists always claimed to be democrats, often even in the name of the country. East Germany was officially the “German Democratic Republic”.
But they were using a different definition of democracy. In the west, democracy means the government is controlled by the people. In communist countries, democracy means the government serves the people.
Ah. Sounds like you’re saying that Bernie Sanders is both a communist and comparable to communist East Germany. That’s interesting, and I just love to hear how you reach that comparison.
Well, I think more likely his point is not that Bernie Sanders is Mao, but that words mean what people want them to mean. “Democracy,” “Socialist” and such are very loaded terms. You’ll often read or hear Americans claim the USA “isn’t a democracy, it’s a republic,” which depending on what you mean by “democracy” is either very strictly true for a very limited definition, or the linguistic equivalent of saying “Patches isn’t a dog, he’s a golden retriever.”
“Socialist,” strictly speaking, isn’t what Bernie Sanders is, if one goes to the core definition, which is that all means of production are cooperatively owned by the people. Bernie Sanders is not seriously considering ending private ownership of all businesses, yet he calls himself a “democratic socialist.” What HE means by “socialist” is “supporting a system largely fuelled by free enterprise and private business but with very strong social programs.”
“Socialist” in another context would mean what we think of as communism; in another it would mean corporatist fascism. Adolf Hitler was a National Socialist, which is a different take on the word altogether.
Yeah, that’s obviously not gonna work here…
A government that serves the people rather than one that is controlled by the people is probably closer to what America’s founding fathers had in mind. They felt that the “right people” should be running the country; to them, democracy meant something like mob rule. A couple of generations passed before the idea that democracy meant a government elected by a widespread segment of the population (albeit limited to adult white men) and that such a thing was desirable.
I think communism is associated with extremism. Not just totalitarianism, but an extreme application of the philosophy (from each according to his ability yada yada), such that to impose it suddenly is radical, even revolutionary. Of course imposing the extreme gradually is still extremism, eventually.
Social democracy means a country levies taxes to pay for good schools and hospitals. It is simply attending to ‘the general welfare’ of the people. Minority groups ideally aren’t singled out for neglect to save money for corrupt influences and to grind axes. Maybe the bridges get fixed, the potholes get filled, the trains run on time…
I’m neither a socialist nor a communist-I’m a social democrat and by any reasonable measure, Bernie Sanders is one too. At any rate, I fundamentally accept capitalism as the least evil of all socioeconomic systems devised by mankind although I advocate for a modified and tamed version of it in the form of the social market economy.
The Greek word literally means “rule by the people”. It’s telling that the communists managed to have “democratic republics” that were actually dictatorships. George Orwell was once a communist himself, but after living, working, and fighting among the Reds in Spain, he turned against it. 1984 reflects his observation that the language among communists becomes degenerate.
Factually, that the word “Communism” is linked to the USSR, which was bad, while “Socialism” wasn’t so much. Further, in most nations, the Socialists never took over back when “Communism” was the new big thing in Europe, but continued to linger on as political movements for decades, doing as political parties do, and changing over time. This means that, in some countries, the “Socialist” party is now simply the leftish party (and in others, the rightish party). It’s hard to badmouth Socialists when they’re a major, boring political party in a modern European nation and when there’s no common political position between any of them.
But originally, Socialism probably meant an attempt to put ownership of the wealth of the nation into the hands of the people on the belief that, otherwise, the upper classes would continue to mistreat the poor. Consequently, in nations that were largely classless and which encouraged meritocracy, Socialism never made any headway. Fundamentally, meritocracy was the answer to the problem of class, not shared property. And that being so, there was nothing left for Socialism to be, so it had to change meaning to something else. By nation, that something else ended up being entirely different from one another.
Right, it has to be managed - otherwise the amoral, relentless nature of capitalism means we get to the point of us working for it and not it working for us, immoral inequality, democratic under representation, etc, etc.
Capitalism isn’t a freaking religion it’s a useful tool if handled with extreme care.
Like dynamite 
Orwell was never actually a Communist. He was certainly a socialist (both before and after Spain), but was affiliated with the Independent Labour Party, which wasn’t Communist and which always stayed independent of Moscow.
This would literally mean that the franchise was not extended to all white men until well into the 18th century, which I am pretty sure isn’t the case.
Angry red-faced neighbors at BBQs…?
“Oh. OK, Bob. Say, you want a beer? I’m going to go get one & I think I see one way, way over there…”
Communism, a system based on communes, has a radically decentralized government. When people compare socialism to Communism, they are generally comparing socialism to Stalinism, which is actually antithetical to Communism proper.
As far as your actual OP goes, it’s simply a matter of degree of control and how effective/ineffective or helpful/harmful the paternalistic choices of the government are.