"Defining Our Terms--Socialism"

In many political discussions all sorts of terms get thrown around randomly. I will hear one person throw out the word "fascist" and another "capitalist," but do we really have a good historical grasp of what these words actually mean? I think we need to get a grip on some critical definitions in the debates that are going on around us.

"Socialist" or "socialism" is thrown around quite a bit these days. The word goes back less than two hundred years to European political theorists who saw the destitute masses of their industrialized nations and wanted to do something to address the wrongs and injustices of poverty. Nothing wrong with their intentions. Men like Robert Owen, Henri Saint-Simon, and Charles Fourier theorized that if the people who ran the factories actually owned and operated them in some sort of cooperative way, or if governments had greater control over the means of production, then life would improve for all.

In the past 200 years there have been many different kinds of socialist theories and some have been more benign than others, but in general they all have in common the belief that people are basically not born selfish creatures, and given the right set of circumstances man can bring in his own utopia. Socialists of every stripe generally concede that private property is not good for mankind, or at best is a temporary necessary evil. What is best is more and more government control over means of production and distribution. Eventually socialist governments should control all means of education, health, transportation. In more virulent forms of socialism, even the family becomes the target of government engineering.

Compare the socialist agenda with the ideas of the Founding Fathers and ask yourself if socialism is compatible with the goals of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. It wouldn't hurt also to try to find a socialist nation that has produced and protected those goals of our Founding Fathers.