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On 30-12-2009 11:54, Darren New wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
>> Sabrina Kilian wrote:
>>> Why do people from the USA want to shout about socialism?
>> It sounds that (in the US) “socialism” is becoming a synonym of
>> “Communism”
>
> What do *you* think the difference is? They sound pretty similar,
> except one has stuff owned by "the government" and one has it owned by
> "the people".
In the Netherlands communism is associated with Russia and China. We had
a communist party (now part of a larger alliance). It was closely linked
to Moscow, very dogmatic and very surprised when it became known what
Russian communism actually meant in practice.
Socialism is a much broader term. Our labour party (in size number 1,2
or 3 of our political parties over the last decades) is a socialist
party. Socialist parties are very well represented in the European
parliament as well. The main characteristic is that they will always
think first about what a proposal means for the working class, those
without the money to buy political influence (or that is the theory).
In short: to Europeans the difference is huge. Americans using the term
'socialism' are generally regarded with a friendly sort of paternalism.
They clearly don't know what they are talking about, but that is OK,
they are Americans.
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