Capitalist? Socialist? Meaningless labels.

[Ghost Dog]

... (S)hould we describe the Netherlands as socialist because its rail system is state-owned? Is France socialist because it has a national energy company? Is Germany socialist because it has rent controls?

In fact all these countries are social democracies – a variety of developed-world market-based economy. Britain has another variety. So does Japan. So do the Scandinavian nations. These are all mixed economies, where markets coexist with some degree of state ownership and intervention. Even America, with its state-funded scientific research programmes and New Deal-era social security system, is really a mixed economy.

The idea that Theresa May and the Conservatives are offering a set of policies that can be usefully summed up as “capitalism” and Labour are offering something entirely distinct called “socialism”, is fatuous. There are certainly differences between the two major parties in their view of the proper borders between market and state within our mixed economy (bigger differences than there have been for several decades) – but their positions plainly still lie on a recognisable continuum.

Theresa May herself says she wants a louder voice for workers in company board rooms, and stresses that markets must operate “with the right rules and regulations”. And Jeremy Corbyn, for all the attempts by the right-wing press to portray him as a bloodthirsty revolutionary, is not calling for the nationalisation of supermarkets and car manufacturers...

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/capitalism-socialism-jeremy-corbyn-theresa-may-meaningless-labels-a7976456.html

[T_i_B]

1. The problem with political "isms"....

...is that they are words which get that badly abused by bad politicians and bad journalists that they become meaningless. Nothing more than bandy words for people who like to bandy words about.

To one politician something like "socialism" will mean pretty much any policy they like regardless of whether it is even vaguely socialist. To another politician it will mean the exact opposite, and the non political will only become ever more confused about what the politicians are wittering on about.

The worst of these terms is "Centrist". Not only because it gets used badly by the aforementioned bad politicians and journalists but also because it is a terrible term in its own right. The centre of the political spectrum is an entirely theoretical construct and changes according to political fashion.