Talk:Socialism

Opening line describes communism, not socialism

I think a more reasonable modern view of socialism can be summarised better with amended version:

'Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social supervision of key aspects of an economy, as opposed to unchecked private ownership.' ~2026-20912-7 (talk) 23:22, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

The current first sentence is cited to multiple sources with quotations. You're thinking of social democracy. Yue🌙 (talk) 01:07, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

I must agree with the proposed amendment. No modern definition of socialism should include government ownership of the means of production. 5198blk (talk) 05:51, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Social ownership is not synonymous with government ownership. As that article says, it

can take the form of community ownership, state ownership, common ownership, employee ownership, cooperative ownership, and citizen ownership of equity. LastDodo (talk) 07:52, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

I do not see citizen ownership in the opening paragraph. Citizen ownership would largely be private, even with stock exchanges. It's not social ownership. 5198blk (talk) 15:56, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

I simply copy pasted from the opening paragraph of the social ownership article. LastDodo (talk) 09:19, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

There is no coverage of the topic of the Nationalist variety of socialism, National Socialism.

An entire field of the subject, non-marxist non-leftist ethno-nationalist racially conscious socialism, is completely missing from the article

there is zero mention of National Socialism. ~2026-11189-49 (talk) 04:20, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

Because Nazism is not socialist, just appropriating the term for its own needs. By definition, Nazism is anti-communist and depends on political support by the middle class, not the working class:

• Nevertheless, the Nazis' voter base consisted mainly of farmers and the middle class, including groups such as Weimar government officials, teachers, doctors, clerks, self-employed businessmen, salesmen, retired officers, engineers, and students. Their demands included lower taxes, higher prices for food, restrictions on department stores and consumer co-operatives, and reductions in social services and wages. The need to maintain their support made it difficult for the Nazis to appeal to the working class, which often had opposite demands."
• "From 1928, the Nazis' growth into a large political movement was dependent on middle class support, and on the public perception that it "promised to side with the middle classes and to confront the economic and political power of the working class." The financial collapse of the white collar middle-class of the 1920s figured significantly in their support of Nazism. Although the Nazis continued to make appeals to "the German worker", Timothy Mason concludes that "Hitler had nothing but slogans to offer the working class." Dimadick (talk) 16:26, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

  Though I agree that National Socialism does not belong in this article, I disagree with your reasoning. First, the fact that Nazis and Communists were generally virolently opposed to each other does not prove ideological distance. Protestants were for a long time severely anti-Catholic, but nobody could claim they were not sister belief-systems. They were and are both Christian.

  Second, the claim that national socialism cannot be socialist because its support base was middle class is itself a socialist (class-based) way of understanding the issue. It is not true that working class people vote socialist and middle class people do not. Many socialists are themselves middle class and that has always been the case. Moreover, your claim does not seem to stand up on its own terms, for according to Dick Geary (writing in 1998):

  More contentious has been the relationship between workers and the Nazi Party. Recent research has revised the impression of working-class immunity to Nazism: around 55 per cent of SA stormtroopers came from working-class backgrounds and the Nazis made substantial gains from working-class communities in parts of Saxony, especially around Chemnitz. Around 40 per cent of members of the Party seem to have been of working-class origins; similarly 40 per cent of the Nazi vote came from workers and one worker in every four voted for Hitler in July 1932. Source.

  'National Socialism' really means an ideology in which the socialist characterisation of society as divided into inevitably competing groups, including bad exploiters and good exploited, is accepted, but with classes replaced with races, or nations, hence 'national socialism'. But this is a significiant enough departure, as 'socialism' has largely kept its meaning as a class-focused ideology, hence national socialism is best treated separately. LastDodo (talk) 10:37, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Hold on. The "characterisation of society as divided into inevitably competing groups, including bad exploiters and good exploited" is even accepted in some forms of radical capitalism, such as Ayn Rand's Objectivism. She just defines the "good exploited" as heroic entrepreneurs who create all things with their brilliant minds, and the "bad exploiters" as the government and the "moochers" who live on government handouts. So this is not a particularly socialist idea. The concept that "the biggest problem in society is that some bad people are exploiting some good people" has existed in many different permutations throughout human history and it is much older than socialism.

But, that aside, I think you are mostly right. By the way, nationalist versions of socialism DO exist, but the Nazis aren't one of them. A nationalist version of socialism was, for example, the ideology of Sinn Fein for most of the 20th century. Or the Indian National Congress during the first decades after independence. Or Labor Zionism. It should be obvious that these are extremely different from the Nazis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-23101-59 (talk) 06:54, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

So besides the fact that the Nazis were not socialists, there is also the fact that actual nationalist socialists do exist, and they are not the Nazis, and they are far more numerous than the Nazis, with a presence in many countries (not a phenomenon largely restricted to a single country and that country's diaspora, which is what Nazism was). ~2026-23101-59 (talk) 07:32, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't know much about Objectivism, I would assume the barrier between competing groups there is much more permeable (ordinary people could become businessmen if they liked) and less intractable than between classes or races/nations as understood by socialists and nazis. But even if you are right, that would not change my point that national socialism draws on the competing-group paradigm of socialism. Hence the name. If Objectivism also does, then it also does. One might even go back to Hegel's ideology on this, which Popper referred to as 'the return of tribalism' and which was of course a big influence on Marx.

As for other versions of 'nationalist socialism', it might be that those places you mention are better described as such, but that does't change the point about the differences and similarities between nazism and socialism. As I said, it is best to treat national socialism as distinct, I just disagreed for you reasons as to why it was distinct. LastDodo (talk) 13:51, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

References

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There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Types of socialism which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 05:32, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Possible citation for Blanqui

The anarchy theory index on Marxists.org backs up the claim about Blanqui's theory of seizing power: https://www.marxists.org/subject/anarchism/index.htm Phe-ndv (talk) 03:27, 19 June 2026 (UTC)