Talk:Socialism

European socialist party in introduction?

Is european socialist party related to socialism? Should its ideology (social democraty) and/or existence be mentioned in introduction? I do not know in English, but in France I just know one party whit the name socialist (the french socialist party). Considered in its pan-European level (european socialist party) and European parliament level (S&D), it is probably the biggest socialist party of the world. But it is not only referred to in introduction of this article about socialism! 87.89.44.229 (talk) 21:10, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Social democracy is a political movement and just one out of many socialist movements; it is not the ideology of socialism. The subject of this article is socialism, which is a type of social and economic system; the introduction should focus on a brief discussion on what socialism is and less about a particular political party that retains the name "socialist" out of tradition. Battlecry (talk) 01:34, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that socialist movement in line with Social democracy are a movement and not ideology. I agree that this socialist movement is not inline with the original socialist ideology. So if those are two different concepts of socialism, a link to socialism (disambiguition) should be added! 87.89.44.229 (talk) 20:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Socialism is a product of controlling the means of production, the minority, taking the marxist social structure, the few being at the top- have provided concepts and ideologies to suite - PARADIGMS, for those who had no aspriartion to grow or develop, the control of the paitent from the putting out system, for example, even though mutual obligation is good for communities with NO!, competitiveness/occupations, Socialism is the introduction of the factory time and the doing away with the seasons..... Mutaul obligation...it doesnt make the rich richer, it gives birth to functionalist socialism (control)LeeH1974 22:29, 2 April 2011 (UTC) conflict of culture and nature. Socialism and its birth can be attached to opression and hierachy. Mutual obligation, paternalism living within your means, did not stand a chance against socialism, unionsim put up a battle, The hidden paradigm,,, unionism... is the maker of wars.--LeeH1974 22:29, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposition of sentence to introduce Lede.

I propose to add the following sentence to introduce the introduction:

Socialism is a term used interchangeably with related, but distinct concepts, claimed by (political) organization such as Social democracy, economic planning, Communism, Cooperatives and Marxism. When this definition is true everywhere, term socialism is generally used, to refer to one of those concept, which one depends on different point in the history or on the globe, and of the community using it.

Additionally, socialism term refers to an economic system, a political philosophy, a kind of society or specific political parties. 87.89.44.229 (talk) 12:46, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Most of this is covered in Socialism (disambiguation). This content is uncited, apparently original research or synthesis, and certainly not appropriate as the opening sentence for an article. There may be a case (though I am not convinced) for including this later in the article, in a note on other uses of the term. RolandR (talk) 13:31, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The issue here, is that if the first sentence «Socialism is an economic and political theory advocating public or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources.[1][2][3]» is partially true it is also partially false, by the simple fact that socialist parties in countries such as France and Spain do not have such a policy in the last 10 or 25 years. When I recognize that this economic and political theory exist and has to be documented in wikipedia, I believe that this introduction sentence hide to the reader, the simple fact that this sentence is not accurate and in one way opposite to what some socialist parties do. So the issue here is just to know how to handle this ambiguity. Larousse seams good, beacuase it just give the different meanings, and then develop each point in a consistent way which is not ideological, when english wikipedia first focuses on one point and then mix different concept which have poor or unclear relationship all-together.

If we consider most of this is covered in Socialism (disambiguation), what's bout adding a single line to indicate the existence of Socialism (disambiguation) article, in the same way there is a link to Socialism (Marxism)?

Else, each point (Social democracy, economic planning, Communism, Cooperatives and Marxism) uncited, apparently original research or synthesis should be easily checked to determine relationship between the term socialist and each concept. A google (such as books.google.fr) or gallica ( such as gallica.bnf.fr) search with both terms should help to determine if both terms match in the spoken language, or in authorized historical sources.

For me, it seams obvious that what did socialist parties in recent years in Spain and in France is about the opposite from what did the communist party in (socialist) URSS. And here, I do not consider China. Should this be cited or justified?

Is a source such as http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/nom-commun-nom/socialisme/92317 acceptable? 87.89.44.229 (talk) 20:55, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Logically, it would be just as tenable to argue that the parties in Spain and France are no longer socialist. But this is not our task. We quote the many verifiable and reliable sources; if there is a valid alternative definition, we can quote that as well. But Wikipedia should not determine which of these is "correct"; that would be our own original research. RolandR (talk) 21:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Discovery chanel has it own definition of socialism, and its definition of socialism, in my opinion, matches definition of social democracy.

Socialist term is used with this meaning in some articles of USA today , and so on, this meaning does not match the first sentence in the introduction of this wikipedia article (which is linked to by socialist article). 87.89.44.229 (talk) 21:42, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

monetary socialism

is it me or is the part about monetary socialism completely missing? the US dollar for example is completely dictated by global trade Markthemac (talk) 12:16, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

If by "monetary socialism" you mean the price-controls (prices based on technical considerations rather than scarcity) that existed in the Soviet system, then no, the value of currency dictated by the flow of goods and services would not be "socialist" but purely capitalist.Battlecry (talk) 00:32, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Kibbutz

Should a paragraph be introduced to explain Kibutzim? These were one of the most successful socialistic communities. 216.99.52.122 (talk) 01:23, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm surprised there's nothing there already. Somewhere in the After World War II section would make sense. HiLo48 (talk) 01:35, 10 April 2011 (UTC)