General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why Not Socialism?: The Right’s red-baiting has been far too effective [View all]eridani
(51,907 posts)One is the traditional sense of no individual ownership of someone else's means of production allowed. This in itself could mean either ownership of all means of production by government, or it could mean that individuals could own their own means of production, or collectively own same in co-operatives of varying sizes, with the largest resembling governments.
The other is Harry Truman's definition--socialism is government collecting taxes from all and spending the money to provide public goods for all. Conservatives have been waging war on public goods for 40 years, and use the term socialism in Truman's sense except for labelling it evil. I suspect that most of the young people who now prefer socialism also mean it in Truman's sense--if RW whackjobs attack public goods by calling them socialist, then people who like public goods will see themselves as socialists in opposition.