Dear A Symeonakis,
If you care to read some of my posts I am on the side of truth. This doesn't make me perfect just forgiven. My understanding came from the Oxford modern English Dictionary and If we can't trust it then we are in real trouble because anything means whatever you want it to, and anarchy reigns.

Socialism has led to more bloodshed in history than all religions (including Catholic and Islam) put together. Lenin regarded violence as justified when trying to eliminate 'religion'. The ideology fails to acknowledge any higher power thus bringing out the worst of human nature. That is why socialist today think they can murder unborn babies by the truckload and never have to answer to anyone. They are disconnected from the real world and sit in ivory towers pronouncing some form of intellectual or moral superiority failing to see the murderous intent of their own heart. They did twist science to back up their dogmas as does the deluded Dawkins. Pol Pot was another good example of the self righteous socialist.

Runner;
Factually wrong try again.

Since when did facts ever get in the way of a good runner rant?

Runner that is rubbish, nothing new but rubbish.
Pelican I agree, with every word.
Richie ten, please understand Socialism was never meant to be related to communism.
Communism took its name but never its intended path.
Karl Marx knew and said publicly socialism was the enemy of communism, remember the great number of definitions for socialism.
As pelican said, workers are no longer always poor, we have better lives and are prepared to work to improve them, socialism has been blackened, it needs a new name and new boundary's to attract more than minority support.
Australia has much more stable government than Greece AS and it is never likely even the Greeks who live here what pure socialism.
While it was a childhood dream for me it can not work, self interest like it or not, is the fuel that drives mankind.

One of the contributors to this string suggested a dictionary definition of socialism. A dictionary is useful to me for finding the meanings of furze, bosky and other words that come up in my reading that I am not familiar with. For words in common use a dictionary reports usage. I started the string because I wanted to know how people posting to OLO define the word, socialism. That is more up to date than the dictionary definition. It apparently is somewhat different than the way I define socialism. However, meaning is defined by the way most people use a word not the way I use it.

When a definition becomes too broad it is useless. Some people define socialism in terms of what they favour or are against. If socialism and capitalism have both political and economic meanings they are no longer useful words as they has been stretched too broadly. I understand socialism and capitalism to describe economic systems and to have minimum political implications. It must have some because economics and politics affect each other. We can have a capitalistic dictatorship such as Nazi Germany. The Nazi Party in its rise to power had a socialist component. However, Gregor Strasser who led that wing was purged after Hitler came to power and Nazi Germany was a state where I.G. Farben, the largest chemical manufacturing enterprise in the world, Krupp and other powerful German Corporations supported the Nazi party. Nazi Germany was a corporate capitalist state. The USSR was a socialist state by my definition of socialism since the government owned the means of production.

However, the political systems of the two countries were very much alike. Both were single party dictatorships without either freedom of expression or an independent judiciary. Even Socialist Realism, the official Soviet approved art, was quite similar to the Nazi approved art. Both were confined to representational styles and themes that would exalt the official ideology. To equate the political form of the Soviet state with socialism is no more legitimate than to equate the political form of the Nazi state with capitalism.