Systems of Governance

This is not a political piece. It is a piece about governments. Rather, it is a thinly-veiled nose-thumbing at some people I've met who thought some very stupid things.

Socialism is not a system of government. It is an economic system. It spars off and on with capitalism. Socialism means that the economy, or parts thereof, is controlled by the government, whatever that might be. Capitalism, on the other hand, means that the economy is in the hands of individuals. These are gross oversimplifications. Not only that, but neither are present in pure form anywhere.

Communism, on the other hand, is neither an economic system or system of government. Pure communism is a failure. Okay, that was flippant. True communism incorporates elements of pure democracy (also not really a tenable position in the world) and socialism. It doesn't work. Sorry.

But wait, the uneducated say. What about Russia and China? Well, the educated can now laugh, but perhaps in a manner short-lived. Because Russia, or more accurately the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, is confusing. Marxist-Leninism is not pure communism. But the USSR was not called the Union of Marxist-Leninist Socialisms. The "Republic" part we can dismiss out of hand, because it just means nation in this sense. The "Socialist" part is easy to explain for people who aren't complete morons: socialism is a system of economics which is equally compatible with dictatorships and democracies, not to mention Marxist-Leninisms.

It's the Soviet part about which we should worry. Because, you see, Russia was a sovietism, which was a Marxist-Leninist extrapolation of communist ideas into a larger setting. But soviets don't necessarily imply socialism, so we've moved into the realm of pure government here. In fact, the Chinese are currently experimenting with a soviet captalism, on a Chinese model of course. And the Burmese, or Myanmarians, or whatever the Hell the crazies in their new capital in the middle of the jungle are calling themselves these days (note that I am simply referring to the government, such as it is; I'm sure Burma or Myanmar is filled with nice, non-crazy people who didn't have the chance to give their input to the new regime), are experimenting with a soviet fuckup system. That's, I say, that's a joke, son. Nice kid but a little slow.

And of course, for a large portion of the time, the USSR should have been the Union of Dictated Socialist Vague Geographical Regions Ruled By the Iron Fist of Stalin (and successors). But changing the maps was too expensive. They were still socialist though; no free-market capitalism for the USSR.

For comparison, the United States (the only nation about which I'm qualified to speak) is a democratic republican federalist capitalism. Again, there is no purity in that description.

So you see kids, it's fun to make up words. But socialism is not now and never will be a system of government. And the Burmese "government" is full of shit. Now go fetch Grandpa some more bourbon.