Uncle Sam shouldn't own Intel stock

It's socialism, after all, for the Government to own an interest in a company.

Covered yesterday on YC.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44989773

Unless the workers own the means of production, it isn't socialism. The government is just another agent of capitalism here. Can we call this sparkling capitalism?

I think this war is lost. The word socialism means different things to different people. It all depends on where you stand and what you are looking at. If you are on the far right, most things the government does is socialism. If you are on the far left, everything the government does is to support capitalism. And in between the two everything goes.

I frequently say the same thing about the word Capitalism. (Communism too). They're second only to 'god' in terms of historical baggage.

If you say 'I like Capitalism', a significant minority will hear 'I love US imperialism and hate nature', despite that almost certainly not being what you meant. Similarly, if you say 'I like Communism', many hear 'I love dictators, gulags, 5 year plans and famine'.

A word of advice: if you actually want to have valuable political conversations with people, don't start by identifying yourself with ideology that's arguably responsible for various atrocities and millions of deaths.

> if you actually want to have valuable political conversations with people, don't start by identifying yourself with ideology that's arguably responsible for various atrocities and millions of deaths.

So neither capitalism nor communism? What's left, anarchism? I guess they haven't killed that many people.

The point is to stop making economic systems a part of your identity.

Talk about policies and their effects, not about what bucket you might put them (and yourself) in.

The reason we use labels (bucket) is to make the conversation easier. Imagine that every time you use a word that you first have to define what it means. My point is that the word 'socialism' has now become meaningless.

Indeed, labels aren't useless. But when a label means one thing to one person and a totally different thing to another, it actually becomes an impediment to communication and is best avoided.