(no subject)

"As far as socialism is concerned, that term has been so evacuated of content over the last century, that it's hard even to use. I mean, the Soviet Union for example was called a socialist society, and it was called that by the two main propaganda operations in the world - the US, western one and the Soviet one. They both called it socialism for opposite reasons - the west called it socialism to defame socialism, by associating it with this miserable tyranny. The Soviet Union called it socialism to gain whatever, to benefit from the moral appeal that true socialism had among large parts of the general world population. But this was about as remote from real socialism as you can imagine. I mean, the core notion of, at least, traditional socialism is what you mentioned, that working people have to be control of production, and that communities have to be in control of their lives. The soviet union was the exact opposite of that, the working people were essentially slaves. The collapse of the Soviet Union was a -victory- for socialism." Noam Chomsky