For most people, “socialism” is an unclear or even scary word. This hinders the willingness to engage with its ideas or even consider it a viable alternative to whatever we are running on now.

So, (Sunday hot take!): why not stop using the word when advocating for “socialist ideas” or the “abandonment of capitalism” etc.?

My suggestion for a new term is Capitalism 2.0; because consider the following thought process:

feudalism –› capitalism –› socialism = nooo, they gonna steal my toothbrush😭

feudalism –› capitalism –› capitalism 2.0. = omg, finally things will get better! 🥳

That framing could alleviate negative associations and misconceptions and as a result make all kinds of people more open to exploring and questioning the principles and structures that are hindering global progress.

  • albigu
    2·
    1 year ago

    There was no offence taken, I just stated why you are wrong. The correct “next step of capitalism” is it being relegated to history books and horror movies.

    We have no “Sunday hot take” tradition here, so you’ll have to excuse us for engaging with your joke as if a serious statement. With regards to “developing capitalism further”, I see no other way to interpret “taking capitalism to the next step”. Your original suggestion of “Capitalism 2.0” is already bad as others have explained better than I could, but by analogy your “next step” approach could also be applied to calling capitalism “Feudalism 2.0”. If you don’t like capitalism and want to abolish it, much like the bourgeoisie historically tried to do to European feudalism and all other social organisations that do not benefit them as a class, then taking your enemy’s name for yourself is just counterproductive. Only liberals who want to decry imperialist capitalism as “not true capitalism”, likely due to not knowing much about imperialism, call capitalism “Feudalism 2.0”.

    If the USA implements central planning it should not be called “Amazon 2.0”. We are communists, some milder ones may prefer the euphemism of “socialist”, but we shouldn’t pretend we are different than what we are because our enemy has slandered us.