(05-14-2020, 11:07 AM)Last42min Wrote: The accusation was still rooted in the belief that many democrats had socialism as their end goal, which was arguably true in the 50's, 60's and 70's. They weren't attempting to change the word, but it did water it down. It was a rhetorical use, but I'll concede.

I appreciate you conceding that point.  I'll also concede that the New Deal Democrats and the Watergate babies borrowed a lot from Marx, though they borrowed different things.  

I just think narrowing socialism down to "the state seizes the means of production" is too specific.  You can't really pin down any socialist politicians or parties who actually unified around that idea as their priority.  It's kind of like starting from the last sentence of the Communist Manifesto and retconning the entire movement spanning many generations around it.  Take, for example, the Socialist Revolutionary Party of Russia.  Are we going to say, "tut-tut, those guys were just using the word socialist when they're not really socialist, the way Bernie Sanders does today".

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