[Mind's Eye] Re: Economy

Quite, contemplative; i've certainly had my fair share of lengthy and
colourful debates, which may well have been no less colourful for
brevity, with the foresight to define terms explicitly; i'm often
comforted by the thought that it's as much about the journey :)

On Jun 29, 3:14 am, Contemplative <wjwiel...@gmail.com> wrote:
> An interesting difference in perception:  My wife, who is from Russia with a
> PhD in Economics just shakes her
> head when she hears Americans use terms like socialism, communism....
>
> Communism is a philosophy, socialism is an economic system sometimes based
> on communistic philosophy.
>
> I got to thinking about how we use these terms, comparing communism to
> democracy, socialism to free markets,
> capitalism to anything we choose to term as something else.  I, personally,
> am unsure of what is being talked about
> when these terms are used; not because they are imprecise terms, but because
> we interchange them seemingly at
> will.  They take on different base meanings depending on the
> conversationalists and the conversation.
>
> I am certainly no expert!  My point is that these terms have slippery
> meanings, and unless conversations that use the
> terms begin with an agreed upon base understanding of any of them, the
> conversation itself is slippery!  (not a bad
> thing, just a thing).  :-)