Hello and welcome back to “Pie ponders”, in which Pie – that is me, for those who are situationally unaware – raises questions on various topics of great importance. Today, we talk about definitions and their role in politics.

Typical glibertarian femaleWhat is glibertarianism, as a doctrine? Let me drop some definitions on you, as the self-appointed arbiter of all things glib for today.  Well it is the perfect political idea that leads to liberty, universal happiness, a better world where all the men are thicc and all the women can deadlift 800 pounds. In this utopia everyone knows wine is better than beer, scotch is better than bourbon and the NBA is the best sports league in the US. Anything else, well that is not real glibertarianism. Don’t @ me, as the kids say these days on the twits.

I noticed a real problem with definitions in current debates on that most marvelous of mediums, the internet. Whenever something looks bad, well that is not the real deal. See socialism. While this may be seen as a version of the true Scotsman fallacy, I am not sure it is quite the same.

Being a Scotsman, you see, can have some measurable definition- was one born in Scotland would be a start? On the other hand, one can claim any ideology one wants, without having to suffer through haggis and bagpipe music, and very often it can indeed be the case that X is not a true liberal/conservative, but just claims to be. For the actual ideology, we need to see if we can define things to see what is what, and then to measure the individual, preferably by the walk they walk as opposed to the talk they talk. Talking is exceedingly easy, after all.

All failures of socialism were, off course, not true socialism. Well, socialism needs to have a clear definition to see what is and is not true. And this definition, like all definitions in politics, needs to respect some ground rules.

Let us start with Wikipedia:

Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership and workers’ self-management of the means of production[10] as well as the political theories and movements associated with them.[11] Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective or cooperative ownership, or to citizen ownership of equity.[12] There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them

These are the alleged goals of socialism, while implementation takes a variety of forms, mostly authoritarian and disastrous in outcome. To go around the issue of the bear in the room, internet socialist change the definition in an idiotic manner and say socialism is some sort of perfectly just, utopian, classless society where everyone is happy. This is a neat little trick, if you define an ideology as an ideal outcome, whenever it fails, well it was not the real one.

One rule of defining ideology should be that you cannot define it as outcome, but as the path to reach the outcome. Outcome is not guaranteed. Outcome is what is expected and needs to be proven. So you say we do socialism like this and it leads to that. If the result is an authoritarian hellhole, it does not mean it was not real socialism, it means socialism just does not lead to what proponents say it leads to. Critics of communism, on both left and right, said before it was implemented the very first time that it will lead to dystopian authoritarianism. And they were right. Which means communism is a bad ideology, not that the USSR was not real communism.

Not real fascists, real fascism was never tried

Certainly, one can very well claim their own personal flavor of socialism will not lead to all that. But since every attempt failed, it takes a bit of a burden of proof that a slight variation will succeed. Every attempt under the umbrella of socialism failed, and one can easily find an infinity of minor variations that are claimed different from any other minor variations attempted. Why, beyond empty claims and wishful thinking, will this variation succeed? This time the right people will be in charge is not acceptable, because that is, again, an outcome that cannot be guaranteed. I think we are at the point where we can safely say socialism failed and ignore minor variations which keep the fundamentals the same, as the fundamentals are rotten.

The criticism of socialism is based on incompatibility with human nature, not due to minor flaws in minor variations. If, for example, there can be no functioning economy without property – no way to allocate resources, establish prices as has been shown long ago – no minor variation of property-less ideologies will help. Because the core is the problem, not the “implementation.”

Let us take a look at another definition.

Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social equality of sexes.[1][2] This includes seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for women that are equal to those for men.

This seems a straightforward definition, with some goals that different between flavors and may or may not be achieved. On the other hand, internet feminist define feminism as „equal rights for men and women” in order to say that people who do not consider themselves feminists are against equal rights.  This is again a type of definition I oppose. You cannot define an ideology as abstract concept.

Just another version of feminism, reallyFeminism is a loose group of ideologies who claim to strive for what they believe to be equality. That does not mean that is what they actually want, just what they say they want. It does not mean it is what they will actually achieve. It does not mean there are no other ways to achieve equality besides feminism. As such, it does not mean that those who think there is a better way are against equality. Off course, inside feminism there are also multiple subcategories, being various waves, attitudes (to men, government, trans, sex work etc etc etc) or simply opinions.

Now that we can be somewhat more honest about definitions, we should ask ourselves how useful are they? Because one of the key words in both definitions above is “range”, which means those two labels cover a whole range of movements. So are they of any use? Do we need to break them down into subsets or can we use the whole as a guideline? And if we break down enough, do we not get to individual opinions and decide to forgo labels and focus on the individual? Off course not, that is crazy talk. And humans like to categorize things, to put them in boxes and apply labels.  In the end, we can only address an ideology by the common underlying paradigm of all variations.

Wait Pie, but if labels may not be of use and people keep using them, that may lead to a total shitshow! Quite astute, dear reader, but fortunately, looking at the world, things somehow seem to have worked out perfectly, so no worries. Libertarianism in general has an even bigger problem as there is less than the usual amount of groupthink, the labels are even more unworkable. So what is the solution? Personally, I am going to go with get drunk and ignore all this. If you have a better plan, do tell.