[lbo-talk] Mark Solomon on the U.S. Left's Prospects

Bill Bartlett william7 at aapt.net.au
Sat Mar 9 14:35:37 PST 2013


At 10:05 AM -0500 9/3/13, Julio Huato wrote:


>Re. your proposal to adopt the term "Populist" -- maybe I've watched
>too many episodes of Mad Men, but (even in the U.S.) the term
>"Populism" has no visible edge over the term "Socialism" or even the
>word "Communism." Forget all we know about the Russian Narodniki or
>Latin American Populismo, compared to the latter terms, "Populism" as
>it sounds to me in English is light weight, very superficial, utterly
>lacking in the historical heft that "Socialism" and -- even more so --
>"Communism" have. But hey, what do I know about how people today and
>in the future may respond to x or y?

Euphemism seems to be the fashion these days, but I'm quite old fashioned. I prefer to use a word that conveys some meaning. If people want to quibble with what socialism mean, I just refer them to the dictionary. There is a problem in that, that every dictionary seems to have a different definition, but The Australian Macquarie dictionary manages to get it right, so it is not so bad for me here.

Anyhow, anything is better than a word which has no meaning at all.

Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas



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