Listen for linkage of Socialism and Progressive and get out ahead of that

[patrice]

one by educating: Socialism basically recognizes the responsibility of the Group to each of its Members and vice versa, a codification of a contract, the details of which are determined by the participants in that contract, ****ALL*** of them.

Progressivism begins with the assumption that there are "solutions", which we can identify and the process known as "Rational Empiricism" is a very useful tool for doing so in Groups of "Outcomes' Stake-holders". These tools for Solutions are the basic tools of what "we" refer to as Progress. It is constructive and goal oriented, i.e. practical.

Progressive Socialism could be a good thing, especially in locally based, ownership - if you will, economies.

[Ignoramus]

1. Lack of idealism indicates confusion

If progressivism is goal-oriented and "practical", and that is opposed to the idea of codification of a contract with all people, then it is confused.

Everyone has ideals. If you distinguish your philosophy from that of others, by saying you are practical instead of idealistic, you are claiming to be ignorant of your ideals. A contract can be loose, e.g. democracy is a loose contract.

The meaning of socialism to me is an economic philosophy only. Socialism is democracy plus state ownership of some amount of property. I think the distinction between progressivism in the opportunistic sense, vs. liberal in the idealistic pro-democracy sense.

[patrice]

2. Re Ideals: You are creating dichotomies that are false to me.

And I can't understand a significant amount of the rest of what you say.

I advise you to check your un-tested assumptions about me.

[Ignoramus]

3. Maybe I didn't understand

The definition of socialism I'm used to, is a description of an economic system. It is democracy, together with state ownership of some amount of property. So, I thought the heart of your distinction was really the difference between pragmatism and idealism.

I thought you were suggesting a distinction between progressivism and socialism, roughly that socialism is based on the idea of forming a contract among all of the participants in the contract, while progressivism is based on finding practical solutions that are commonly thought to be desired by society. Or more roughly, idealism vs. pragmatism.

I think that everyone has ideals. If someone (I'm not accusing you of this) claims that they are pragmatic instead of idealistic, I think they are confused. Because they are claiming to not be aware of their own ideals. Usually, their sub-conscious idealism gets filled in by commonly accepted ideals in their society.

For example, the US population tends to by anti-arab, so it's not practical to address issues of racism against arabs. For example, people might banish discussions of the issue to some place away from general discussion. Then by avoiding issues of anti-arab politics, racism is casually accepted, while the pragmatic person simply thinks he's being practical.

Edit: I hope I don't write this while you're reading. An example of a problem with "pure pragmatism" If you live in a community of cannibals. Finding solutions that were commonly desired would necessarily not conflict with cannibalism. A solution excluding cannibalism would require idealism.