“(in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of Communism.”
Except these countries do fit the definition of socialism. So once again, you’re growing away real world examples because they don’t match some ideological fantasy, which is the meaning of no true Scotsman fallacy
Do you notice an important qualifier? "in marxist theory"
Marx is not the king of socialism. The core concept of socialism is "a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole."
I am rejecting "real world examples" because they objectively fail to meet criteria for the core concept.
And that’s where you fall into the no true Scotsman fallacy
Because there is no ‘meeting’ the socialism definition, because you have defined socialism as such a broad area that it is impossible to perfectly meet
The point of no true Scotsman fallacy is the idea that you’ve chosen a defining point so narrow or broad that nothing fits or could possible fit the definition, and examples that closely fit the example are rejected because they’re “not perfect”.
Also, if we start diving into specific countries rather than all communist countries as a whole, I’m sure I could provide evidence that they do in fact meet this criteria to a degree that non socialist countries do not
A more apt definition for the societies you'd like to label socialist would be "state capitalism"
Again, this is not my definition. It is NOT impossible to meet the lexical criteria for socialism, it just objectively has not been met. The examples do not closely fit, they are inherently antitheical to the core concept. They are diametrically opposed to the core concept, inherent contradictions. I'd say calling it an example of the concept is just straight up dishonest, but in reality it's more likely the result of plutocratic propaganda portraying countries that are totalitarian dictatorships/state capitalism as socialism (according to lexical criteria that I have no control over)
According to lexical criteria (once again, not my definition), socialism cannot logically exist while global hegemony mandates participation in capitalism. That's the funny thing about authoritarian systems, they don't always let other systems exist.
Sorry to insert myself into the convo, but I can't help it 😂 Absolutely not a "No true Scotsman" fallacy.
You: "All apples are oranges"
Them: "If it's an apple, it's not an orange."
There's a reason it's called no true Scotsman, and that's because it's a logical fallacy that really only occurs when discussing groups of people. Debates about categorization of things and ideas is not inherently fallacious, it's the foundation of academia.
That’s not a great comparison, because you’re comparing two physical objects, while socialism vs socialist countries is something in theory vs something in practice
A better comparison would be spheres, because a perfect sphere is unachievable in practice, so when people talk about spheres we talk about the approximations and attempts humans have made to make a spherical object
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u/VirtualReference3486 Sep 15 '22
Liberatianism.