With North Korea in the news, I notice that avowed socialists demonize the country as "state capitalist," i.e. North Korea Is Not a Socialist Society: "North Korea is a militarized, paternalistic society ruled by a narrow stratum of bureaucratic state capitalists. It is a stagnant and stifling society that operates according to a coercive social contract: the masses will be taken care of if they work harder and harder for the survival and benefit of the nation. The masses are kept passive and suppressed in this neo-capitalist welfare state. " What distinguishes "socialism" from "state capitalism" exactly?
It's a bit different depending on who you ask. State capitalism is usually defined as an economical system where the state or government has a lot of control over money and/or companies. Things do also usually have to be operated in a "capitalist" way and be an otherwise regular market economy. Think China, sort of. Socialism is defined a bit different as well depending on who you ask, but the usual defenition is that the bourgeoise (people owning shares in companies or having ownership over the "means of production", factories and so on) are replaced by a system which the employees or the people have control over. The exact model vary, but having a democratically elected government which owns everything would technically be a form of (inefficient) socialism. This would not be the case in a totalitarian dictatorship, so countries that have a totalitarian state which owns everything are not socialist, no matter what they call themselves.
The results when it happens. Socialism is the ideal, and this is the reality they try to distance themselves from with words. No difference.
Socialism is like Communism with personnel freedom. In Communism the government controls everything. Even your life. The Communist saw that and decided it was not for them. They then created Socialism. It like Communism but you keep your life. You can travel, vote, have free speech etc etc etc. The government then controls all economic activities like Communism. State capitalism was invented by the Fascist. In Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany they practiced state capitalism It was a private public partnership that was pro business and anti labor.
So you see, when government runs everything is totalitarian. But when the government runs everything saying "it i for the people, or the people own it" it is different. They still run everything, but the rhetoric sounds nicer. Still good to be powerful in these systems and loyal - that is where the money is!
I don't understand what you are trying to say. That there would be no difference between a democratically elected government and the government of a dictatorship?
It's all semantics. Only a handful of madmen who are outside of North Korea actually advocate for the system in place there. At very least a socialist society would be democratic, and it could theoretically be far more decentralized and peaceful than a capitalist one with full protection of rights and community ownership of the means of production. It is not comparable to North Korea. Nonetheless, their desire to label North Korea as "State Capitalist" just emphasizes the socialists' desire to blame all negative things on capitalism I'm not a socialist, I'm just trying to be fair to the ideology.
