No True Scotsman

I'm not a true Scotsman. Worse, I'm not a Scotsman of any kind. However, I have committed the "no true Scotsman" fallacy on several occasions in the past, and I might repeat the fallacy in the future; it's also known as an "appeal to purity" and it's present all around us. So today's post is a short discussion about this fallacy, and how I used it in some of my posts and responses.

"No true Scotsman" is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to defend a universal generalization against counterexamples by changing the definition such that it excludes the counterexample; this is how it's explained in Wikipedia, but that might still be somewhat confusing. So let me explain how I've personally used this fallacy in many capitalism versus socialism discussions I've had in the past. When I try to explain socialism's fundamental differences with capitalism, and point out its many benefits, as I often do, there's always someone who uses one of the many failed socialist experiments from the past or present as a counterexample with the aim of disproving my claim that socialism is preferable over capitalism; we all know these counterexamples like the U.S.S.R., China, Cuba and even Venezuela. And here's where my use of the no true Scotsman fallacy comes in: I often retort those counterexamples by claiming that they are not true socialist experiments, that Stalinism or Leninism isn't true socialism.

This is wrong, it's a fallacy, pure and simple. It's also a clear indication as to why this fallacy is also known as an appeal to purity; what I'm saying when I refute arguments against socialism in this fashion, is that no regime ever adhered to Marx's theory for 100%, which is an impossible standard to live up to, certainly in today's world with today's people. I mean, "pure" socialism is in fact communism, the end-goal Marx had in mind, a stateless, classless society without money or ownership of any kind, which is just unrealistic in our current world. It also completely disregards the fact that there is no universally accepted definition for socialism and that there are many disagreements about what it is exactly, even between socialists. Venezuela, the go-to counterexample for many defenders of free market capitalism, is not a socialist country in my opinion, simply because more than 70% of its economy is privatized, which is more than the Scandinavian countries. But I live in Europe and I should consider that maybe for an American Venezuela is a socialist country. Now that I'm aware of my use of this fallacy, I'd defend against, for example, the Stalin counterexample by explaining that not socialism but authoritarianism is the defining or most prevalent characteristic of his regime, and that this kind of socialism isn't what I'm fighting for.

In my own defense though, it has to be said that the same fallacy is rampant among the many libertarians and anarcho-capitalists I've met during my many political adventures in the online social platform jungle. When I criticize free market capitalism, they also counter with the fallacious argument that there is no true capitalism and no truly free markets. They make the same mistake I myself so often made, as they disregard the simple fact that markets have never been truly free, and I would add that they never will be. That's because free markets are a system of distribution, and capitalism is a system of production; that system of production is the one that causes the accumulation of private wealth, which in turn causes the accumulation of private power, and that power is always used to influence markets to further benefit the private owners of the means of production. Even the agreement on what can be traded and what can not be traded, like human beings for example, infringes on the freedom of the market.

Anyhow, I'll close now by inviting you to watch the below linked video with another example of the no true Scotsman fallacy, in which Jordan Peterson's use thereof is shown. I'm sorry if you're a fan of the man, dear reader, but he is a treasure trove of logical fallacies, and uses the appeal to purity even more often than I do.

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