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The Q'uran and the Prophet Mohammed cannot be held responsible for the Jihadi atrocities of Boko Haram or the Islamic State groups any more than can the Christian Gospels and Jesus be held responsible for apartheid or the Ku Klux Klan. To claim otherwise is simply illogical.

Yet the murderous behaviour of Josef Stalin, of Cambodia's Pol Pot and the bureaucratic barbarism in North Korea continues to be blamed by many on the writings of Karl Marx. However, at the same time, much of the labour movement and most of the many fragmented Left groups regard such states as "socialist", while much of the business community denigrates them as "communist".

The issue of what is meant by these terms is even more pertinent in South Africa now that the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) proposes acting as a catalyst for the formation of some form of "socialist movement".

In April, encouraged by Numsa, a gathering of trade unionists, human rights campaigners and the various groups and grouplets that see themselves on the political Left, plan to come together to establish a "socialist alternative".

It proposes to be an alternative to anything political, social and economic currently on offer. And if previous and current debates are anything to go by, many references in April will be to Brazil and Venezuela, to Cuba, China and perhaps Bolivia.

These tend to be seen by many in the local labour movement as epitomising some form of socialism. There may even be a genuflection or two to the former Soviet Union and its satellites as offering a desired alternative.

What Marx and Engels argued for was extreme democracy"

This issue of whether an alternative exists also emerged at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week as the wealthiest bosses on earth gathered to ensure the best ways of propping up a clearly collapsing system.

Significantly, there was no condemnatory mention of state intervention, of socialism or communism. In fact, since at least 2012, the economic oligarchy at Davos has been most accepting of state intervention and even degrees of control.

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South Africa: State Ownership Does Not Equal Socialism