Before we get started, let me preface by saying this is not a political post. This is a post about taxonomies. If you are a frequent reader, you know I like finding unique examples of how solid taxonomies (whether they are truly scientific or just for fun) help classify and identify a subject matter. This one is about socialism. This interesting information came to us from Eurasia Review in their OpEd, “Socialism: A Brief Taxonomy – OpEd.”
This is where you are saying, “sure, it isn’t political”, but it really isn’t. However, that word – socialism – gets thrown around a lot these days and it is safe to assume a huge chunk of people have no idea what the real definition of socialism, communism, or even what capitalism truly is. This taxonomy can help with that.
The most striking and frequent misconceptions regarding this topic are the identification of socialism exclusively with Marxism, the confusion between the concepts of socialism and communism, and the claim that fascism and National Socialism belong to the right, to name a few.
As is often true with taxonomies, concepts get fluid and classifications can get murky. How the content is classified impacts the findability of your data. Professionals should look for an experienced builder of solid standards-based taxonomies to associate content for appropriate machine-assisted indexing. Access Innovations has extensive experience in constructing taxonomies and can provide solutions that are ANSI compliant.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
