All the talk in American politics about the spectre of socialism is silly, and it is about time serious political comentators stop using the word. Socialism is when the government gives away free stuff. In every democracy in the world, to win votes, the government gives away free stuff. There is some tendency for the Republicans to give free stuff to the rich and the Democrats to favor free stuff for the poor, but they all give away more free stuff that was even imagainable way back in the day, when socialism was controversial.

Ron Paul and the libertarians want a government that doesn't give away free stuff, but as long as people are allowed to vote, they will vote themselves free stuff. There never has been an exception in the history of the world, and there is no reason to suppose there ever will be.

The amazing thing is that all the predictions of bad things that will happen when the government gives people free stuff haven't come to pass. Most of the people in technologically advanced republics are happy and free.

Shhhh!!!

That's supposed to be double top secret.

Dear Sir,

The Romans had a great socialistic government, the only issue was after the rest of the empire decided it did not want to support them anymore it all caved in.

We need a safety net, but at the same time, if people want to eat they need to work, it as good enough for bible it is good enough for me 2 Thessalonians 3:10.

BTW: Being a socialist and getting free stuff are not related, normally you work long hours and you are completely repressed.

God Bless You

The biggest threat to capitalism in the United States comes not from socialists but from capitalists. Rather than creating wealth, too many enterprises are now in the business of looting the wealth that was painfully built up over generations. Our manufacturing base has been hollowed out leaving a shell of an economy sustained by ever increasing debt, public and private.

If we stay on this road, a terrible reckoning will be inevitable. In January President Barack Obama will inherit the responsibility of steering our economy away from disaster. That means facing the fact that too many American corporations have become Frankenstein monsters that have turned on their creators. The grip that lobbyists for these corporation have on Washington has to be broken.

We've known since the 1930's that laissez faire capitalism is dynamically unstable. The godfather of modern capitalism, Adam Smith, never thought that an economic system could be based on fear and greed. Indeed, Smith expressed strong reservations about concentrating economic power in the amoral entities he called "joint-stock companies" and that we know as corporations.

The problem that we face is that America has become captive of a materialistic economic ideology that turns citizens into "consumers", a word I despise. Marxism is another materialistic economic ideology and it has been exposed as toxic to the human spirit. Capitalism as we know it is only slightly less toxic.

Toxic ideologies weaken societies until they collapse. The external stresses of foreign competition and dwindling resources are placing a huge strain on our weakened society. Out of this crisis we have an opportunity to critically examine where we are, how we got here, and where we should head. I don't have the answers but it makes me more than a little nervous that the right questions aren't being asked.

Rick;

Your post is amusing, and, I suppose all terms that buttonhole thinkers into categories are suspect. But historically, socialism, as represented by the traditions of Eugene Debbs, is nearly the opposite of the social welfare state which was concocted to defeated Debbs' socialism.

As I think you would agree, this country has been a social welfare state since the Big Depression, but capitalism in a modified form has survived. Indeed, were it not for the rise of the social welfare state under FDR, the United States would likely have become mired in the same totalitarian, socialist regimes we spent the latter part of the 20th century fighting against.

John

"President Barack Obama will inherit the responsibility of steering our economy away from disaster."

Will this wise soviet pig (and his liberal elites) require extra apples to fuel thier superior brainpower while he directs the economy? Isn’t centralized planning a failed concept that invariably leads to mass murder?

The problem is that too much Government, and government collusion, is interfering in the free market. A bigger socialist government will facilitate greater economic destruction after which the socialists will call for more socialism to counter the socialist caused destruction.

After Obama’s smarter-than-the-market little piggies implement their racial/Marxist tactics, Obama’s revolution will lead to the same economic destruction that socialism always brings.

Sigh. In your obsessive-compulsive anti-Marxism, you are as much a captive of Marxism as Lenin. Give it up and open your eyes. Marxism died with the Soviet Union.

"Steering our economy" means putting back the necessary regulatory apparatus that Reagan and Bush dismantled or ignored. In case you haven't noticed, an unregulated financial sector, operating unrestrained under your marvelous free market conditions, has caused such a debacle that it is now has to be bailed out by "Big Government".

"Steering our economy" means returning to some semblance of fiscal responsibility on the part of the federal government. Balancing the federal budget won't lead to mass murder, as you hysterically suggest. Not getting our national debt under control, on the other hand, will cause widespread misery not seen since that free market fiasco known as the Great Depression.

Finally, what are these "racial" tactics that Barack Obama is implementing? This ugly smear shows that mindless worshiping of markets leads to incoherent ranting.

pwoxby:

Not "racial" tactics -- "racial/Marxist" tactics. Now do you understand? Duh!

Yes, I understand ;)

...Socialism is not "where the government gives away free stuff," but "where the workers control the means of production." Or so said Herr Marx, at least.

Americans tend to take it the other way, though and assume that ANY social program of ANY kind is "socialism." Especially if they're brain-dead Righties.

I've seldom seen such ignorance here, and that's saying a lot:

The Romans had a great socialistic government, the only issue was after the rest of the empire decided it did not want to support them anymore it all caved in.

The Roman government was in the form of an Imperial monarchy, with a rump Senate sort of going along for the ride. Their economic setup was pretty much free-market capitalism but based on large quantities of slave labor, not unlike the old American South.

You don't know a whole lot about Socialism, do you?

Rome became a socialist republic before its fall.

In 1787, Edward Gibbon finished his book, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." In it, he names several reasons for Rome's fall. One of them just happens to be "creeping socialism."

"Many years after the fall of the Roman republic, the emperors introduced socialism into the empire. The Roman government put higher and higher taxes onto the people and spent that money on a Roman welfare state. This weakened the empire by limiting business, making people dependent on the government and exhausting the state treasury."

Socialism is slavery, where others benefit from your work. Free men keep what they earn. In Laissez-faire capitalism everyone keeps the profits derived from his labor. Under socialism people are slave to the sate or collective that redistributes earnings, based on the whims of Marxist elites or mindless collective. Inalienable private property rights (including deciding what to do with your wealth) are the foundation of our liberty. Socialism trends towards totalitarianism, where Laissez-faire coupled with constitutionally guaranteed individual rights insures freedom.

Market economies are as old as human history. Economies centrally planned under the banner of socialism were an aberration of the 20th century. Of the 200 or so nations in the world, the number that now have centrally planned economies can be counted on the fingers of one hand. How out of touch with reality does a person have to be to believe that Barack Obama wants to centrally plan the U.S. economy?

Just as market economies are as old as human history, so is taxation, a sine qua non of a mixed economy. The highest marginal income tax rate this country ever had was 94% during the Second World War <link> . We can agree that that rate was confiscatory but the entire cost of wars shouldn't be passed on to future generations (e.g., the Iraq War). Today's taxation rates buy us:

public education

public streets and highways

public waterways and harbors

public police and fire departments

public retirement income

public health care for the poor and elderly

public parks and recreation areas

public libraries

public scientific and engineering research

public space programs

Free market ideologues like the late Milton Friedman would have us believe that all of these public services can and should be privatized in pursuit of the holy grail of economic "efficiency". Fine. Let these tunnel-visioned ideologues make their case. But I, for one, am going to ask that they do so without hysterical references to mass murder.

You really have no idea what you are talking about do you?

First Edward Gibbon doesn't mention socialism, he does mention lack of self sacrifice for the the empire (which is very collectivist) also mentions romans becoming effeminate, outsourcing their duties to Germanic barbarian mercenaries who had no stake in the stability in the empire.