First your definition is Socialism is flawed as it is so overly broad pretty much anything shy of Anarcho-Capitalism can be called a mixed socialist system.
A more accurate description of the term is...
"An Economic-Political system in which control of decision making and ownership of the means of production is centralized with the national government."
The main difference between Socialism and Communism is that Communists are at least in theory also Anarchists in that they replace 'government' with 'the people' and at least in theory no government at all.
Outside of possibly Cuba there are no true socialist countries left anymore because it has become self evident that real Socialism simply cannot work and always results in endemic poverty and chronic shortages of resources.
As far as Communism, that has never existed on a national scale. Even the Russians and Chinese never attempted to implement Communism holding it as a supposed end goal in their struggle against Capitalism but not something that could be implemented 'yet'.
Now. before we look at Obama lets look at the so called blended economies of Europe and see what they should properly be called.
In European Socialism we have a system which contains centralization of 'essential' resources within the government and a strong governmental regulatory control over the means of production in the remaining industries which are not socialized. There is also a a strong welfare state which is not technically a part of socialism
Well this certainly has strong socialist elements, however the level of regulatory control over industry and private enterprise with the extent of welfare policies means it is not blended with actual capitalism but something else. These economic policies fall somewhere between Fascism and Mercantilism without really matching either because they are not outright protectionist necessarily but there really is no good historical name for the economic system, if the name Corporatism had not already been used to mean something else it would be a perfect term to use here. The strong welfare state is also something which in modern colloquial usage is called Socialism but really isn't as there are far more Socialist countries than anything in Europe which have no welfare state elements at all(China until Tienanmen Square for example).
So now lets look at Obama. First before we can say what President Obama is we must recognize that there is a difference between what he would do were he Supreme Emperor of the US as opposed to merely the President because for all the power the office of the President of the United States has it is rather limited (by design even).
On an actual policy level lets look at his defining legislative actions
1) While he didn't pass it he supported and backed the economic bailout in the waning days of the Bush administration that benefited large corporations at the expense of the people and nationalized their debts.
2) He nationalized several key Industries most importantly 2 of the 3 largest employers in the country with GM and Chrysler.
3) Pass an economic 'Stimulus' Bill which focuses 100% of the stimulus on Government programs
4) Pass a Health Care reform Bill, which centralizes control of of health care decision making and funding with Federal bureaucracies and benefits corporations at the expense of the people.
5) Nationalized Higher Education funding.
6) Expanded federal control over primary and secondary eduction.
In other words at every step of the way he has worked to centralize control in Washington or a handful of heavily regulated corporations. While this is not technically 'Socialism' per se, it is exactly in line with what passes for Socialism in the blended economies of Europe and about as far from the Free Market economy most Americans wish to retain.
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Date: 31/5/10 14:09 (UTC)A more accurate description of the term is...
"An Economic-Political system in which control of decision making and ownership of the means of production is centralized with the national government."
The main difference between Socialism and Communism is that Communists are at least in theory also Anarchists in that they replace 'government' with 'the people' and at least in theory no government at all.
Outside of possibly Cuba there are no true socialist countries left anymore because it has become self evident that real Socialism simply cannot work and always results in endemic poverty and chronic shortages of resources.
As far as Communism, that has never existed on a national scale. Even the Russians and Chinese never attempted to implement Communism holding it as a supposed end goal in their struggle against Capitalism but not something that could be implemented 'yet'.
Now. before we look at Obama lets look at the so called blended economies of Europe and see what they should properly be called.
In European Socialism we have a system which contains centralization of 'essential' resources within the government and a strong governmental regulatory control over the means of production in the remaining industries which are not socialized. There is also a a strong welfare state which is not technically a part of socialism
Well this certainly has strong socialist elements, however the level of regulatory control over industry and private enterprise with the extent of welfare policies means it is not blended with actual capitalism but something else. These economic policies fall somewhere between Fascism and Mercantilism without really matching either because they are not outright protectionist necessarily but there really is no good historical name for the economic system, if the name Corporatism had not already been used to mean something else it would be a perfect term to use here. The strong welfare state is also something which in modern colloquial usage is called Socialism but really isn't as there are far more Socialist countries than anything in Europe which have no welfare state elements at all(China until Tienanmen Square for example).
So now lets look at Obama. First before we can say what President Obama is we must recognize that there is a difference between what he would do were he Supreme Emperor of the US as opposed to merely the President because for all the power the office of the President of the United States has it is rather limited (by design even).
On an actual policy level lets look at his defining legislative actions
1) While he didn't pass it he supported and backed the economic bailout in the waning days of the Bush administration that benefited large corporations at the expense of the people and nationalized their debts.
2) He nationalized several key Industries most importantly 2 of the 3 largest employers in the country with GM and Chrysler.
3) Pass an economic 'Stimulus' Bill which focuses 100% of the stimulus on Government programs
4) Pass a Health Care reform Bill, which centralizes control of of health care decision making and funding with Federal bureaucracies and benefits corporations at the expense of the people.
5) Nationalized Higher Education funding.
6) Expanded federal control over primary and secondary eduction.
In other words at every step of the way he has worked to centralize control in Washington or a handful of heavily regulated corporations. While this is not technically 'Socialism' per se, it is exactly in line with what passes for Socialism in the blended economies of Europe and about as far from the Free Market economy most Americans wish to retain.