What *is* socialism , exactly? Is Obama really a Socialist?

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

I have ben encouraged to write as a person and not a spokesman for the Green party, and been told tha I dissect some great issues.
So cop this one folks - Is Obama ~really~ a Socialist; What Socialism is and if it has any effect on society. My own opinions coming right up.

First, lets define what we mean. I will let the egg heads go for a dictionary definition , but here is the working man's definition.

Socialism is where Society, usually thru' an elected government, does things.
Now, all Communists are Socialists by default, but not all Socialists ae communists. How come/
Well, Communism does not allow private property. A men may own a suit or a car under a communist system, but the land and all the means of production , including businesses that create wealth thru providing services like transport - these are all owned by the state.

Now, Socialists cover everyone who wants some sort of state intervetion , be it total or partial.

By this yardstick, if the State has an education policy and nothing else, it is partly Socialist and partly run on Capitalist Private Enterprise - and we could call it a Mixed Economy. but ist isn't really that mixed. Now suppose the State builds and runs hospitals as well?
Then the economy is getting even more mixed, with more Socialism, more state control.

Now, a country like the UK has currently got State Education and State Healthcare running alonside capitalist, private alternatives. It's a mixed economy.

Now, I have heard Americans on Youtube videos saying that Obama is a Communist, a Socialist and a Muslim. that he isn't even an American citizen. lets check some facts , shall we?
he was born in Hawaii. A US State when i went to school, and probably still is. if he were not allowed to stand for Prez, I am sure somebody would have told him so by now.

But is he a Communist? Evidently not - he has never advocated that all land , and all business concerns in America be turned over to State Ownership. So that claim is wrong . Period, as Americans might put it.

But, is he a Socialist? weell, how far does he want State control to go?
Are there State Schools in America? to that extent, he has got Socialist credentials.
To be frank, I think that Americans have been taking tax dollars to educate their kids for longer than most americans know.

Yet, State funded Education is a Socialist principle. Obama is therefore as much a Socialist as George Bush was. Not much, in other words. A country can only rid itself of the' taint' of Socialism when it can honestly say that the schools and hospitals are all privately funded. like thesewage system and the railroads. Thatcher said that in England "we buried Socialism". she lied. she cut it back, but never managed to kill it.
so long as the State controls any aspect of goods and services to the public, you have state controllled industry.

Now, as I have said before, the State can often run a good service. Nobody complains about the London Fire Brigade, nobody is running to buy up the sewers and even if they bought up the postal services, they would not be able to run a service to the outer hebrides and make a profit.

The best solution is a mixed economy. it is noteworthy that although Obama dragged thousands of people into the healthcare system in America, it is seems it's still funded by private insurance. it isn't truly socialist.

Comments

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

However, that was Obama as filtered through the lens of realpolitik and not what he would do if he had unlimited control. Reading his writings and listening to his rhetoric when surrounded by 'friends' it is clear that he would go much further towards Soviet Style Socialism than Europe currently has (not all the way probably but closer) because in his own words he considers the 'Free Market' to be the enemy.

So is he a Socialist? Certainly not a pure one, probably no closer than Glen Beck is to a Libertarian but he is probably more of a socialist than any mainstream politician out there short of possibly Hugo Chavez and Castro in Cuba but his desires are tempered by the fact that he would never get legislative support for more centralized control.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

You're on the wrong side of the road, that's not too far off standard practise here in blighty, Some stranged shaped vehicle must have been parked there when it came to the second line, or more likely the stone chips for the road behind :)

Give em a pass, at least they tried :D (it'll become law soon too, Though shalt not extract the urine from those who benefited from a state funded education, it will just lower their morals morale)

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Ok, God.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Ah - glad to see that someone with a sufficient technical grasp of politics has come forwards.

Also, you know a lot more of the inner working of American Society than me , i will admit.

my assesment of him is purely on what I know of his healthcare reforms - and he has not brought everyone in , just expanded healthcare to many that The Free Market did not want to take care of at all.

i applaud him for that - he took the only advanced nation on earth to lack a social health system and gave it something better than it had under Bush - no mean feat. but , this of itself, does not extablish his credentials as a Socialist. Not in Britain anyway. you want to see what a socialist looks like, take a look at Harold Wilson...

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Is that how the British press spun it? We're still lacking a social health system, and it's not better than what we had. All it did is make everyone customers of the insurance companies rather than only those people who chose to do so.