From: William (williamweb@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Nov 10 2002 - 08:05:45 MST
Extropes,
Americans DO know the difference between socialism and communism:
Socialism is simply diluted communism. Socialism allows for some
private property but saves the most important "means of production" for
the state. The state decides what is important enough to nationalize.
Educated Americans who have taken at least one economics class know
that even the United States has had some socialism ever since Franklin
Delanore Roosevelt (FDR) instituted the start of a Welfare State during
the Great Depression that preceded World War II. Many Democrat
Presidents tried to emulate FDR's "New Deal" going by similar names
such as Square Deal, Fair Deal or Great Society.
Socialism as an economic system is just diluted communism. It is very
easy to confuse the economic system with political systems that
USUALLY go with the economic system. Feudalism is similar to socialism
as is the more diluted mercantilism - the government controls the most
important means of production. Europe has had feudalism during its era of
absolute monarchs and mercantilism during the European colonization of
other parts of the world (esp. France, Britain, Spain and Portugal).
The United States rebelled against the mercantile system in which. as a
British colony, we were simply a market to which Britons could sell stuff
and tax us. Adam Smith's The_Wealth_of_Nations which is considered
the founder of capitalism had been published and that is what the American
colonists began to expect: free (unrestricted) trade with anyone not just a
protected market that was owed by Great Britain. (Politically, we were
also not represented in the Great Council or Parliament aka "no taxation
without representation." but that is a side note here.)
The European acceptance of socialism is very understandable in light of its
similarity with the similar mercantile and feudal systems that came before
it.
Americans (in the U.S.) have never tasted this until FDR and that was under
the extreme duress of the Great Depression that it took for Americans to
"buy into" government regulation of the economy and some limited
redistribution of income that the New Deal implicitly entails.
President Reagan did talk about "smaller government" and rhetorically he was
anti-'FDR socialism' but did not actually shrink the size of government.
Libertarians primarily part company with Republicans in the U.S. I think
because Republicans do not make smaller government the higher or highest
priority that Libertarians would like.
Regards, Bill.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 14:50:50 +0100 (CET)
> From: Alfio Puglisi <puglisi@arcetri.astro.it>
> Subject: Re: PLEA: Re: Extrops on socialism
>
> On Sat, 9 Nov 2002 Dehede011@aol.com wrote:
>
> >In a message dated 11/9/2002 2:06:56 AM Central Standard Time,
> >avatarpolymorph@hotmail.com writes: I should say I don't think Americans
> >understand socialism or social democracy in general. They tend to
constantly
> >confuse communism and socialism. Europeans understand these concepts.
> >
> >Now where have I heard that basic argument before? Tacky, tacky, tacky.
<G>
> >Ron h.
>
> Maybe in your messages? When I said "the communist party did this" you
> replied "how the socialists could do that?". That's a good data point :-))
>
> Ciao,
> Alfio
> ------------------------------
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