The bolded made me laugh. Why would corporations so strenuously try to influence a government that exerts so little control over them? The one city that not has only weathered the economic crisis but has thrived during it has been Washington, D.C. That's why it's a joke to expect the government to do anything about economic inequality. They are the primary beneficiaries of it. The D.C. area has no natural resources and no industrial base, and the only thing it produces is red tape for the rest of the country. Yet its wealth grows by leaps and bounds. 

And it is inevitable that power attracts money. So whether we practice outright socialism or the incrementalist approach known as social democracy, it amounts to the same thing. If the state holds absolute power and can compel you to give your capital to them at any time, then who really owns it? And if the state can regulate every aspect of the economy, you are effectively working for the state in everything but name. They permit you the illusion that you are not, of course, but all it takes is one decree and you are out of business, so you are utterly beholden to them. 

It isn't so much that Americans misunderstand socialism (although they do, or they would see that they are already neck deep in it). It's socialists who misunderstand human nature.

OK badgenome, lets break it down.

1)"Why would corporations so strenuously try to influence a government that exerts so little control over them?"

Because believe it or not, they are still beholden to the law. It pays for them to influence the law makers so that the law is in their favour. The fact that the law has the ability to exert control over them, does not mean that the government is using it to do so. The truth of the matter is that corporations use their financial power in order to control legislators to act in their interests.

2)"whether we practice outright socialism or the incrementalist approach known as social democracy, it amounts to the same thing."

Again, socialism concerns itself with ownership, not the welfare state, but I'll bite.

Social democracy is a tool used by capitalist systems in order to raise the living standards of the proletariat. Whether you take the view that this is for charity/reasons of control is down to how cynical you are. But as has been stated several times now; this has nothing to do with the economic policy of socialism.

The UK, which is a capitalist democracy, has free universal healthcare. So does Cuba, which is a communist dictatorship. Healthcare has nothing to do with socialism.

3)"If the state holds absolute power and can compel you to give your capital to them at any time, then who really owns it?"

You do. Are you really trying to argue that any state that practices taxation, or that even has the ability to levy taxes is socialist?

Technically the Monarchy has the ability to dismiss Parliament and rule as they see fit. Does that mean the Britain is an Absolute Monarchy in the same vein as the Ancien Regime? Of course not.

4)"It isn't so much that Americans misunderstand socialism (although they do, or they would see that they are already neck deep in it). It's socialists who misunderstand human nature."

Wow, just wow.

Americans clearly misunderstand socialism, thanks for the demonstration.

Socialists misunderstand human nature? I don't see how your opinion on human nature has any relevance to this topic. But in the interests of education:

Traditionally speaking there are 3 views on human nature: good, bad, and neutral. Conservatives tend to feel more negatively about people, liberals more positive and people who think about it realise that there are some good and some bad, and that people are probably born as a blank slate, or tabula rasa, and that how they are raised probably plays a great deal into whether or not they turn into saints or scumbags. (Notice how none of that carries any relevance to economic theories?)

Personally, I think that all that human nature tells us is what the actual nature of the person holding that view is: as the only mind we get to see inside is our own. So someone who says that people are inherently lazy, selfish and only out for themselves is, in all likelihood, lazy, selfish and only out for themselves. People who think that people are naturally loving and kind are probably going to be loving and kind.

The only way this plays into economic theories is that people who are greedy want to able to accumulate wealth; and therefore are more likely to want a system that enables them to do so (capitalism). People who consider everyone to be equal, are more likely to want a system that removes wealth from private hands (socialism).

But really, that's stretching credulity in terms of a criticism of socialism. Sorry for the rant.

Awesome post, all of yours but that bit is golden.

Socialism is disappearing rapidly. I grew up in socialist Netherlands, but there too the government started selling off all state owned utilities from the 90's onwards. Leading to a big mess on the railways, declining postal service, complicating health care, money wasted on advertising for electricity, increased banking fees, less jobs. And to what advantage? The government made some money selling its assets, but it still has to bail it out when things screw up while any profit goes into private pockets.

I'm saying that it implies some degree of socialism, yes. When the government claims a cut of every single financial transaction and has a massive regulatory apparatus that administers basically every aspect of commerce and life, yes, that certainly represents a degree of socialism. It is certainly more socialistic than not doing it.

As I said, I think it's a mistake to take the binary view that the government exerting total ownership in the name of the people = socialism, and anything else = not socialism. There are a lot of points on the spectrum, and besides, what we nominally are usually differs from what we actually are. I mean, in theory under an absolute monarchy the king could do whatever he wanted. In reality, he didn't have the power or technology to do much of anything and the average subject's interactions with him were mostly limited to the tax collector popping by your hovel once a year. The modern bureaucracy armed with modern technology is far more intrusive, even though we are nominally freer. Similarly, regulation is for the most part a satisfactory substitute for direct ownership and, in many ways, is even preferable from the state's point of view as any failing can be blamed on the private sector and used to subsume yet more power. Such regulation is simply a degree of ownership.

All countries use money, doesn't that make them all capitalist? Your argument that tax = socialism makes about as much sense as my previous statement.

There are some services that have to be provided by the state, and therefore need to be funded by revenue gained through taxation. This is no more socialist in that it uses taxation as it capitalist because it involves money. You clearly don't know what you're talking about and are harping on about how socialist the government is because they won't let you sell guns to toddlers or whatever it is teabaggers are so pissed about.

Again you missed the point by a country mile regarding what socialism is. It is about OWNERSHIP.

Yes there are degrees, but those degree range from the state owning and running all industries, to maybe only running one or two where it makes no sense for anyone else to do so; such as transport or health.

Taxing citizens and businesses, making and enforcing laws, and having in place a system of welfare in order to protect those most vulnerable in a society, is no more socialist than it is capitalist. These are simply things that states do.

This is why America will never have a socialist party, because people clearly have no idea what it means.

I also don't think you'll ever have a Progressive Left party with any real power, because the ignorant masses ruin it for the few of you with more than 2 brain cells to rub together.

I'm not sure that holds true nowadays, though I agree with your former point. It's reasonable a state with very low taxes but where every economic service is owned by itself is still pretty socialist. But a state where regulation is so intrusive there's absolutely no way for the individual initiative has no flexibility and no way to actually be any different among themselves also fits the bill. Or doesn't it?

Socialism and regulation are entirely unrelated. You can have a strongly regulated industry that is privately owned and operated (such as buses in the UK), or you can have a publicly owned one that is mostly self-regulated, such as our Primary Care Trusts. There is no relation.

Regulation is painted as being socialist in order to run a strawman argument.

Maybe but not in the near future. Modern traditional "socialist" countries have increasingly adopted more neoliberal policies, until that trend reverses I can't see, especially the US, having a socialist government in power.

well really we can thank woodrow wilson, or even TR

Yes. Soviet style communism was called state capitalism for a reason.

Which is kind of my point. No system on Earth is pure. According to your impractically rigid defintion, something is only socialist if the state owns it outright. A mixed economy is therefore no more socialistic than a completely free market. But, of course, socialist thought didn't begin and end with "the People should own everything". How you could even achieve such a thing has always been up for debate. So socialist theorists have tinkered with various ways of reaching socialist aims for over two centuries now, including having to contend with the successes of market economies, and it is absurd to deny socialist influences in systems that aren't purely socialist.

No. I didn't miss that. You missed my point that to reserve the right to regulate something is to exert at least partial ownership of that thing.

It's worth noting that the Oxford English Dictionary definition of socialism is:

A political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.