| ToxicJosh said: 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? |
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.
