Riiight, and the banks, failing industry  450% GDP debt and just about everything else causing the reccesion isn't causing problems for Britain. The NHS problem is minute compared ot most problems facing us I believe.

Who said those weren't problems either?  The UK does have a lot of problems.  The healthcare one that existed well before all that though.

US private companies have the same problem but have more lattitude to act offering bonuses to people who are healthy and follow a healthy lifestyle.

The UK couldn't really get away with that.

Mixed economies are the way to go. I don't think you could find a pure example of any political/ecenomic ideology in the world. Anything taken to an extreme is potentially bad.

Using the definitions, I think we can deduce the following things:

Communism, and by proxy, Socialism seek to enforce the idea that the government can, and should, own large swaths of private industry in practice. In the former, a pure communist country has everything in common. In the later, only parts of industry are state controlled.

In various countries, we can see various examples of socalistic practices:

• Government ownership of the press (France, China)
• Government control of healthcare (UK, Canada)
• Government control of poverty/philantrophy (many Western countries embrace this, as well as Eastern, in various shades via welfare, unemployment benefits, ect)
• Government control of the economy, via a planned or command economy (USSR, China, Saudi Arabia)
• Government control of retirement
• Government control of schools
• And so on

In all cases, they are socialistic - government/national control and monopolization of parts of a nation's industry. The question is how much is enough, or too much, and to what end does a politician want to see socialism effected in their country.

In President Obama's case, we've seen that he desires to enforce policies to create a national healtcare system, reduce & redact school vouchers/school choice, more progressive taxes against the wealthy (wealth redistribution), and so on.

Is Obama a socialist? I guess that's a question that can be graded in very many ways. By definition, every politician is a socialist of some kind. If they are for the government controlling industry, they are, by praxis, socialist. The bigger question is: Does President Obama seek more government control of private industry? The answer to that, I believe, is a resounding 'yes'.

As a senator, he has the following ratings from various groups that have socialistic ties:

• Citizens for Tax Justice: 100%. CfTJ is a SI group that advocates progressive taxes.
• National Education Association: A rating. The NEA is a pro-government education association (as we all know)
• AFL-CIO: 100%. The AFL-CIO is one of the largest American trade unions. Research socialism and trade unions
• Americans for Democratic Action: 100%. As described on their website, they seek to promote socialistic practices founded by FDR.

Of course, to each his own. Some use it as a catchphrase with negative connotations. I guess it's entirely up to the individual to ask what parts of socialism work, and which parts do not work. I'm of the opinion that reducing the individual's choice thanks to a government monopoly is just as bad as it is to legislate a corporation to have a monopoly: it rarely works as we hope it would.

@ Stickball - very interesting points. Thanks for them.

I am big on universal health care due to personal experiences without it. My sis lived 2 years in France and even though she wasn't a citizen, she was able to get health care. Matter of fact, years later, she visited France on a trip and had the equivalent of $35 in her health care fund. Not sure if she used or withdrew it.

As far as the rest, Social Security still exists - and the military is a socialist organization, right?

The way you and Kasz have broken it down really makes sense, but I think a lot of folks are just piggybacking off of what other folks say. Research goes such a long way.

I can understand being big on universal healthcare. However, there's a difference between the idea of universal healthcare under a socialist system (everyone pays equal to the govt. via taxes for the same kind of government healthcare) and a privatized system. Both seek the same thing, but have totally different ways of solving the problem. The same can be said between America's Social Security system, and 401k's, public and private schools, and USPS vs. FedEx and UPS.

As for the military, the American military system is a hybrid of both a social defense network, and a privatized one. On one end, we have a national defense force controlled entirely by the government, but at the same time, most supplies are acquired through contracts with private companies (such as Boeing, Lockheed, and Colt). Also, America maintains state-wide defense forces as opposed to federal forces (National Guard by State) and you also have the militia which is almost outside of the government, and we finally have privatized military forces such as Blackwater. So in America's case, it's not entirely socialist, for now, at least.

To understand how truely private the American military insitution has been, one only needs to look at 3 examples: The Toledo War (where Ohio and Michigan took up arms against eachother. Ever wonder why the Mich-OSU football game is so heated? It's because we nearly killed eachother in the early 1800's), the Civil War (both sides had local forces engaged in the conflict, and not just national systems), and Katrina (federal relief efforts via the National Guard & armed forces were screwed up due to conflicts between state and federal levels).

 I think its a problem in the US, people are too affraid of these words, it may have something to do with the cold war propaganda as someone said. They call socialist anyone who cares for the poor and makes measures that put them above the rich, I think its the way the rich people or the ones that represent them attack, and conservative poor people fall for these arguments of the guy being socialist and communist and inmidiatly dissaproove whatever they do.

Thats what I think.

Not really. They only call people that want the government to fund the poor people socialist. Ask any conservative who should be taking care of the poor. It's not that any conservative feels the poor shouldn't be taken care of, but they feel the burden of responsibility should be on the people, by the people, and for the people, and not mandatory by the government.

I find it interesting that despite all the strides we've made to fund the unemployed through food stamps, welfare, and other government programs, the gap between the rich and poor is even bigger. Very interesting.

The problem with that is that conservatives donate a higher percentage of their paycheck, more blood and more of their time to charity then liberals.

Ironic since liberals believe they aren't being taxed enough... and conservativse believe they are being taxed too much.

Conservatives believe money is better funneled from the citizens directly to machines in place to help the poor to cut out the middle man government and all the money wasted getting through all the levels of government.

While the Liberals believe that people aren't generous enough to help there fellow man and have to have the money removed via taxes.

Ironically while the Liberals blame the Conservatives for not caring about the poor... the Liberals seem to be the same people they're talking about in such situations. 

Kinda like when you see Bono talking about the poor starving people from africa when he has so many untapped resources he'll never use and could use to help africa.  Hell bono could probably buy an African country.

If Liberals actually spent time, money and blood like Conservatives did it's unknown if a difference would be made... but every dollar spend through a private charity for such works is more cost effective then every dollar spent for it through the government.

Healthcare and other socialist programs would be best run through the states if it was going to be government controlled.  Eh then again the State governments are emulating the National Governments lately... meh.  We really need some hardcore Libretarians to take control for 4-8 years and tear everything down and start over.

@ mrstickball: Great posts. Very informative stuff.

I think many people overestimate the effect the word "socialist" has. They throw it around like it its going out of style. Frankly, the American people have kind of become skeptical of labels and don't exactly have a hostile reaction to the word socialism anymore. Calling Obama a socialist isn't as effective as his critics think it is, and a higher percentage than they think like it when they hear he is a socialist.

Calling someone a socialist in a mixed economy is like a white person saying someone isn't white enough. All politicians in this country are socialist to some degree or another, and even Republicans are more socialistic than Democrats in some ways. National defense is a great example, as are farm subsidies. Not to mention Republicans (at least under Bush) parted way with their fiscally conservative ways and arguably grew the national government ironically under an anti-government banner.

Frankly, I think many Americans are open to the idea of socialism, whether or not they admit it. People love programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and people have responded very positively to the government becoming involved in the healthcare system since the private sector has completely botched everything. Americans like socialism even if they don't like the word socialism. People here are practical. If it works, they like it. If it doesn't work, they don't like it. If government gets the job done on an issue, you won't hear them complain. If they don't, you will.