Paul

I think most of the people I meet who call themselves socialist aren't communists. They think that there are certain aspects of the society that should be protected from "the free market". In a great many ways our government already is socialist. The buyouts of failed retirement funds, the support of oil drilling off both the east and west coast without taxation on the oil, the airline industry, railroads. yada yada.

Some people are "socialists" because they are capitalists even. Collective buying power types who think that a free market system wastes GDP. I don't see much difference between free market monopolies or government management, except that monopolies tend to charge too much, and governments are wasteful. I tend to believe that the production of power should be a matter of common cause and not necessarily one where profits should be very large. I'm for good regulation. It's easy to say that oil is free market, that doesn't mean it is. It really isn't....

There are "Socialist" governments, they may not be "strong socialisms", who have no inclination to become communists. Socialism has become in some sense it's own political viewpoint, even if it's still working out it's limits. I guess to me communism is a political philosophy and so is socialism. The main difference is one really really sucks in practice. Just like totally free markets. I am not a free market anarchist either. You hear that bush...I'm not an anarchist!!

Here's a question... What has been invented in the last 75 years or so that wasn't heavily funded by the government? That has really changed our world. That's socialism.