[x]

Hey, Mitt... Europe is socialist.

I don't know what socialism is supposed to mean now, but when Mitt was in school back in the 1960s it was assumed that socialism meant state ownership of the means of production. By that standard Europe isn't socialist. By Marx's or Lenin's or Castro's or Chavez's standard it isn't socialist either.

[CottonBall]

I don't know what socialism is supposed to mean now, but when Mitt was in school back in the 1960s it was assumed that socialism meant state ownership of the means of production. By that standard Europe isn't socialist. By Marx's or Lenin's or Castro's or Chavez's standard it isn't socialist either.

I'd forgotten about the formal definition of socialism set forth in The Communist Manifesto. You are right. But you'll be ostracized for that here - this place has gotten as irrational and emotional as the libs at times lately.

Seems that lately instead of proposing an out and out revolution by the proletariat to institute socialism, more nations are having it creep in, by having the government control more and more entities. Having the gov control the means of production has proven to be suicidal (ie., USSR, China before implementing capitalism under Deng Xiaoping in '70).

[Brilliant]

“it was assumed that socialism meant state ownership of the means of production. By that standard Europe isn’t socialist.”

I beg to differ...

What does “own” mean? One of the dictionary definitions (which I argue is the applicable definition when you’re talking about the capitalist system of economics), is “To have control over.”

And clearly the Europeans and the US liberals exercise control over the means of production with their hare brained regulatory schemes, so in that sense, the government does own the means of production. Of course, they don’t exercise complete control over it, but in order to muck up the capitalist system, you don’t need to have complete control. All you’ve got to do is prevent the individual proprietors from running their businesses they way they want to in order to maximize their profits, and when you do that, you’ve effectively sabotaged the capitalist system as much as if you took complete control over the business.

I guarantee you that this is not lost on the Europeans. They understand that their systems are socialist.