Government owning property has nothing to do with how and whether people vote for representatives. As for whether it's good or bad, that has nothing to do with the subject.
You will also notice long ago and many times in this thread I posted right from a dictionary and it disputes you Oxford "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." I bolded it political and economic- they are tied together so your definition is just that yours.
Just because something is political doesn't make it a form of government. Do you think that because "I believe in freedom of speech" is a political construct and a political belief that "free speech" is a form of government?
Anything can be described as political, if it's economic it is by definition within the realm of politics.
Bottom line: You can have democracies/republics with socialist policies. When people talk about having more socialist policies, they aren't talk about changing the way people vote or what voting means. They are talking about those they voted for enacting particular kinds of policies.
When government controls the economy to use your word aka socialism in action, its a socialist government, hence all the socialist countries. And extended definition I don't think most read Full Definition of socialism 1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods 2a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private propertyb : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state 3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done Look at number 2 society or group living in - aka government Ugh this is tedious lol but hey whoever wants to avoid the facts good luck
What kind of government do you think Canada has, by the way? It's a parliamentary democracy. It has strong government control over many sectors of the economy, including healthcare and a number of crown corporations. It has a strong central bank with very a few highly regulated private banks (the main reason why Canada avoided the recent housing crisis), and many other socialist features. I feel like you are just being intentionally obtuse at this point.
Can we agree that socialism is an economic system that can be either implemented or rejected by governments?
Not really, you can introduce socialist policies, but I'm not sure that it is sensible to talk about introducing 'socialism'. Like, I would call Obama a proponent of a socialist policy in that he wants to have universal healthcare, but he isn't necessarily someone who would identify as a 'socialist'.
U, sir, are a winner. I am striving to become a winner too. Some think the gvt can force people to be winners and force people to be fairly successful and force people to be good and force people to NOT be poor. Balderdash!!!
I understand the point of freedom to help whoever you want. The only problem I have with it, is that because of this some people just never get help. For instance, why does America have such a problem with vets in a bad financial situation? Because there's no proper social safety net. Some of them might have families/friends to help them, or a kind neighbour, yet some never do. I know the argument to be made is "but what about those who want to live of social welfare, my god". The answer would be, limitations and checks. In Belgium, you get X amount per month if you're unemployed/handicapped/seriously ill/unable to work for a longer period of time/etc. The way it works is that you get most of these for X amount of months and there's background checks and you have to prove that you're putting in effort to seek a job/show doctorsreports/etc so that you can't easily cheat the system. Can you still cheat the system? Probably, it's just not made that easy. And there's less chance someone falls without help. Is there a better solution? Probably. But I think it's an alright system. Better than the one in America. But America is so far right, somehow getting Obamacare as to put an end to 45000 people dying every year because they can't afford medical care is outrageous. Policies that are standard in most of the world, are considered Socialist. We are all lucky here to have what we have, I think most of us have a decent standard of living on these forums. I hope we never have to go through that. But if I were to fall into a hole, where I have no direct family/friends who can/want to support me, I would much rather have a system run by the government in place that would aid me, than pray someone from a church or community shows some good will.
to add to burns' kind of how the US and many of the worlds justice systems believe it is better to let a murderer walk than to let 100 innocents rot in prison ( though with the aplauding for having executed innocents 4 years ago I'm not sure this goes anymore) many people think it is better to let 1 receive benefits because of fraud than to let a 100 vets/old people/out of work people suffer.
Many vets in MuriKa are in a bad spot for lots of reasons, but one of them is NOT lack of gvt programs. Also, my family was dirt poor until I was a teen. I am so glad we escaped the gvt plantation. It does a lot of good, but it also wastes a tremendous amount of resources and kills a lot of innocent human beings. Obama bombs are nicer than GW bombs, apparently.
Er, we do though. Mostly financial institutions, and we sometimes temporarily run a company (General Motors IIRC) at least long enough to sell it. Of course, the irony is that the Government (Congress specifically) is supposed to control issuance of currency but that's been handed over to a private company (The FED).
Care to explain why? Why is it such a problem? Are there (bad) government programs in place? To me (and I'm not that knowledgeable on the subject at all), it would seem because of the possibility of high medical bills and the lack of structured help from the government when the land in poverty after serving.
That's an unfortunately bad example friend. Veteran Affairs has been plagued with problems, including discrimination, refusal to provide aid (financial or medical), etc. However, this is likely more of a Corruption/Policy issue than a System issue. It doesn't mean that the VA couldn't be made to be highly helpful for vets with some work.
Belgium doesn't have business that is strictly state ran. However, it has business where the government has a majority share (railroad, a phone/tv/internet company/postal office being the most known ones) in. Those businesses provide a common good for society. Also, didn't the US bail out banks and companies? Did they do it by buying shares? Isn't that similar to what European countries have? Also I don't agree with the comparison of China. They're communist. They have a one party system that controls everything. The point to be made was that you could have a mix of socialist/capitalist policies and do well in Europe.
