Is the US headed towards a socialist government?

[kandrathe]

I agree here. I don't want to start a Europe vs USA brawl here, but in my opinions many Americans are so 'scared' of socialism that they don't stop and ask themselves if they really know what it is (I don't mean you kandrathe, i know you know what it is).

Like Shadow says, socialism is not an opposite of democracy. Sweden, where I am living now, is a kind of conservative socialist country, but at the same time very capitalistic. It is one of the richest countries in the world, there are smaller differences between rich and poor, and the standard of living is very high. Well that is a price you pay for excellent almost free child and healthcare I guess.

Anyway, pure capitalism leads to overproduction and leads to overvalueing. Take the banking crisis. It was the banks full right to try and profit from the fact that people think that buying a house would make them rich so had no problem taking out a big loan which was difficult to pay off. (this is what you also call a pyramid scheme) If no bailouts were done the (western) world economy could have gone down the drain.

Yes this might sound strange from one of the more leftish lurkers, but the goverments helping out the banks was a good thing, I think. If however the fundamentals of capitalism will not change (I mean how it is implemented) this will happen again. Exactly because overproduction is inherent to capitalism; it doesn't matter if you produce something useful, it matters if you produce something that you can sell.

This has seemed to work for so many years looking from the perspective of somebody that lives in a rich country, that it is hard to figure out that pure capitalism will have to be abandoned. In a world with more people getting a higher standard of living (China, India) and more people in general we simply cannot maintain our lifestyle.

And before skipping directly to communism I think socialism is a good middle road. And no I don't mean like china, I mean like Sweden for example. I don't have to share my car with my neighbor, I have property, I have a TV with many channels, I can choose between 100 different kinds of soft drinks and we have McDonalds. Another great idea would be not to call it socialism......in order not to scare people of.:)
Also I think (I hope) that the crisis can turn out to be a good thing. We hopefully can start building a more sustainable industry......and so this crisis hasn't come one day too late.

As for socialism and democracy, perhaps we can learn from Alexis De Tocqueville where he says, "Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint."

As for socialism and capitalism, the rub for capitalists is the free use of the fruits of their labors. Rather, socialists believe that the success of capital (investment appreciation or earnings) warrants legal banditry in the form of laws designed to separate people from their wealth by force of government. Socialism ends tragically when those with the means are either unable or unwilling to pay. The American people are still duped by their textbooks into believing that FDR and the New Deal was what delivered the USA from the great depression. The great depression, WWI and WWII is what gave the US federal government the impetus and the cause by which to legally take whatever they wanted. Since the end of WWII, they have never given up an ounce of power or returned the nation back to the people. The US spends over a trillion dollars a year (of borrowed money) to maintain an empire built during the past 80 years, and like all empires before us we too will succumb.