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The word you're looking for is Democratic Socialism, a mixed economy.
Examples include Canada, Europe, Israel, Japan, and the U.S (To name a few).
It seems hard to call Israel, Japan, and the U.S. to be examples of democratic socialism. It is a more valid label for Canada and some European nations however.
Definitions regarding socialism are getting difficult. Socialism is not a settled issue yet. It is still experimental in that different countries are trying different ways of getting there. Some have failed, some are failing, and some show promise.
And there are different terms to identify different approaches to it. Wikipedia says "democratic socialism" is a socialist economy and government. - "Democratic socialism is defined as having a socialist economy in which the means of production are socially and collectively owned or controlled alongside a politically democratic system of government." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism
Wikipedia distinguishes this from "social democracy" which it says is commonly confused with democratic socialism. - "Social democracy is a political, social and economic ideology that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a capitalist economy, and a policy regime involving collective bargaining arrangements, a commitment to representative democracy, measures for income redistribution, regulation of the economy in the general interest and welfare state provisions." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy
It goes on to say "Social democracy thus aims to create the conditions for capitalism to lead to greater democratic, egalitarian and solidaristic outcomes; and is often associated with the set of socioeconomic policies that became prominent in Northern and Western Europe—particularly the Nordic model in the Nordic countries—during the latter half of the 20th century." and that Weisskopf (1992, p. 10) says "Thus social democrats do not try to do away with either the market or private property ownership; instead, they attempt to create conditions in which the operation of a capitalist market economy will lead to more egalitarian outcomes and encourage more democratic and more solidaristic practices than would a more conventional capitalist system."
This should be enough to prove to anyone that socialism is not a settled science but is under development and subject to evolution as options and results are sorted out.
Free market vs regulated market. USA is more free and other western-style democracies are more regulated.
But it is worker control that identifies socialism. Every country has always had regulation. FDR introduced a record level of regulations and then declared "I saved capitalism".
Israel has more public funded programs than most European countries.
The U.S is very socialist because of our programs that do exist. Police departments, fire departments, labor unions, etc.
Democratic socialism is an economy that involves basic necessities like healthcare and labor unions that are tax funded, while allowing for a free market with some basic regulation.
Israel has more public funded programs than most European countries.
The U.S is very socialist because of our programs that do exist. Police departments, fire departments, labor unions, etc.
Democratic socialism is an economy that involves basic necessities like healthcare and labor unions that are tax funded, while allowing for a free market with some basic regulation.
Egad. Our social programs were learned from FDR: they are designed to buy off the public and allow corporatism to thrive and advance. The U.S. government serves the largest corporations first and the public long afterward. There are no laws that incentivize worker control of business (laws governing co-ops and such do not incentivize; they "permit"), no laws to enable more worker input and influence in anything. Laws have systematically been enacted to render unions impotent and to reduce their number and the number of union workers. That is the opposite of "socialist".
BTW... socialism, Marxism, totalitarianism, authoritarianism, fascism, and a few more ism's are all a strain of communism; PERIOD!
Communism is the starting point. Socialism is simply a hybrid with a few tweaks. When both are compared they fail equally, always ending badly with the same basic results.
Lol, don't stretch so hard, you'll hurt your tendons.
No stretch at all. If you actually held the same beliefs, as you assert, you'd voluntarily PAY the same federal income and VAT tax rates. Quite clearly, you don't. You're just another of the millions of lefty hypocrites.
So you dig out a month-old post from the Religion forum that has to do with Fundamentalist vs. Liberal Christianity--not politics--and then claim I am dishonest about what I wrote in this thread.
You claimed that some Americans are not "enlightened," directly contrary to your more recent assertion, no?
It would be good to try democracy. It would be a good experiment since I have trouble considering the right to vote every few years as being evidence of democracy. Americans like choices. Choices would be good. How about giving people the choice of buying goods from either a top-down typical corporation, or from a workers' co-op? How about giving people the choice of working for a typical top-down corporation, or working for a co-op? To make such a choice possible it would be necessary to legislate incentives for the establishment of more co-ops. Local zoning could be modified to require developers to allocate a certain percentage of new developments for worker co-ops. That would finally introduce a little real democracy into the workplace.
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