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> Entitlement programs; communism. I can't see a difference, can you
> see a difference?
Yes. Socialism, maybe, but not communism. The dictionary sez:
Communism: a theory advocating elimination of private property.
A totalitarian system of government in which a single
authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production.
We may be well on our way to a single authoritarian party these
days (given the gerrymandering going on all over the country),
but they don't own all means of production. Yet.
The dictionary also gives these distinctions:
Socialism: 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
Communism: a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which
the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed
equitably
"Unequal distribution of pay according to work done," that sounds
like welfare to me.
I hardly think the state has "withered away" in the US. Of
course, it hadn't in the USSR either, but I don't think Marx
would have considered the USSR a real communist state anyway.
So we aren't what Marx would have called communist. We aren't
what the USSR was, at least not until Bush expands Guantanamo
into a full-fledged gulag and does away with a few more pesky
Constitutional rights in the name of fighting terrorism.
I'm a lot more concerned about what Bush and Ashcroft are doing -
- gutting the Constitution and turning the US into a USSR-style
police state -- than I am in the organized state-approved theft
used for Social Security &etc. Both are a problem but one is
much more serious.
Gary
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