Capitalism

I am surprised to see you call it a socialist ideal though ("imposed socialism"), this is normally the capitalist way - exploiting your advantages over your fellow is more a "right wing" than "left wing" activity in my opinion, but I could be wrong.

I had a big long post -- full of my own hot air -- and upon reflection it was stupid. So I deleted it.

When I think of "capitalism," a better phrase for it would be "resource allocation based on free market mechanics." Contrast that with "resource allocation based on the decisions of a ruling elite," which is what I would characterize "socialism" as. Neither is perfect, but I believe history has shown that free market mechanics produce greater wealth than controlled mechanics.

The thing about free market economies is that sometimes there are painful periods of transition. Right now the market does not value low-skilled assembly workers. Hence there are a lot of people in the U.S. (and probably the UK) who previously held assembly line work who no longer do. We have nobody to blame but ourselves -- we, the consumers, allocated resources freely. We took our money to Wal-Mart.

I also believe that a free market economy can be subject to abuse. So I agree with some degree of regulation. But I think the defining difference is this: free market proponents start from a position of no regulation and grudgingly move to some regulation; socialist proponents start from a position of complete regulation and grudgingly move to some free market practices.

I have expressed my disdain for the ruling elite because they are utter hypocrites. They violate the "treat others" rule in near everything they do. Notice how I did not say "socialists" there ... I said "ruling elite." Here in America our illustrious Congress has exempted themselves from darn near every law they impose upon us. The difference between them and a socialist regime such as the Soviet Union had was that every two years we can do something about it. In 2006 this country did just that.