Socialism Hooray? But. . . ?

So the republicans are screaming "Socalism! Socialism!"? And Obama is a undercover socialist? Well what IS socialism? Isn't that where the government controls all the major factors of production? Sure it is.

In a socialist government/economy the national government runs the railroads, press, airports, farms, food processing, factories, and all the other major enterprises. They set the objectives and plans, they organize the companies they put people in various positions and run the day-to-day operations. That's socialism.

What America has traditionally offered to the world is a different kind of government-economy operation. Under our form of Controlled Capitalism, that is, the way things USED to be, back before Reagan brought his "Voodo Economics" into our world, the large corporations ran their day-to-day operations the way they saw fit. They made their plans, they organized their operations, they hired and promoted their people, they ran their operations themselves. The national government played the role of referee and umpire to make sure the "economic game" was played according to the rules the American people decided it would be run. For example, there would be no child labor. Women and blacks would be paid equally for equal work. Taxes would be paid as determined. Food production would be uncontaminated by germs and mold, accounting would be audited and reported and conducted in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Corporations would stick to their chosen job and not take over unrelated work from other corporations.

These lessons came from a long history of boom and bust cycles, culminating with the Robber Barrons in the early part of the Twentieth Century, and creshendoing in the Great Depression of the 1930s. There would be laws. There would be rules to insure that our nation would never again be ripped apart by savage CEOs, and those rules and laws would be enforced by the might of the Federal Government.

Then Reagan said thing were SO good that we had reached Morning in America again, and that the corporations could be "trusted" and the market would take care of us all. And that was the beginning of the fall.