Socialism

In the US the following are generalities only. There are exceptions on both sides:

Liberals believe that individuals are collectively responsible for the welfare of the entire community. Thus more programs to help the entire community means that higher taxes and bigger government is needed to oversee the programs.

• Pro-choice
• Equality
• Feminism
• Affirmative Action
• Gun Regulation
• Social Help
• Insurance that covers all
• Support welfare program
• Separation of church and state-No religion in schools
• Against the death penalty
• Regulated Market

Conservatives believe that individuals are responsible for themselves, and that the community benefits from the efforts of the individuals acting in their interests. Thus less governmental programs, less taxes, and less government is the goal.

• Pro-life
• Equality takes a back seat
• Patriarchal
• Believe there is reverse racism in affirmative action
• No Gun Regulation
• No social help
• No separation of church and state
• Religion in public schools
• Support the death penalty
• Free Market

The terms may have different meanings in different countries.

There are really three ansers to that.

Most Americans value three things: The right to free speech, the right to property, and the right to freedom of religion. Communism goes against these things. In Marxist teaching, the ideal society would contain no religion, and no individual property. Thus Americans fear communism.

There are many reasons why America was so scared of Communism:

• The public associated communism with anarchy and immigrants trying to destroy their type of government.
• There would be no individually owned property and everything would be publicly owned (owned by the government).
• The 'American Dream' is based on the ability to make a successful future for yourself in your own way.
• The American culture is based on ideas of freedom, individuality and capitalism
• Corruption is more likely and would cause more damage with communism.
• Americans are raised to believe that their society alone has complete freedom.
• It removes the incentive and ability to aspire and be greater.

There are two major theories as to why socialism did not work in Russia.

The first is that socialism is not capable of economic calculation and cannot determine what is wanted and needed both locally and globally because prices for all goods were fixed. These people, led by such Austrian School economists as Ludwig von Mises, Murray Newton Rothbard, Hans Hermann Hoppe and Robert Patrick Murphy, argue that socialism will inevitably lead to terrible inefficiencies from the coercive power of government. It also argues that these coercive powers lead the populace of on affected area to become extremely present-oriented, further depressing productivity as the "public sector" takes on more of the economy.

A similar view, though different in details, is followed by the Chicago School of economics.

The second theory, followed by Trotskyists such as Tony Cliff in his State Capitalism in Russia and in modern times Socialist Alternative, Socialist Worker and the Democratic Socialist Party in my Australian homeland, argues that socialism failed because it could not utilise the power of the much better educated working classes of highly industrialised nations such as Germany, France, Britain and the United States. Under this theory, if the best-educated working classes were able to take power, they could via democratically elected workers' councils with right of recall far beyond anything in today's parliaments plan the economy much more efficiently than capitalism. Under this theory, Russia was a form of capitalism akin to the West rather than a socialist nation, whereas under Austrian theory most modern Western states are largely socialist.

Capitalism and communism are economic philosophies-they are ideas that describe how an economy should be run. Nazism and Fascism are political ideologies- they are ideas that describe how a government should run.

First, to understand the economic philosophies, we need to define "the means of production", which is a key phrase. This phrase refers to things like factories, mines, farms, and the equipment used for those things. With that in mind...

1. Capitalism is the basic economic philosophy that allows anyone to own "the means of production". In theory, if you can get enough money, then you can buy and own a shoe factory or a gold mine or a wheat farm, and you get to decide what to pay the workers and you get to do what you want with the profits.

2. Communism is an economic philosophy that is considered one branch of Socialism. It believes that "the means of production" should be owned by society, specifically, the workers. So the people who work in a shoe factory or on a wheat farm or in a gold mine should be the ones who own that thing, and should share the profits it makes.

Now, those are just the basic ideas behind the philosophies- they are both much more complicated than just that. Both can be broken down into other sub-categories, and these all have different ways of doing things. For example, Communism can be broken into Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, and many more, and each does things differently. Capitalism can also be broken down similarly. Additionally, things get a little iffy when actually tried- for example, the Soviet Union claimed to be communist, but the workers never really had any power... the communist party ran everything and lived like an aristocracy while the workers were largely irrelevant.

Moving on to Fascism and Nazism. They are very closely related ideologies, and are generally considered to be "far right" on the political spectrum, but in all honesty, they don't easily fit in the left vs. right system. Both borrowed some ideas from the left-wing, and both considered their ideologies to be "Third Position"- neither leaning towards Communist nor Capitalist based economies. Both sought to set up a totalitarian, single party dictatorship ruled by a single all-powerful leader.

Fascism is a political philosophy, originally from Italy, that emphasizes nationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, anti-democracy, anti-communism, and anti-capitalism. They believe that "The State" (that is, a strong central government, completely controlled by Fascists) should take control of everything in the country, and run things under what they call "corporatism". Corporatism is the idea of splitting the economy into separate sectors, which would each be managed by their own government agencies. Labor unions get folded under the umbrella of these agencies and union actions (like strikes) are banned.

Nazism is a German version of Fascism. It shares a lot of the same basic principles (including all the "-isms" listed above under Fascism), but the Nazis strongly emphasize racist policy (most famously by hating Jews), and when they ruled Germany, did not really follow the corporatist economic model- in short, they removed as many Jews from the economy as they could, and then not only let the Weimar Republic's capitalist system mostly stay in place, they actually passed some very pro-business laws, like outlawing labor unions, reducing minimum wages, and even making it illegal to quit your job without your boss's permission. In theory, the most important thing to Nazis is helping "pure" German people (that is, people of German descent with no foreign ancestors), which they call "Aryans"; but in practice, Nazi Germany seemed more interested in taking total control of the country, building up the military, and conquering other countries- all while systematically slaughtering anybody they happened to dislike.

Things get a little murky though because of the history of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. On the surface, the two governments looked extremely similar, and it's not uncommon to see the terms used interchangeably. Then, to make things more complicated... Italy did very poorly in World War 2- their military was pretty terrible, and Germany had to keep bailing them out. Pretty quickly, Germany became the dominant partner, and forced Mussolini (Italy's Fascist leader) into accepting Nazi style racist policies. So while racism was not actually part of Fascist policy (when Hitler was coming to power in Germany, Mussolini often wrote criticisms of Hitler's pointless racism), by the time the Fascists lost control of Italy, they were carrying out Nazi-style racist policies.

Some people, especially people who don't really understand Communism or Socialism, do often use them interchangeably (or, curiously, as completely unrelated terms), but it's technically incorrect. Communism is just one branch of Socialism; there are many branchs. It's much like how Catholicism is but one branch of Christianity, or Trigonometry is one branch of Mathematics.

What is tricky is that until about 100-ish years ago, Communists usually called themselves Socialists. The reason being that their belief that Capitalism needed to turn into Socialism, and then it would eventually turn into Communism. So they were trying to get their society to take that first step and become Socialist. Around the end of World War I, the Communists finally separated themselves from mainstream Socialism, although they still often used Socialist terminology (as seen in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR).

Health *care* will not be "free" as a result of the new health reform law. Health *insurance*, however, may be subsidized by the federal government for qualifying low-income individuals and families. These federal subsidies will not be made available until 2014, however. At that time, most Americans will be required to have health insurance, whether obtained through an employer or purchased on their own. If you earn more than $14,400 or less than 400% of Federal Poverty levels ($43,320 for an individual and $88,200 for a family of four in 2009) you may qualify for government assistance to help you cover the cost of your monthly health insurance premiums.

Those making up to 133% of the Federal Poverty levels will be eligible for (free) coverage by Medicare if their state chooses to participate in the expanded coverage program. Currently, not all states have decided to participate in this expansion. Those currently at or below the Poverty level already receive government medical coverage in some form.