Socialism as a 4-letter word.

Sophomore year, I gave a presentation in my German class about the healthcare system of Germany.  My teacher was a real live authentic Berliner, so he was theoretically the best suited to teach the class (He was an excellent teacher).  However, during the presentation, I made one cataclysmic mistake.

I called the German government "socialistic".

Needless to say, this infuriated my teacher, who rabidly pointed out that Germany is not a socialist country and that there was not even the slight wiff of socialism in Europe.

I amended my presentation to say that Germany had modeled their healthcare system off the Clinton Plan (a decidedly socialist program).  Even though I was inferring that Germany had adopted a decidedly socialist healthcare plan, it was the word "socialism" that earned my teacher's ire.

There is absolutely no denying that most capitalist countries today exhibit very socialist traits.   With Bush's recent nationalization of banks, it seems even our bastion of Adam Smith-like utopia could fall to the scourge of Bolshevism.

I'm being sarcastic, of course.  Even if we don't want to admit it, our country has had socialistic tendencies for years.  Socialism as it's practiced in the modern world is merely the offspring of the Second International - that is to say that socialism is the practice of government intervention to regulate and maintain free market and the citizenship (social democracy).  We see this every day of the week - the government regulates business and taxes the people; social security gives money to the elderly; public education and unemployment benefits aid those who are between jobs.  Socialism has existed in Germany since the 19th century when the Social-Democratic movement picked up steam.

But why does the mere word "socialism" inspire such anger in people?  I choose to blame Karl Marx and Joe McCarthy equally. Both men fanatically believed that socialism was intrinsically linked to communism and the destruction of democratic social norms.  Both men were quite vocal to this point.

It is at this point that I must say that I in no way advocate the Third International's conception of violent revolutionary socialism or communism.  I'm just trying to point out that our system of government is already socialistic.  The concept of socialism is the idea that the government should be beneficial to everyone.  This doesn't run contradictory to our great democracy at all.

Hell, wasn't it the great Commissar Reagan who furthered the idea of earned income tax credits?