On a tangential note, it's not quite right to call the European system socialist. "Social democracy" might be more correct, otherwise people confuse it with communist socialism which is an entirely different regime with much more negative connotations. There are very few things in common between the systems in, say, Sweden and Soviet Russia.

As a European I find it interesting how Americans have started to completely misusing the term 'socialism' especially over the last couple of years. Even those who don't fit the die-hard right-wing profile seem to have started calling any kind of social welfare 'socialsm' without realising what actual socialism looks like.

To me, what's surprising is the contrary: that people call communism "socialism". While here in France, our Socialist Party (in power right now) has always been far from communism.

It feels strange to me to call social welfare anything other than socialism. Maybe it's just a case of French socialisme and English socialism being false friends.

That's a good point and there seem to exist different understandings of the term in different countries. I do wonder where this comes from. In Germany Sozialismus is always understood in the marxist sense and it is furthermore inseperable from the political system of the German Democratic Republic. I am not privy to the finer points of the French Socialist's political agenda, but from my understanding they roughly resemble our Social Democrats.

It's because most communist parties in the Eastern Block were initially (or even always) called socialist parties. And many Eastern Block countries were named "socialist republics".

Heck, U S S R.

Well, North Korea (and many other dictatorships) are technically "democratic republics"... Doesn't mean that they are.

True, and so were all the socialist regimes I mentioned. But after tens of years of propaganda by the communists, the name tends to stick. After the fall of communism, it sticks in a bad way: socialism = communism.

I think that the best people to ask are those that lived under "socialist" regimes (I'm one of them). If I ask almost anybody I know that lived under a socialist regime, they'll probably say the same.

Maybe theoretically socialism is a different thing, but practically it really isn't for a lot of people.

We're not misusing it. We support socialism. Social democracy is just the first step.

Today increased budget for food stamps, tomorrow the world, that sort of thing.

> You do realize that most of Western Europe is socialist?

Only if you use the american dictionary.

> You do realize that most of Western Europe is socialist?

Yep. I would even include America in that, just to a slightly lesser extent.

> That some of the countries that enjoy the highest quality of life and happiness are socialist?

Well, who are you comparing to? There aren't really any or many relatively free countries (and there never have been more than 1 or 2 at a time in all of history).

It's not true if you compare it to 19th century America in terms of happiness, nor modern-day Singapore in terms of quality of life.

(In fact, a pet has a better quality of life than a typical American, since they have better access to healthcare.)

> How do you square that with what you've written?

I hope I've answered your question.