kaz said:
Socialism is a centrally planned economy. Marxism, crony capitalism, fascism and other forms of government dominated economic decisions are all just variations of socialism.
No, kaz. socialism doesn't have to include a 'Central Planning' aspect to its nature these days.
I'm not see how that's possible, but I'm wondering if we're more in semantics here. When I say "centrally planned," that does not necessarily mean that the government is overtly making the decisions as they do in Marxism. Note I included crony capitalism and fascism as examples of socialism. The point is that if government has the power to override decisions or reject them or pick winners and consequently losers in the marketplace, then that is a centrally planned economy. Government will make those choices to it's own benefit, the difference just being the implementation of the central planning.
Capitalism and socialism are polar opposites. China is an interesting discussion between capitalism and socialism because while they do reserve the power to make the final central decisions, they are deciding not to. Though they do step in for things like Google and foreign ownership and investment. While China imitates and has many aspects of capitalism, they really are just a smarter socialist country because in the end, government has the say even if they generally chose not to use it.
Your Russia/Poland example was another example of that. In Poland, the central planners chose to give farms more autonomy. However, I'm sure neither of us believes that if the Polish government ever wanted to override that, they would in a heartbeat.
Anyway, how are things going with you, Jake? Want a ball to play with? It's bouncy...