Socialism American Style

Mr. Milos Foreman is a renowned film director but not a good political economist. This is evident in his New York Times op-ed defense of Barack Obama from those who charge the president with being a socialist. (See his essay, "Obama the Socialist? Not Even Close" in the July 10th issue of the paper.)

When someone on the American political landscape is accused of being a socialist, the claim has little directly to do with Stalinism and a lot more with the kind of system they had in Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland and other Soviet colonies, namely the phony promise of cradle-to-grave security and relentless government meddling in people's lives (goulash communism). Call it Norman Thomas style socialism, the kind that so many academic socialists in the West champion.

The brutality known as Soviet style socialism comes later. It is not the first step. But we get a good clue about its approach in America when one understands the meaning of a term like "mandate." It means coerce, plain and simple!

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