All this talk of Socialism, I was looking at the definition on Wikipedia which includes this line ... "Social ownership can be public, collective or cooperative ownership, or citizen ownership of equity." I was surprised by "citizen ownership of equity". Is the stock market really a socialist system ?
A political theory advocating state ownership of industry and an economic system based on state ownership of capital is the more traditionally literal definition and understanding of the word I think.
During the Great Depression many elements of socialism were introduced into the American economy. These included the Works Progress Administration, Rapid Growth of Union Membership -- some Union leaders were avowed Socialists or Communists-- Workman's Compensation, Social Security, etc. Some of these elements survive to the present day. After the war there was a back-lash against unions resulting in the Taft-Hartley law which, played a significant role in weakening Unions. During the McCarthy era socialism and communism were lumped together and demonized. That ended productive dialog between the socialists and capitalists. Following the McCarthy Era, U.S. Citizenry, including its political leaders, basked in a self-imposed ignorance leading to one mistake after the other in both foreign and domestic policy. Starting in the 1980s, the normal accumulation of capital in the hands of a few accelerated, and wages among labor stagnated and fell victim to increased inflation that followed the U.S. exit from the Gold Standard. Their are early signs now of a coming radical change in direction of U.S. economic policy, but it is unlikely to occur without considerable political upheaval. I find it interesting that today, in the U.S., Marxism, or Marxist Socialism, is often closely associated with Soviet style communism as though they were one and the same.* Soviet style communism is actually radically different from what Marx advocated. Marx thought workers, not the State, should control the means of production and play the role played by management in modern day capitalist economies. In contrast, Soviet style communism is much closer to what may be referred to as 'State Capitalism,' where the State owns the means of production and plays the role played by corporate boards of directors in modern-day U.S. style Capitalism. Whereas Soviet style 'State Capitalism' failed miserably using productivity as a measure, U.S. style capitalism, by the same measure, has been a roaring success. The only thing these radically different systems for production seem to have in common is that both resulted in a concentration of wealth in the top-most level of management. _________________ *In this regard, please see Stu's post above which nicely illustrates this point.