Is the US technically communist?

No, America is not communist. And the sad fact is most people don't understand anything about communism to make the judgment in the first place.

reply to post by In nothing we trust


I believe the term you are searching for is "crony capitalism", and no, it doesn't properly reflect the free market concept, though it attempts to push it at every chance it gets. There is a strong free market element in our current system, considering that free market requires a limited monitoring system to prevent corruption and monopolizing. The government doesn't designate all prices, and there are very, very lose regulations on supply and demand.

Let us look at the definition of capitalism:

An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.

Seems pretty accurate to me, aside from any minor elements of "socialist" principles in our government, several of which have been present there since the writing of the Constitution.

Don't freakin kid me. It's cronyism and favortism to loyalist party members. It's nothing short of communism.

Really? Do you have private property? Hourly wage? Is there privately owned business in America? If the answer is "yes" to any of these, then this country is a far cry from communism. Even the Soviet Union was a far cry from communism, considering that communism is a classless, stateless society where the means of production and property are commonly owned. The so-called "planks" cited in the OP are not, if one reads the Communist Manifesto, the end game, but the fatal flaw in Marx: he ignores the sheer power of human greed as much as those who believe in free market or Austrian economic ideas.

If you want to argue semantics, the US government is technically a corporation, as established by the Act of 1871. Of course, make what you will of that. I would say what we truly have is neither capitalist nor socialist in nature, but a corporate plutarchy; a plutarchy being a combination of an oligarchy (a form of government in which power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, military might, or religious hegemony) and a plutocracy (rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth).

A real solution to any problems would begin with the revoking with the corporate charters, and unclog the arteries, so to speak, of the economic veins of this country. Of course, my economic ideas run a bit to the left, so we won't find much agreement there, I imagine.

[edit on 5-3-2010 by Someone336]

[edit on 5-3-2010 by Someone336]