The "government" in the United States is us...we, the people.
As is common, you seem to have confused communism and socialism in the above query. We remain a democracy, although cult-evangelical extremists are doing their very best to overthrow this (Goldberg, 2006; Sharlet, 2008), but the United States has long-been a successful combination of capitalism and socialism---not communism. An ideal goal for communism, according to Wikipedia and other research documents, is a completely "classless" society---one that does away with production-based distribution (as exists in socialistic economic systems) and capitalism. Socialism asserts that goods and services distribution should occur according to the amount of individuals' production efforts (i.e., earned), as opposed to the communist concept that all goods and services should be mandatorally distributed based on individual need alone, and socialism further sees capitalism can co-exist with socialism and that everyone can benefit from capitalism if greed is prevented via a centralized planning system (i.e., government regulations)...which we now know based on the greed-driven collapse of our housing/credit markets and our financial system is true.
Why would you claim that the U.S. government (of, by, and for the people) is communist? Perhaps you are under the mistaken impression that GM was "taken over" by Washington DC when our taxpayer dollars were used to prevent them from disappearing altogether---something you might consider to be "communist"...However, we taxpayers now own a 60?hare of GM (the bailout) that they have the option of buying back from us with interest, if we choose to sell. GM's employees own a 17?hare, for which they made concessions on retirement plans and other benefits; the investors bought in for a 13?hare; and a Canadian auto parts dealer was allowed by the bankruptcy judge to invest in the remaining 10? This is NOT communist, dear questioner, but is instead a valid way of preserving a trade name that has historical significance for this nation and one which enabled GM to have strong incentives to do a much better job that led them to paying off their bankruptcy much earlier than anyone predicted, achieving a $100 million contract with the military to test desert terrain vehicles, and building the new Volt that gets 340 miles per gallon in city driving! Once their prosperity is solid, they can pay us back with interest---dollars that can be used to pay down our deficit, but...will we as investors want to sell?...lol.
Socialism serves the American people extremely well, and acts as a balance mechanism when regulations are properly in place for greed-driven corporations or financial institutions. Here are just a few of our socialist systems upon which the American people rely: the U.S. Post Office, our military, the VA medical system, our highways and roadways, mass transit, police and fire departments, Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, public libraries, public schools and universities, and so on. In addition to these, we have socialistic features that have worked extremely well over the years to protect the American people: civil rights, workers' rights and workers' safety protections (i.e., EEOC, OSHA), voters rights for women and persons of color, equal pay for equal work, the Americans With Disabilities Act, whistleblower protection, and so on. These are not communist, but they are socialist in the sense of shared distribution. If you are familiar with the yin-yang concept, socialism and capitalism balance each other. If a government is all socialism, stagnation occurs, and if all capitalist then rampant greed takes over to the detriment of consumers (as happened from 2001 through 2008 due to the move to deregulate everything and redistribute wealth to the top 1.5?nder GOP totalitarian rule, resulting in price-gouging, then collapse of housing and credit markets, then meltdown of our entire financial system).
Like I said, the government here in the U.S. is the voting public. We choose people to represent our interests and protect our nation. If these representatives fail to do what we send them to do, we vote them out and put new people in. This is NOT communist at all, so long as we monitor the influence of corporate lobbyist activities (opensecrets.org) and participate in the political process.
Answered By: Armchair Goddess #1 - 3/12/2010 |