I really don't get all the various posts about 'commies'. Does anyone personally know a communist? Has anyone ever met a communist? The word 'commie' gets thrown around almost excclusively by the American right as far as I can tell, and lumps that word together with socialists. A 'Communist" is someone who supports a centralized economy with the government in control of all state assets (so it controls and directs all factories, all agricultural production, every kind of manufacturing). It demands 100% compliance to its directives. In theory, the collective profits are then returned to the workers in the form of salaries. In the cold war it failed miserably. The remaining 'communist' countries like China and Vietnam are communist in name only. They eventually embraced capitalism and China is now the world's second largest economy. A 'Socialist' is someone who believes that government, industry and society in general should be 'socially responsible' and that the good of the nation and its people should be paramount. The assets of the country - like natural resources (minerals, oil, gas, forests, water) should be retained by the nation for its own profit and not privatized. It does not mean private industries can't make a profit. It believes (generally) that health care, education and well-being of disabled citizens should be universally paid for by government and taxes and not privatized. There are many countries that follow this or similar systems - mostly northern European. Canada falls a bit in between the socialist model, but IMO leans more toward the American model (with notable exceptions).
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