With all due respect, socialism CAN be a form of tyranny, and the way in which it can happen should not be forgotten. Just as autarchy or rule by a few can become tyrannical.

Socialism becomes tyranny when the able are excessively burdened to provide for the less able. I say with care "excessively burdened" because SOME social care for our fellow man and especially our fellow citizen is required by the nature of the organism called a State.

But when the reliance on ONE person, or the reliance on a Government, in either direction becomes excessive, the drain on individual talent and insight becomes so great that it is no longer worth it, and the individual slinks into apathy or evasion or migrates elsewhere.

The chest-beating of those who think all social inventions are tyrannical is just as ill-informed as the belief of others that we all ought to be one big carefully modulated social organization. Neither extreme will work, and both are a dampener on individual liberty and individual conscience. The RIGHT balance of these things rewards genuine productivity and genuine compassion, and penalizes excesses of self-serving greed or obsessive irresponsibility.

A