Actually, Chet, Northfolk said pretty much what I had in mind. I did add that someone said, and I agree, that socialism is christianity applied to economics. I agree that communist states have generally been despotic messes, but forms of socialism have been practiced successfully all around the world--most of Western Europe has socialized medicine (it seems to have started in, of all places, Germany under Kaizer Wilhelm I), so does Canada (single payer) and to an extent, Japan. Most European countries also have much more generous social security than the U.S. These economies are suffering now, but not because of their socialized institutions, but because there, like here, industrial jobs are being exported to third world countries.

When I was in high school in the forties and college in the fifties, it was the age of "enlightened capitalism," we were told. Corporations helped create prosperity by paying good wages to their employees, creating strong markets for their products. A couple of years ago it was big news when a factory which recycled plastics into warm knitted fabric burned down--and the owner chose not to rebuild overseas, but instead kept his employees on payroll and rebuilt the plant. --seed