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From: lkk@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU (Larry Kolodney)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Freedom of faith (Communism) WARNING FLAMES!
Message-ID: <3456@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 13-Oct-86 16:21:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.3456
Posted: Mon Oct 13 16:21:42 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 19:08:49 EDT
References: <1581@cwruecmp.UUCP> <15885@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: lkk@mit-eddie.UUCP (Larry Kolodney)
Organization: MIT, EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 27

In article <2558@ihlpg.UUCP> tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum) writes:
[On whether Sweden is socialist]
>-------
>Sorry, Ed, it won't wash.  Sweden has a capitalist economy.  A high level of
>social welfare spending and a few government owned industries does not make
>a country "socialist".  I thought only right-wing and libertarian ideologues
>went around labeling such things as "socialism".


Bill, I think you are too concerned with formalisms, and not with the
underlying power structure.

The essence of Socialism is popular CONTROL of the means of production.  This
may occur through state ownership, but there are other models.

In Sweden virtually any major decision by a large corporation needs government
approval.  This sounds like control to me.

Free Market and Socialist are two extremes of an economic spectrum,
economies can only approach those ideals, and Sweden goes pretty far
in the Socialist direction.

-- 
larry kolodney (The Devil's Advocate)

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