Socialism is one of those words which have different meanings to different people. The definition I used when I was teaching history was: Socialism is that form of government in which the government owns or controls the major means of production, distribution, and communications. There were special forms of socialism; Hitler and Mussolini had forms of State socialism which controlled every facet of life, but certain willing participants were allowed to maintain ownership of their production facilities. Everyone was subject to the dictates of the government, which had total control of the lives of their citizens. Soviet Russia also had total control over the lives of its citizens, but they chose to claim theirs was a classless, stateless, [and Godless] society in which everyone contributed according to their abilities, and everyone received according to their needs. The Communists also had a rule which said that in order for the masses to learn how to live in a socialist society, there had to be a dictatorship of the Proletariat for an undetermined length of time. Theirs, too, was a total control of their people. Such governments were called totalitarian governments.
There were some countries which voted to become socialist. They had a somewhat freer society, but there was not always the right to own private property. Sweden, Denmark, England, France, Austria, Germany, and Italy had some form of socialism in their government almost since the end of World War II. Most of them have gone deeply in debt trying to keep up the practice of the government performing so many services for the people. And the people in those countries have paid heavy taxes the whole time.
There are those people who talk about other forms of socialism which are in existence. Aside from political socialism, Ralph Nader refers to something he calls corporate socialism. When the government has control of what is going on, it's bad for the people, and when corporations are in control of government it is also bad for the people. People have little choice in either case, and are generally not paid as well for their labors. Have you noticed the gradual decrease in the average family wage for a week? Have you noticed how many of our good jobs are being shipped overseas, along with the factories? The corporate owners are making huge profits, because their factories are producing materials we once produced, those workers are getting paid far less money, and the profits are exorbitant!
There is yet another definition of socialism which has ominous portents. Socialism is a method of consolidating wealth, and controlling all business through the control of the monetary system of the country. When viewed in perspective, there are very wealthy, very well educated people who have chosen to gain control of governments by consolidating the wealth of nations. Theirs is a form of socialism which has been likened to a return to feudalism. In feudalism, large sections of land were controlled by nobles, and all the people who lived on the land belonged to the nobles who owned the land. The nobles who controlled those large estates were call "lords", and their word was the law of that land. Those lords frequently were ambitious enough to try to enlarge their holdings so that they could have more wealth. Greed, power, who knows what made them want to take over other people? Eventually they had enough land to be called king. Kings had other nobles support them and rewarded their support by granting them favors, and sometimes larger parcels of land.
Anytime there was a king or a powerful lord who had a number of lesser nobles supporting him, those who offered their support had to show their loyalty by paying homage to their lord, or king. (You might compare that with sharecropping. In this country, those who could not afford to own their own land would raise crops on the land belonging to a wealthy landowner, and in exchange for their labors, they received a share of the crops, either for their own sustenance, or in money brought in by selling the crops.) Those lesser nobles were called vassals. The people who lived on the land were called serfs, or sometimes esnes. They actually belonged to the land, and if the ownership of the land changed hands, the serfs went with the land. Feudalism remained until government developed to the point where it could no longer be maintained. It was a form of socialism because the lord owned all, and those who lived under him were provided for by him.
The feudal mentality still persists. Very wealthy, well educated people today think it is their duty...their destiny...to rule over the people, and to control all the wealth. They want to make the whole world their fiefdom, with the chosen few supporting the elite, and receiving their manors, or spheres of influence, as a reward for their loyalty.
Feudalism was more complex than that, to be sure, but you get the idea. By applying the same principles to the world today, there is a small elitist group which would make the world one big "entity". The natural wealth of countries like ours would be drained to placate the people in what we call third world countries. The standard of living to which we have become accustomed would no longer exist, except for those in control. Ordinary people would have no chance to better themselves. Whether you choose to recognize the fact or not, that has already been incorporated into law! Many states have requirements designed to mesh with the federal law which state that students must have a certificate of mastery before they can be graduated from high school. Our children have been required to write essays about their opinions on how things should be done. The idea is that so long as they show signs of objecting to more and more government control, they cannot receive that certificate of mastery. It is a form of thought control. Without the certificate of mastery, they cannot be graduated from high school; they will not be allowed to get a job; they will not be allowed to go to a college of their choice. It is not to that point yet, but the groundwork has been laid. Eventually, we will be assigned identification cards or perhaps be identified with a computer chip of some kind, and without that identification, one will not be able to buy anything, or sell anything. Isn't that a grand idea for this, the land of opportunity!
Some have also made the comparison that environmentalism has become a form of socialism. Environmentalists have been making inroads for years, and we now find some species being protected, like the spotted owl, the kangaroo rat, the snail darter, and the copper-bellied snake. This protection gives precedence to the lives of those animals over human beings! A man was attacked recently by a grizzly bear, and he killed the bear in self defense. The government brought suit against him and levied a fine of 6 figures, because the bear is an endangered specie! A man in California ran over a kangaroo rat with his tractor, and the government took his farm and fined him $300,000! Wolves being brought back into areas of Montana and Wyoming have been killing sheep and cattle, and the owners of those sheep and cattle are killing the wolves. Only if they get caught, they are imprisoned and fined!
Incidentally, when the spotted owl was in the news a few years back, and the environmentalists claimed they couldn't live unless there were pristine forests, and therefore lumber companies were prevented from cutting trees. It was discovered that several spotted owls were making their nests in K-Mart signs!!
A wildlands act was recently passed by Congress which has provisions in it which will prevent human habitation is specified areas. There are only a few areas named as wildlands right now, but the capability is there for increasing those areas without further action by Congress! People in California and Idaho have already lost their lands to the wildlands project. Eventually, environmentalists want to have 75% of the United States named wildlands, with corridors provided for humans to travel from one area to another, but otherwise no human habitation in those areas!
That brings a word into play which is the key word for these members of the elite ruling class - incrementalism. They are content to take what they can get whenever they can get it, because they think they will eventually get all they want.
The interesting thing about observing all these things with a different point of view is you can connect those of the "ruling class" with the leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution, and Soviet Russia; you can connect those same people with the rise of Hitler and Nazism to power in Germany; and you can make a strong case that those same people instigated both World Wars in this century for the purpose of organizing "world peace groups" which could eventually be converted to this one world socialist government - the New World Order. With this different point of view, it seems to be no accident that a revolutionary publication called The New World was one that Leon Trotsky wrote articles for in 1917, while spending time in New York as the guest of one of the elite, a man named Jacob Schiff. It seems to be no accident that Antonio Gramsci, the man who organized the Italian Communist Party, started a newspaper in Milan, Italy, in 1927, called The New World Order. It seems to be no accident that Adolph Hitler often proclaimed that his Aryan Race (a super race) would establish a New World Order. Remember that the Communists would have the rule of the Proletariat, an elite ruling class to teach others to live under socialism, and the Nazis would be ruled by the Aryan Race, an elite ruling class, and now we are told by the members of the Round Table Societies, the Council of Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Society, and the Trilateral Commission that they are our ruling class! Is it possible all their secret meetings through the years have been indeed the basis for the conspiracy theories we are told are so much hokem? Add to that the fact that many members of the media are members of the C.F.R., could it be they are the propaganda arm of the New World Order? What do you think?