[quote=briansd1]Right, socialist is the wrong word.
I was using that word in the context of how many Americans use it to refer to the Soviet Union and North Korea.[/quote]
I think you’re looking for the word “communist”. Communism is a political construct that has one party (the Communist party) and tends to aggregate opinion in a tightly controlled totalitarian way. Communism and socialism have been associated since Marx was around, and lots of people use the terms interchangeably. They do have different meanings – China is recently demonstrating that you can have a communist political system paired with a capitalist economic system.
Socialism is an economic construct that is consistent with democracy – like what they do in Sweden and Norway, and IMHO, unfortunately, to an ever greater degree right here in the USA. Basically it means the government rather than private business controls and directs prices, production and investment.
In neither of these systems do the “grunts” ever really have control of the equipment. That only happens to entrepreneurs in a capitalistic democracy. Think owner-operator truckers, cabbies, small farmers, handyman, yardman, accountant, attorneys, and yes, until recently, even medical doctors.
