Friday, July 29, 2011

The musing about the super salesman who went hiking in the backcountry of southern California, encountered a huge hungry bear...

...and sold it 2 tickets to the San Diego zoo.

We thought it would be interesting to look at dictionary definitions of various political systems. So here's what we found.

Imperialism. "The creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination."

Fascism. "A radical, authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists advocate the creation of a totalitarian single-party state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through indoctrination, physical education, and family policy including eugenics."

Socialism. "An economic system in which the means of production are publicly or commonly owned and controlled cooperatively, or a political philosophy advocating such a system."

Communism. "A sociopolitical movement that aims for a classless and stateless society structured upon common ownership of the means of production, free access to articles of consumption, and the end of wage labour and private property in the means of production and real estate."

Republic. "A form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, retain supreme control over the government, at least in theory, and where offices of state are not granted through heritage. The common modern definition of a republic is a government having a head of state who is not a monarch."

Democracy. "A form of government in which all eligible people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal (and more or less direct) participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law. It can also encompass social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination."

We have found it interesting that under all of these systems capitalism or the free market system can flourish or be tolerated to some degree or another. This assertion is based on our own observations over many years. As an example, during a trip to Communist China, we were privileged to visit the Free Market in Beijing. Apparently, once the worker satisfied his obligation to the government he could take what he had left to the Free Market and sell it for whatever he wished. The place was a beehive of activity. In a way this is somewhat ironic.

We wonder where our government fits in all of this.