[Texas resident]

Venezuela

[Ozone34]

The single best summary of socialism is:

"Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis" by Ludwig von Mises

Mises points out the inherent contradictions of socialism. Since the means of production are 'publicly' owned, there is no market to determine prices, and therefore no way to make correct decisions on allocating resources. Both the USSR and Mao's China resorted to using Sears Roebuck catalogs to establish prices for the goods generated by the state!

[Lorianne]

Can a business be considered a free enterprise when they are not allowed to fail, and instead bailed out by the billions of dollars (under duress) by the taxpayers?

Corporate socialism is rampant.

[DannyTN]

While there is a slippery slope between an excessively regulated free market and a socialist economy. I don't think it serves us to use the term "socialism" to label everything we don't like. Call "excessive regulation" excessive regulation and call goverment ownership of business socialism.

"Can a business be considered a free enterprise when there are thousands of pages of rules that dictate its every move, from how much it can pay employees, to how much profit it can make?

What enterprises are they talking of here? Are there any businesses that government dictates there every move in the U.S.? What limits are there on what a firm can pay it's employees? Or limits on profit?

Is a business free when the rule of law is not honored, and the state can summarily declare that some contracts are valid and will be honored while others are not?

Again, lets not confuse corruption with socialism. Call corruption by it's name, corruption.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I always thought that if you were to type “define: socialism” into Google the whole site would shut down as their servers went into some sort of electronic orgasm...