TOM: "A good 50 members of Congress are socialist, which seems to bother people not at all."

MY REPLY: Not true. Your definition of the term "socialist" must be much broader that what it actually represents. A socialist is someone who supports ownership of the means of production by the "state." A socialist would advocate that Microsoft, General Motors and Boeing be nationalized and owned by the government. I doubt that a single member of Congress possesses such a belief.

The use of the term "socialist" to refer to "liberals" is a time honored right wing tradition. But it is a complete contortion of the meaning of the term socialism. There is nothing socialist about supporting social security, medicare and protection of the environment. There is nothing socialist about regulating land use, collecting taxes or providing public education. There is nothing socialist about building highways, operating airports, or running public fire and police departments.

Castro is a communist running a socialist nation. He doesn't believe in private property ownership and has nationalized most of his nation's industrial capacity. The idea that Marx had was that socialism would be a transitory condition leading to collapse of the state into communism. Of course, this is a pipe dream, principally because socialism is an extraordinarily inefficient form of political economy and communism is so contrary to the nature of human beings. This is, of course, why the only decent Cuban product on the market today is a cigar and that only by virtue of good luck of soil and climate.

Is also true that laissez faire capitalism is incredibly inefficient as well. A capitalist economy requires the largess of government institutions to guarantee the security, community infrastructure, and money system it requires to exist and run efficiently. Just imagine attempting to own private property if there were no public system to formally and legally document one's ownership. Imagine how well Boeing would do if there were no publically operated international airports. What kind of secure investment would one risk if we had no national defense?

Republicans and Democrats are both free market capitalists. Their differences relate to public policy choices among which participants in the national economy will get a favorable increment in government support. Its a difference regarding who the winners and losers are in that slight tipping of public favor. Its no better illustrated that the common wisdom that the Republicans are the party of big business and the Democrats are the party of big labor. But, lets be clear, neither party is socialist.