any government act that redistributes income from the haves to the have nots has a distinctly socialistic character even if you wouldn't call the macro scenario socialism
To be sure, the reductio ad absurdam is that any and every penny spent by any government is 'socialism': because you are removing an asset (tax money) from an individual and deciding centrally, i.e. by the government, how to spend it. So tax is socialism - state ownership of assets.
Having a nationalised army, for example, is pure socialism. What could be more socialist than putting the means of power enforcement into the hands of the state (the people), and then giving - giving- them the money to pay those armies??
I'm not sure offhand what the capitalist answer would be, but presumably those with the most money would be able to hire mercenaries as they wished. I don't know if they could then declare their own wars, but this probably wouldn't take long. (e.g, Pohl/Kornbluth novel, "The Space Merchants").
Of course, anyone arguing that everything should be capitalist except the military is by definition and inclination a pure fascist, wishing only the state to control the military, so we can disregard them ;-) |
