Just a question. If energy production in the US was nationalized, what would a gallon of gas cost?

[Farmer-Rick]

56. They are socialism

No economic system is 100 percent of anything. Capitalism has some socialism. Communism has some socialism. Slavery has some capitalism. Feudalism has some capitalism.

Socialism is the worker, not necessarily the government, owning the means of production. It means a handful of capitalists do not own it. While no single definition encapsulates the many types of socialism, social ownership is the one common element.

Our roads and fire departments are owned by our government officials we vote in. Our government pays for these things with out taxes that we pay in. Since we all contribute taxes, we all own our roads and fire departments as long as they are not turned over to a for profit entity. All water companies, electric distribution plants, schools and sewage processing systems use to all be owned by us through our elected officials. But with the privitzation scams Republicans encouraged, we lost a lot of control to greedy corporations.

In the Soviet Union their goal was communism. But in their effort to get there, they used some socialism. The government took and owned the means of production not the workers. It was a stop gap measure that never moved on. They thought that if the government had the means of production and they became abusive, the workers would vote them out. Unfortunately along the way they acquired a dictatorship that ended any real form of socialism.

There are many types of socialism and not everyone agrees on the same explanation. But I believe that social ownership best describes most of them.