In 2017, 36% of the US GDP is government spending, including federal, state and local governments. Of the remainder, most is highly regulated giving government specific controls over how companies can speak, hire, employ, operate, manufacture, and how their ownership is determined and profits distributed.
At what level of government control over the economy do you draw the line between socialism and capitalism? It can't be 100%, that's called communism. If you draw it at 50% for socialism, a very good argument exists that we are there right now, just establish that the government controls anywhere near 20% of the decisions private businesses make.
>At what level of government control over the economy do you draw the line between socialism and capitalism?
No level, where do you get this idea that Socialism and capitalism exist on a scale between government control over the economy and no control over the economy? I can't imagine what would arouse such an opinion. Marx never said "Socialism is when the government does stuff, and the more stuff it does, the more Socialist it is". That's complete rubbish.
>It can't be 100%, that's called communism.
No, it's not. Communism, like other anarhcist ideologies, has no "government control", and this is painfully obvious by reading Marx's discussion on the self-regulating sphere of activity.
And this is of course ignoring the fact that in Marx's time, Socialism and Communism had the same meaning. Their distinction is almost entirely a Leninist one.
Here's the thing: Socialism isn't about government control over a capitalist economy, and it's not about acting like a capitalist but on a global scale. That's called state capitalism.
I was talking about real world definitions of socialism, not fantasies Marx used to trick people into buying into his concepts.
The real world definition of socialism is government control of economic activities. And there has never been a "socialist" economy without dictatorship and fascism. Socialism is a mandatory step on the road to fascism.
At what level of government control over the economy do you draw the line between socialism and capitalism? It can't be 100%, that's called communism. If you draw it at 50% for socialism, a very good argument exists that we are there right now, just establish that the government controls anywhere near 20% of the decisions private businesses make.