[aspnet_dev]

If you want to understand why Biden and Obama are called socialists, I suggest you do some reading of the Anarcho-Capitalist literature (Anatomy of the State is the most obvious) or maybe listen to someone like Peter Schiff.

I don't agree with their philosophy as I believe it to be unrealistic but their criticisms and descriptions of what the state is and isn't is valid and why some call it socialist may make more sense to you. Hans Herman Hoppe (I am sure someone will quote mine him to smear him after I've mentioned him and haven't read any of this books) even called Democracy a soft form of communism.

[chickenpotpie]

Biden and Obama are called socialists because Americans were trained to fear communism and socialism during the Cold War. There is nothing about their political stance that is socialist. Conservatives have just learned that they can score easy points by calling anyone left of Ronald Reagan a marxist

[malandrew]

> There is nothing about their political stance that is socialist.

I don't know how anyone can make this statement with a straight face. What about ObamaCare?

[cmrdporcupine]

How is ObamaCare socialist? It's just a giant subsidy to private insurance companies. It's literally the opposite of socialist health care policy.

[malandrew]

> It's just a giant subsidy

If it is redistributing wealth, it's socialist. Taking taxpayer money from person A and paying it out as a subsidy (even if laundered through a private company) to benefit person B is socialism.

Anytime you are redistributing wealth under the threat of the government's right to licit first use of force, you're engaging in socialism.

[cmrdporcupine]

Socialism as defined by socialists is social ownership of production.

What you're describing is socialism as defined by its libertarian intellectual opponents, and that's a pretty broad definition (any taxation followed by spending is socialism? That's pretty odd... so all military and police forces are socialist?)

So, fine, if that's what you choose to believe, but it's certainly not a policy proposal that is advocated by actual socialists. Even the soft left wing of the Democratic party found/finds the ACA objectionable.

In fact it's explicitly the kind of policy that liberals advocate in order to avoid socialist policy measures and to avoid being called socialists.

[malandrew]

> Socialism as defined by socialists is social ownership of production

That's communism, a specific flavor of socialism.