The defining hallmarks of Socialism are:
- No legal sanction of private property.
- No legal sanction of contracts.
- Workers can own the use value of capital goods but not the capital value.
No matter what else you consider it to include no form of Socialism can exist without those three things says Kelo. Consider health care. If health care is nationalized then the government owns and operates all hospitals, just like it does now with the VA. If all hospitals only have one owner then it implies that there is no trade. Right now we know how much a hospital is worth because if Community Health wants to buy a hospital from Hospital Corp. of America, then they will agree on a price. When the government owns every hospital that can't happen.
That, says Rick Kelo, is an example of all three hallmarks of Socialism. There is no legal sanction of private property because a government hospital can't be bought by, say, an expanding entrepreneur. Also, the workers in the hospital can use the equipment, but unlike when the owners of Community Health buying a hospital after which they own the capital value, the workers only own the use value of the government hospital while they're employed there.
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| Rick Kelo when not deep in thought |
