Socialism:A conservative viewpoint

From Wikinfo

Conservatives, however, view socialism as bureaucratic, inefficient, and likely to create lazy, dependent people who gain unfairly.

Among a number of right-wing conservatives, particularily in the United States, socialism is regarded as essentially equivalent to the almost universally disliked Soviet style (communist-run) economic system. In the US, and to a degree in Canada, and the UK this has made moderate leftists quite reluctant to use the term socialism even when advocating policies most Europeans would immediately identify as "socialist".

Conservative critics often charge that all socialist governments are anti-democratic, because the increased "size" and power of such governments represents a concentration of power unseen in capitalist socities. In addition, some believe that all economic organization not consistent with the free market is inherently in violation of individual human rights and by extension democratic principles.

References

• Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Socialism" http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism August 2, 2003