Pretty obvious if you’re not trying to score petty political points.

Ok. Lets help Gene out here.

There are two kinds of resource management models used in the US and Canada.
One is based on royalties (practiced mostly in Canada and the NW States like Alaska) and the other being the corporate ownership model.

Under the royalties scheme, the explorers do not own the land (or may own the land but not the resources on it or under it), or the resources under the ground but are allowed to explore and extract it in exchange for paying a royalty to the owner of the land (or sea).

Alaska is a new state and was purchased from Russia by the USA, leaving much of the state under government ownership. Once Alaska became a state, it managed to take control of much but not all of its territory. There are still huge Federal lands within Alaska. ANWAR is the one on the news often as Palin and others are advocating to exploring it while the Feds are protecting it as a wildlife sanctuary.
Alaska was not explored or exploited (in a resource sense) by corporations before becoming a state like other states like Wyoming, Colorado etc.

So mining and lumber companies who operate in Alaska do not own the lands they operate from but are allowed to extract the resources in exchange for these fees which transfer back to the owners of the state, the citizens. This is the Alaska constitution.
This is not socialism. It is like paying rent to a landlord who happens to be the citizenry of the state.
Kinda like a building owned by a Trust and its suites being rented out to tenants and rents being paid back from the trust to its members.

I grant this much to Gene. He is onto something about Palin.
Palin is, in many ways, modeling her drive to the WH on Obama.
She is shaping up to be another “movement candidate”. A new phenomenon in the US which, until Obama was governed by “consensus” candidates. Obama’s people realized that prior to building the consensus, a successful movement can build up enough energy and exposure of a candidate.
Palin is following in similar footsteps. She is now the de facto new movement candidate. A reality which’ irony cannot be escaped given that every action produces a counter reaction.
This of course being a principle of chemistry but creeping in slowly to politics.
Otherwise Palin is just the perfect anti-Obama.
2012 may turn out to be a super interesting season just because of this.

Expenses that would otherwise be profits if the companies didn’t have to pay them to Alaska.

That applies just as well to wages paid to workers by the companies. So, you’re saying that we’re already living in a socialist economy, where companies distribute their profits to the workers?

spgb gray;

What are the elections about, if the state has been abolished? How are the positions to which people are elected in your definition not the state?

Beyond that, I think Hamid does a good job of responding to you.

I wrote an answer but it seems to have been lost in the ether. I shall try again!

A fundamental socialist principle is that capitalist society can only be abolished via a democratic revolution. “The emancipation of the working class is the work of the working class itself.” The vote/franchise is highly regarded by socialists/communists. The only reason Marx spoke of violent revolution was because the vast majority were denied the vote and socialist parties were outlawed.

I notice you do not compare the programmes of Hitler or eg Hizb-ut-tahrir with the definition of socialism I gave above. Please do so, and point out where socialism and these groups are one and the same, if you want to come with a serious rebuttal.

Expenses that would otherwise be profits if the companies didn’t have to pay them to Alaska.

You must be joking – democratic control? The commissar who decides who gets the goods and what to price it is going to submit to elections and be accountable? This is pure idealism that will not last more than a fortnight. Idealism is cheap but deadly.

Islam has all of the above BTW, including classless society – study the life of the murderer Mohammad, and he would be the first socialist. Of course “democratic control” that you claim is BS, and neither did Mohammad pretend to that. Interest is haram. All medium to large enterprises are owned by the mosque (70% of Iran’s economy is run by the mosques or the Revolutionary Islamic Guard).

The Nazi state was socialistic with its comandeering of the means of production – not necessarily fruity socialism as espoused by the idealistic left, but nevertheless socialistic to its core.

This thread and “That” above is the most banal excuse for a lack of anything positive to write about Mr Obama I have seen to date, anywhere.

Just admit it American Lefties and you picked the wrong guy for the job.

European sycophantic lefties will turn on this “good reader” quicker than you can say ‘TelePrompTer’. Just you see.

“Socialism is socialism” says Gene, which is -erm – deeply profound….
Hamid thinks the Nazi state was socialism and then goes on to say Political Islam (“Islamism”) is socialism too! All very confusing, and politically confused people, eh?

Socialism is
- the abolition of classes and the state
- a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by the whole community
- a society without commodity production, wage labour, profits and money
- a society of free access to goods and services

Neither Palin, Nazis, Islamists, Social Democrats, Leninists, etc stand for these things. And for a good reason – they are not socialists.