I didn't say 'people'. I said people worked for the state and produced material for the state. They then rely on the state. Excuse the pun but it's a "state" of being. You must have remembered the "job for life" mentality accompanied with union power, 2 workers for one job, and the idea of "if a company becomes big then the government should own and run it" ?
I don't see much evidence that the policies of the "new Labour" government fits the model of socialism you describe.
I could go down the communism, marxism, trotskyite, anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-communism, nazism route - which are extremes of socialism with and without state - but I'm sure that would be getting more and more off-topic.
Speaking for myself, I can see the value of free enterprise and the entreprenurial spirit in most areas of society but there has to be an element of social responsibility as well. There is also the question of how much a large corporate industry can be allowed to grow and diversify before it becomes a monopoly and starts to develop into what amounts to a privately owned "state" in its own right.
I think there are areas of society, such as transport and communications, where it makes sense to have a common infrastructure which really ought to be in public ownership. Otherwise you get a lot of wasteful duplication and fake competition.
I don't know how you'd classify that. Phil Hall
