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Socialism: state intervention in private transactions. By extension, any state is socialist, or it's not really a state, but a company in the defense (and maybe law) business.

The problem here is there isn't any issue of 'private property' so there can't be any 'private transactions' in a socialism. This description is more applicable to fascism.

Private transaction = transaction between two individuals / companies who are both not employees / property of the state (not even partially). The point being that I don't care if the gov't stops Clinton from selling his daughter to someone else - he's a state employee. Mark