"There is enough verbal vagueness about Socialism to call for a word of definition. Socialism is a system which makes the corporate unity of society responsible for all its economic processes, or all those affecting life and essential living.
If anything is sold, the Government has sold it; if anything important is given, the Government has given it; if anything important is tolerated, the Government is responsible for tolerating it.
This is the reverse of anarchy; it is an extreme enthusiasm for authority...it is silly of Socialists to complain of our saying that it must be a destruction of liberty....A Socialist Government is one which in its nature does not tolerate any true and real opposition. For there the Government provides everything; and it is absurd to ask a Government to provide an oppostition."
--G.K. Chesterton