Tina Fey took the stage last night in her role as Sarah Palin. In the midst of the comedy, questions on the Palin philosophy come to mind again, and after the laughter and sensationalism, one can’t help but ask: Where does Sarah Palin stand on economic issues and more importantly, where does she stand on socialism?

Let’s step back a bit and ask the big question: What is socialism?

According to the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the main idea behind socialism is “common ownership”, where the citizens participate in and own the resources, collectively making decisions that will help them.  So essentially, the people share in the wealth.

Hmm… “common ownership”, eh? Let’s look at Alaska, for a second. Alaska, under Sarah Palin, was a state that had no tax but rather, took money from the companies that used its oil fields. Then, the money was used to finance the Alaskan government’s activities and it was also subsequently re-distributed to Alaskans in the form of a check. Under Sarah Palin, in fact, the check was twelve-hundred dollars more than it had been previously.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “socialism” as:

any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

So, government ownership of the means of production, like, say, perhaps charging massive amounts for using the state’s oil fields and then spreading the state’s wealth by issuing checks to the citizens of the state.

So, is Sarah Palin a “socialist”?

Now that we’ve dealt with the technicalities, let’s talk a bit about the political climate around the word “socialism”. It’s a bad, bad word for many Americans. The thing is this– many Americans equate this word with the baggage that is often attributed to it from the politics of countries such as the former U.S.S.R., China and countries in Eastern Europe.

While there is always an element ot truth to history, we must look at the American sense of the word. Before jumping to mindless conclusions and eating up social and political rheotoric from the talking heads on Fox News or on MSNBC, we need to learn about the social history behind their chatter.

The right-wing political pundits may be confusing the Obama initiatives and ideals with socialism, when in fact, what he might be promoting is a “social democracy“.  And even worse, these right-wing pundits are allowing people to confuse the term “socialism” with “communism“. Communism is essentially a regime where all private ownership is abolished. It’s possibly a form of extreme socialism, although idealogically, there are some stark differences.

It’s hard to believe that a nation like America can ever fall into the realm of Communism– not given the bicameral legislature and a two-party system. But Sarah Palin continues to throw out these words, without addressing the fact that she did “spread the wealth” as the Governor of Alaska.

If issuing thousands of dollars to Alaskan citizens isn’t “spreading the wealth” and leasing our oil fields to private companies isn’t some form of  ”government ownership of resources”, then I beg Sarah Palin to define what she means by “socialism”.

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