Is Barack Obama a socialist? That’s the question Cato adjunct scholar Don Boudreaux asks in one of the last paper editions of the Christian Science Monitor. Not really, he concludes. But

Anyone who speaks glibly of “spreading the wealth around” sees wealth not as resulting chiefly from individual effort, initiative, and risk-taking, but from great social forces beyond any private producer’s control….This “socialism-lite,” however, is as specious as is classic socialism. And its insidious nature makes it even more dangerous. Across Europe, this “mild” form of socialism acts as a parasitic ideology that has slowly drained entrepreneurial energy – and freedoms – from its free-market host.

So why does he say that Obama is not a socialist? Well, after all,

“Socialism” originally meant government ownership of the major means of production and finance, such as land, coal mines, steel mills, automobile factories, and banks.

And no American politician would favor that, right? Oh, right.