I'm a foreigner native to one of the many nations where American influence led to the sale of sate enterprises, free trade, market liberalization, and overall loss of local companies to the hands of USA firms
It's wild to see the same thing happen to the USA now, and to see their government be the ones handing out taxpayer money and caring about national sovereignty over liberalization and "market efficiency".
Unfortunately no, it's socialism for us too - just the wrong end of it. The government and their friends are the socialism winners, the rest of us are the socialism losers.
But we do it to ourselves at the ballot box every time, and very reliably.
I don't know what the heck you are talking about. Socialism is not the kind of bs like capitalism or communism, it has no winners nor losers everyone is in the same boat.
Anything else is just some crooked politicians, could be billionaires but don't have to, getting more rich and powerful and say whatever they have to say to keep it this way.
>I don't see how socialism is any different. It is still the state taking from one person to give to another.
Socialism is when workplaces are owned and managed by the people who work there, rather than private investors. It has nothing to do with taxes, or welfare, or "the state" doing one thing or another -- that is a uniquely American conflation.
Unfortunately a lot of that influence was done with the exact purpose of handing the markets to the US companies. I am not anti market and there are definitely good arguments in its favor (e.g. a better cheaper product even if imported will allow you to invest the money in something else) but it's a delicate topic and in reality almost no country operates like this.
Also even free market proponents draw the line somewhere. They will always advocate privatising healthcare but never the police or the army. Somehow it's important that keeping people healthy is economical and efficient, but not upholding the law.
It's wild to see the same thing happen to the USA now, and to see their government be the ones handing out taxpayer money and caring about national sovereignty over liberalization and "market efficiency".