Benvolio: Kris is operating under a definition of socialism that isn't the one in the textbooks, because it doesn't involve government. I call it "spiritual Marxism" because it all depends on some process of people evolving into this "we all care about each other" relationship without any forces at work that we usually associate with socialism.
Also, the "melting pot" has always been a myth. It was an elegant concept, but there have always been pockets -- think Chinatown, for example -- of immigrant cultures which never blended. Around the country I've run into pockets where third, fourth, and fifth-generation immigrants are still speaking Chinese, Italian, and German, and met a guy who grew up speaking Norwegian because his whole town did.
It's been more of a "stew pot" where in many places immigrant communities retain a great deal of their original culture, while absorbing important elements of U.S. culture. At the same time, the bigger culture picks up all sorts of things from the immigrants. An equilibrium is reached between the two, sometimes with the immigrant culture blending completely, sometimes with it retaining a definitely distinct flavor, and other times being very resistant to change -- or you can get places like the town the Norwegian guy was from, where everyone spoke both Norwegian and English while it was like an old Norwegian town.
