MainStreet.com recently released its rankings of the 10 most and 10 least socialist states in America, and it ranks Arkansas as the #8 most socialist state.

While the ranking is certainly eyepopping, it's important to understand the context. MainStreet.com is not saying that Arkansas is a socialist state, merely that its public sector is proportionately larger than that of most of the other United States; it is in that sense that Arkansas can be considered "more socialist" than other states. The site explains:

To evaluate the degree to which different states manifest socialist principles, we started from the core definition of socialism as a form of government in which the state owns the means of production and allocates resources to its citizens at its discretion.

In other words, a purely socialist state is one in which the state is responsible for 100% of economic output and spends all of it on social programs.

Since no part of the U.S. can be considered purely socialist, we measured total expenditures as a proportion of total economic output to compare the size of the public sector in each state. Using recently released 2009 state gross domestic product figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and total state expenditures for fiscal year 2009 from the most recent report of the National Association of State Budget Officers, we have come up with the 10 least and the 10 most socialist states in America.

Here are the full rankings of the least and most socialist states, according to MainStreet.com:

The 10 Least Socialist States

10. Washington - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 9.7%
9. Missouri - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 9.4%
8. Georgia - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 9.2%
7. South Dakota - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 9.1%
6. Virginia - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 9.0%
5. Florida - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 8.9%
4. New Hampshire - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 8.2%
3. Texas - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 7.9%
2. Illinois - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 7.7%
1. Nevada - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 6.6%

The 10 Most Socialist States

10. Rhode Island - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 15.9%
9. Hawaii - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 17.8%
8. Arkansas - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 18.1%
7. Wyoming - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 19.0%
6. Mississippi - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 20.2%
5. New Mexico - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 20.7%
4. Vermont - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 21.0%
3. Alabama - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 27.4%
2. Alaska - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 31.3%
1. West Virginia - Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 32.1%