Quote:
Originally Posted by d2_e4
Why single out Uncle Joe? He's in good company. Castro, Mao, Pol Pot. Rather than my continuing, why don't you give an example of where it (and by "it", I mean whatever your referent was) has actually worked?
Let me guess, every single example you can conjure wasn't the real "it".
I'm far from an expert in all the different ways socialism has been tried and the various reasons it has appeared to fail, but socialist policies in europe have been phenomenally successful in a number of different ways. Healthcare is a good example. While socialism and capitalism seem like water and oil, they are merely different ends of a very complex spectrum and they can live happily mixed in a variety of different ways.
As to purely socialist states, I wouldn't want to get into 'no true scotsman' territory which you're obviously wanting me to invoke. There should be a lot of space for allowing that the capitalist global north saw socialism and communism as grave threats and sought to head them off, whether by invasions, election-manipulation (ahem Chile & Allende & Pinochet ahem) or sanctions, and these countries suffered as a result.
A good micro example to look at is kibbutzim. They were founded on truly socialist principles and most of them existed as socialist (perhaps more communalist) havens for most of their existence. But they exist within an increasingly capitalist country / world. If you see capitalism as a powerful virus, which I believe is an appropriate comparison, then what you see now, which is very limited socialism within most kibbutzim, makes a lot of sense, as they've been infected with individualist, profit-making mindset - shareholders over stakeholders.