I was hypothetically asking, in my mind, a socialist to show me a place where their ideas had worked. I mentally scanned all the nations I know, and all the history I know–which is not quite encyclopedic, but still quite substantial–and could not come up with one good example, other than perhaps Israeli Kibbutzim which are small systems enacted by homogeneous groups within a larger State which is not socialist.
What could they say? Well, it ALMOST worked here, and almost worked there.
And it reminded my of the line from Megamind, where he says he and whoever the hero went back and forth: “Sometimes he won, sometimes I almost won.”
Sometimes Capitalism works, sometimes Socialism ALMOST works.
Patently, there are degrees of social protections. Some nations have vastly less efficient medical systems, which are paid for through taxes and run by the government. This is not true socialism, since it is the economic output made possible by free markets, enforceable contract law, and protected private property rights which spin off the wealth which pays the taxes, which pays for the compared-to-America mediocre healthcare.
And to be clear, most of the bad healthcare outcomes in America come from people who ALREADY have socialized medicine in the form of Medicare. We have large swathes of our population who take shit care of themselves, then ask doctors to fix it. Most other nations don’t have that cultural problem. Most other nations do not have medical systems which are set up to take care of people who will not take care of themselves.
Not sure how I got there, but I will note, as I like to do, that Sweden has Charter Schools, the equivalent of educational vouchers, and a Social Security system which is indexed to the GNP, or at least total tax receipts by the government. I argued a while back, and will argue again, that part of the reason they chose not to decimate their economy with a foolish and anti-scientific response to the COVID-19 appearance was that it would have destroyed their retirement system, and generated a vast popular backlash. As it turns out, they nearly uniquely did the actually intelligent thing.