One of the things that makes me flinch: When people on the internet are shouting each other about a topic without realizing they are talking about completely different things.

When everybody in this thread are advocating for socialism, are using the word in the European sense, socialism as in social-democracy [1], as have many leading European parties in their names [2][3]. Its tenets are as many as there are people using the word, but usually involve a strong safety net with a publicly owned healthcare system, strong redistribution by taxing the rich and companies, and generally having corporations on short leash. For a successful implementation, see the Nordic countries.

In the US, the word socialism is used as a synonym for communism, that is the word that would be used in Europe for the kind of government that ran all those countries you mentioned, is responsible of all those awful things and shares nothing with socialism but a far historical background, lost in the mists of the late XIX century.

In real life (in Europe), it would be hard to find anybody that goes by socialist or votes a socialist party that would advocate for anything remotely similar to a full fledged Communism.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_of_Ger... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Party_(France)

That distinction is lost on me: Either you are voting to strip the wealth of people under the color of law or you aren't.

"All taxation is theft" is a ridiculous position which if implemented leaves you without a functioning society.

I can see that lots of Americans refuse to acknowledge the difference between different kinds of political systems, or look at Europe as it actually is. It's disappointing that even on HN people can't see past their prejudices.

It's not ridiculous as a basis for policy. The idea that the money belongs to the government has to end.

I can't figure out "Europe as it actually is." I have concluded that peasants like to be ruled and cradle to grave socialism is what people clearly prefer despite the negative effects it has on real personal freedom.

Socialism != soviet union.

The world is full of countries with more equally distributed healthcare systems than the US with better public/private balance. The one that gets brought up most often here is the UK NHS, but there are plenty of others.

(Ironically, even if you limit yourself to actual communism, Cuba has quite an effective healthcare system. It just relies on not having freedom of movement so doctors can't move to better paid countries)

Cuba does not have an effective healthcare system. I, for one, would like my hospital to have air conditioning and stable electricity, two things Cuban hospitals don't often have.

I'm going by e.g. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/salim-lamrani/cubas-health-car...

"The infant mortality rate in Cuba is lower than it is in the United States and is among the lowest in the world"

Not perfect, but far better than you might expect.

Have you been to Cuba? It's more decrepit than one might expect.

Its just about as effective as the USA's according to the World Health Organization.

> The world is full of countries with more equally distributed healthcare systems than the US with better public/private balance. The one that gets brought up most often here is the UK NHS, but there are plenty of others.

How many countries with socialist health care systems then produce new drugs for patients? I can tell you, it's about none. Most of the new drugs worldwide come from the US market. There's no way going around that fact.

Some major medicinal companies here in socialist Denmark are:

Novo -- focusing on diabetes; about 15,000 employees in Denmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novo_Nordisk

Novozymes -- enzymes; about 6,500 employees in Denmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novozymes

Coloplast -- colostomy bags etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloplast

Genmab -- cancer etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genmab

These are 4 directly medical companies that also are all 4 part of the OMX 20 stock market index (similar to NASDAQ 100, the most 20 valuable public companies). That index also has 2 hearing aid companies (GN and William Demant)

One source estimates 44.000 employees in biotech/medtech in the Copenhagen/Sweden "Medicon Valley" area.

So what are all these medical researchers in the EU doing? I have a suspicion that much of this stuff is fully international and it's the final steps of trial, patenting and bringing to market that happen in the US, causing research to be over-attributed to the US.

There's also the question of what kind of research is prioritised by the profit motive.

(Human Genome Project is probably the flagship example of such international public research)

Their research is only possible because they know they will be able to recoup costs in the US.

Saying Soviet Union is socialism is like saying China's government really cares about communism.

Hey so where is the real socialism yet? you don't seem to realize that all socialism leads to a construct like Soviet Russia. Everything was nationalized, which is basically what Socialism advocated all along. The effects are well known, let's not pretend there was ever a "no true scotman" effect for socialism in Russia.