It’s politically profitable to call things socialist or communist, as Americans have a distaste for both.

2% tax raise for the top 1% of wage earners? Socialist. Gets used to flip votes in the elections.

Even very poor Americans who would literally have a much higher standard of living under socialism are taught to despise it.

> Even very poor Americans who would literally have a much higher standard of living under socialism are taught to despise it.

Are you sure about that? The very poorest Americans likely have higher living standards than you think. Homelessness due to mental illness or drug abuse is a separate population, I mean working poor.

What socialist system would you like to hold up as an example?

> Even very poor Americans who would literally have a much higher standard of living under socialism are taught to despise it.

Pretty much the same for people living in oppressed countries. They would benefit from at least some liberties but are taught to despise them (and the west for having them).

I doubt it, I have met many people from such countries and far from hating the West for having liberties, they despite that the West wraps their resource extraction, geopolitical interests and exploitation as delivering liberties for domestic consumption.

The West has directly supported the overthrow of a fair number of rather progressive leaders, at least by world scale.

"And the west for having them" - nope. Thats a propaganda line by the US goverment, and lately by the EU right wingers. There are much better reasons to despise the West than the percieved "freedom" they have. Like their actual acts of genocides and exploitation.

Agreed, probably not for the liberties per se but rather for hypocrisy.

The perception disconnect between the US and the rest of the world is that examples of “socialism” are dramatically different. Is socialism defined by the Cuba/Venezuelan example or Scandinavia/Nordic examples? I think what people see as socialism in the US is more related to their understanding of the term from the Cuba/Venezuelan flavor than Scandinavian flavor.

Americans have a distaste because they see people who prefer attempting a dangerous escape from those socialist countries to living in them.

I am curious about which part of Europe you are from (as there is no European nation). Because people that have the most to say about socialism are those whose only contact with it was theoretical or through books which has nothing to do with reality, as history teaches us.

I grew up in Poland and you will take 'socialism bad' banner from my cold, dead hands.

I am your neighbor and a fellow Central/Eastern European. With all due respect but I don't really view Poland as any sort of democratic, progressive place I would like to live in. If it's socialism or the sort of uber conservative, extremely religious politics and society that make Polish women escape into the UK just so they can escape their controlling parents, (personally experienced this story many times), then I don't really take current sentiments coming from there all that seriously and I'd rather take the first option.

But in reality I am for a mix of both, but 'socialism bad' is just an overly simplistic, propaganda loaded agenda that does nothing to push your society towards a more balanced track than it is on now.

I don't want to go into this kind of discussion but even if Poland is uber conservative and extremely religious (which I don't agree with), it doesn't change the fact that socialism is an antiutopia, a fable.

If you get a chance, please ask these women what they think about it (if they are old enough to remember).

I have family members who lived through it, (not in Poland, but next door), what they admit seems like a mixed bag, be it of course an authoritarian one, but a lot more mixed that what I initially assumed; for one the political system is much more open and free than under socialism back then, but they also say it's nowhere near as free as they imagined it would be.

They say the selection and abundance of food and products is much greater now, but that the quality of food is lower.

They're surprised when I tell them that I sometimes have to work during the weekend and oftentimes extra hours during the week as they assumed this only happens under socialism.

They say that the general quality of education seemed higher, excluding the propaganda.

They also admit that they can't really imagine buying and actually owning a house during their lifetimes with current market prices and admit that they didn't really have to think that much about such basic sensitivities back then.

But I am not in favor of that system, because as you may not be aware there are many more ways to implement certain socialist policies without eliminating the benefits of democracy and keeping the market free where it makes sense.

Capitalism makes sense in some places, it just doesn't make sense everywhere.