User blog comment:Centrist16/SOMETHING EVERYONE MUST KNOW/@comment-3398633-20150809140026/@comment-3398633-20150809234349

@TM: Let's not make excuses now. Cuba's economy is explicitly socialist, following the very tenents demanded of it according to socialist economic theory. You're making excuses for a system that has proven itself completely unreliable. You say that none of the parties I mentioned were socialist, even though the followed many of the ideologies of socialism. Different card, same pack. Capitalism is indeed a meritocracy, as merit gets you ahead in the market, regardless of how you get ahead. Outthinking a rival company by using tools the other wouldn't have lowered themselves to using is worthy of merit, since their actions got them ahead financially. You think any of the major corporations in the world were established though fair play? Only the strongest make it in the free market.

As for your second statement, textbook socialist defense. "Only those with money can make money", as is the case with anyl person looking to build a business. Plenty of people lacking funds make it big in the corporate world. Sam Walton came from a farming family, and had to work hard to build a business for himself. In the end, he died a billionaire because he worked to become one. That is merit; hard work and effort that turned Walton from a farmer's son to a multi-billionaire. As for immigration, it is very valid to the conversation, as nearly all socialist parties (such as the US Socialist Party) make it part of their party platform to completely deregulate immigration, saying it is caused by capitalist "pig-dogs". From the mouth of the Party itself: "The Socialist Party works to build a world in which everyone will be able to freely move across borders, to visit and to live wherever they choose."

Laos, Vietnam, China, and Cuba were indeed socialist states. You cannot argue your way out of it. Many of the core tenants of socialism such as cooperatives, central planning, public ownership, workplace democracy, and common ownership were implemented by all socialist states mentioned. They all implemented some form of socialism. Just because it wasn't your form of socialism, doesn't mean that it still wasn't socialism. Facts are facts. Decentralized planning as a concept in socialism only came about after it became clear centralized planned, the main part of socialist economics, was a failure. Lenin, who pushed to build a truly socialist state, admitted that socialist economics didn't work, and developed the New Economic Policy which combined capitalism with socialism, because socialist economics was BS. It didn't work, and the biggest socialist of all time admitted that.

@Dog: I'll make my reply to you in another post.

@Fallout: I understand how socialism work completely, and that is why I call it nonsense. I've listened to you promote an ideology that has failed each time it was implemented, and its record as a failed policy has done more to convince people as to its utter uselessness as an economic theory. Now, for you to ignore that and call me ignorant on a subject I've studied, and not acquising to your argument is insulting, and says more about you and your position than mine. You are free to do whatever you wish with your time, but don't blame me for how you choose to spend it. I've made my arguement, and the facts speak for themselves. Socialism will never work.