User blog comment:Centrist16/SOMETHING EVERYONE MUST KNOW/@comment-3398633-20150809140026/@comment-1045231-20150809215251

None of those countries had democratic, worker ownership of the means of production. Capitalism works better for a small minority, which is why it was added to so many countries - to benefit a select few. Paris Commune failed because it was destroyed by the French (or was it Prussian?) army. Cuba's problems are highly exaggerated by capitalist media and isn't fully socialist anyway. None of the parties you mentioned are socialist. Most are Third Way (yes, the vast majority of the party) Sweden's social democrats, for example, don't want to change to workplace/economic democracy and thus are not socialist. The social issues like immigration are irrelevant to socialism itself. Capitalism is NOT a meritocracy. Whoever has money gets to decide what's going on, and it's extremely difficult to get into a position where you can acquire money unless you already have some. There at least should be equality of opportunity. Command economy is NOT required. See market socialism, syndicalism, and decentralized planning. Laos and Vietnam, like China, are state capitalist and never were socialist. Higher taxes and such aren't socialist. They're an attempt to tame capitalism, even if those parties claim to be socialist. Cons had more seats than Lab 2010-2015. Socialism is not just making everyone the same. It's making sure people get the full product of their labour rather than having a huge fraction of it stolen to fill the vast pockets of the super-wealthy.