"Oh, and please do reply when you remember that one country in which socialism worked"
well the USSR is one example, so good in fact 80% of the people voted to keep it communist. The only reason it turned capitalist is an opportunist somehow made it into the top of the party.
http://writetorebel.com/2016/11/25/the-successes-of-socialism-in-the-ussr/
Based on the article, socialism 'working' is defined as
(1) women get to fight in wars
(2) universal healthcare
(3) growing faster than Mongolia
(4) still in 2017 using railways built in 1931
Like I said, when you get to define what 'working' means, it's hard to disagree with your conclusions
manipulating definitions is intellectually dishonest.
I agree. I was just stating my read of how the article you posted defined 'socialism working'. How would you define it?
how would I define it? The agreed upon definition by the founders of socialism and the bodies of socialists today.
Collective ownership of the means of production. That is what it has always been.
That appears to be the definition of socialism, but it's not a separate definition of success of socialism. Unless of course collective means of production is also the measure of success, but that's a bit self fulfilling/circuitous, no? One way to define success might be where people choose to live. For example, when the Berlin Wall fell in Germany, the people lining up to finally cross the border were the East Germans trying to get to the West, not the other way round. Being the place where people want to live when they have the choice is a pretty good definition of success. I'm not hearing much about the North Korean/Venezuelan/Cuban immigration problem these days, but maybe that's because all I read is propaganda!
80% of the people in the USSR voted to keep it communist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_referendum,_1991
Where does that referendum mention communism? The way I read it, 80% of people voted for freedom of the individual (which is incompatible with communism)
"North Korean"
propaganda, is not communist.
Venezuelan. Popular support for it. They literally voted in a socialist leader, he didn't forcefully take power or anything. In fact since the capitalists are so strong he has no power.
Cuban is no longer really socialist, but is still far better off than it was before.
North Korea is not communist? Please define communist then
I don't know Cuba that well. All I'm saying is they don't have an immigration problem, - you don't seem to disagree