Western Europe is not "socialist countries". The traditional meaning of a socialist state is "means of production are controlled by the state". None of the coun

Western Europe is not "socialist countries". The traditional meaning of a socialist state is "means of production are controlled by the state". None of the countries in Western Europe work like this. They are market economies. What people often don't understand is, by the way, that the supposedly "more socialist" countries in North Europe, like Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark, are in fact in many ways more market driven and have very free economies, compared to e.g. "non-socialist" Southern Europe. But of course, in all countries the politics meddles with the economy.