Spoken like a true 5 minute dabbler with an extremely cursory knowledge of the topic at hand. Bravo! Actually, the "state owning the property" is not a core id

Spoken like a true 5 minute dabbler with an extremely cursory knowledge of the topic at hand. Bravo! Actually, the "state owning the property" is not a core idea of socialism --it was only a "feature" of "really existing socialism", and even USSR had things like the NEP. Except for the backward places where "really existing socialism" developed, extremely few europeans (or american for that matter) socialists believed that it was a proper socialism at all. As in, there are several types of socialism. Things americans complain about and deny as "socialism" (universal health care, for one), are proposed by even right-wing parties in Europe. I'm sorry, but a cursory glance at one book or a documentary, or something heard from a friend of a friend, won't do. In order to intelligently discuss matters of world politics one has to do a little research. And it would be better if that research was impartial. Buy some books from both sides of the argument, and from both sides of the atlantic (and even the pacific). The average opinion even on this matters, even on a site like "Hacker News" is often little better than what creationists know about evolution.