Socialism is not necessarily about the government controlling the means of production, though. It's about the proletariat, the workers, controlling the means of

Socialism is not necessarily about the government controlling the means of production, though. It's about the proletariat, the workers, controlling the means of production. Government is one way to accomplish that, but that only works if the workers control the government, which was not the case in Soviet countries. There are also other ways to have workers control the means of production to varying degrees. Labour unions, workers councils, etc share control between the workers and the owners. A democracy in which workers vote for a government that controls regulations is another. Co-ops are a great one. And of course according to the communist ideal, there isn't even a central government to control the means of production. The big questions are whether it's possible to reach that ideal, how, and whether it's even stable. Countries calling themselves "communist" in our world certainly failed dramatically. But social democracy has been fairly effective in giving at least some degree of control to the workers. Their big problem is that in a still fundamentally capitalist system, money still rules, and powerful corporations can often either control or ignore the government and take away the power of the workers. That has definitely happened in the US, and to a lesser extent in parts of Europe, over the past half century.