[taffer]

If it doesn't meet this definition, I wouldn't call it socialist. Otherwise, the word socialism would lose its meaning. California having high taxes does not make it socialist. Austria having free education does not make it socialist.

[hypertele-Xii]

Purple is more red than blue is red. This doesn't make the word "red" lose its meaning. In my opinion, it gives the word more meaning by defining it as a spectrum of quality. Thus we can plot colors on a spectrum of red-ness, which can be useful for certain applications.

Similarily for capitalism-socialism. It is a spectrum. The United States represents one extreme, where something like, I don't know, North Korea maybe represents the other. And Finland is somewhere in-between.

[taffer]

That is not a good comparison. Blue and red are well defined as high frequency and low frequency electromagnetic radiation. Capitalism and socialism, on the other hand, are very vague terms, and I think the many discussions here prove that.

Take, for example, a country where the majority of things are privately run but are heavily taxed by the government. Is that more capitalist or socialist than a country where most of the economy is run by the government, but the remaining private businesses pay little to no taxes?

Or a country where one party owns everything but pretends to act on behalf of the workers, as opposed to a country where everyone is a business owner? Or a country that has little labor regulation but a strong social safety net, versus a country with weak social welfare but strict labor regulation?

[cygx]

The socialst dream is the class-less, egalitarian, solidary society.

The whole point of reformist socialism is that you should not try to get there in a single giant leap, but step by step, with the fully socialist society more of a Platonic ideal: There'll likely always be a next thing to fix.

Austria having free education does not make it socialist - but it makes it more socialist.

[emptysongglass]

I think we have to be careful here because none of these countries which we have thus far mentioned have any ambitions of attaining the socialist crown you speak of. They like it the way it is: capitalist with strong protections for and investments (education, healthcare) in their capital producing peoples.

[cygx]

Indeed. Hence, not every Social Democrat can be considered a socialist - only progressive ones that still dream of a better world instead of having made peace with the status quo.