"Getting rid of capitalist 'exploiters' in Communist countries did not raise the living standards of workers, even to levels common in many capitalist countries, where workers were presumably still being exploited, as Marxists conceived the term." - Thomas Sowell

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[–]jet199 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Socialism is the workers owning the means of production. It's nothing to do with the super rich paying more taxes, checks on capitalism or more public services, those things exist in all kinds of societies. PreMarx socialists were more like cooperative members now, they meant for the actual workers to own the company they worked in not some state owning everything no matter the set up. The trouble is the majority of people don't want to work in cooperatives because they want to concentrate on their own job without the worry of being partly responsible for the whole business. They simply don't want to own the means of production in a big company, they actively want someone else to do that job.