Reply #25

All of the industrialized democracies are mixed economies with some function socialized, and some not. Education is socialized (even if there are private options in all advanced countries), but coffee shops are not in all industrial democracies.

But none of these mixed economies function based on a deliberate application of Marxist principles in economics. My friends and relatives in countries like Finland, Germany, Sweden, etc., would describe their systems as social democracies, but fundamentally capitalist.

Regarding a "a socialist democracy may indeed allow the vote" - is there such a stable example? In there early days of the USSR there were votes, and sometimes those votes even meant something. That went away. Remember "one vote, one time." A system of government cannot be regarded as democratic if it is impossible for the ruling party to be removed.