Reply #18: State ownership of the means of production is, in theory, a defining part of socialism

[LeftishBrit]

In practice, most democratic socialist countries have a mixed economy.

I would say that the Scandinavian countries are heavily influenced by socialist principles. As they are not one-party states, they are not *always* 'socialist'. Sometimes they have socialist governments and sometimes they have conservative governments. Most, I believe, have socialist governments more often than not. Their mainstream conservative parties would probably generally correspond to the Democrats in the United States; and I don't think that they ever have governments that correspond at all to American Republican governments. My knowledge may be a bit out-of-date, however.

I have not been to Sweden, but I've been to Norway a couple of times. I was very impressed by it, and referred to it as 'the land that Thatcherism forgot'.