There are 5 socialist countries I know of: Cuba, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, and China…

So far, from what I’ve heard, there are 2 popular presuppositions to take note of whether such states are socialist:

  1. Solidified governmental control and regulation, and thus influence by the Democratic Leadership of the Proletariat.

  2. Predominance of state ownership, large public economic sector (ideally >50% of the GDP) and wide social network to support the masses of peasants and proletarians

(Economic base to the cultural superstructure and all that)

With this in mind, how can you prove this is such the case, in practice, for the following countries?

Edit: I know every country doesn’t have exactly socialism a la Cuba or DPRK (read more on my addendum)

I just want evidence that there are systematic upholding of progressive policies and models within these countries.

I think these are significant to upholding the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat, economically and politically here, relating to my 2 main points, from experience.

Like for example, the post-Cold War legacy of Eastern Europe left behind high rates of self home-ownership…

From at least 76% in Slovenia, of the former Socialist Republics of Yugoslavia, to over 95% in Romania.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ownership_rate

  • LesbianLiberty [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    13·
    1 year ago

    I don’t imagine it’s practical or useful to try and quantify the socialism for us as outsiders. All we can do is realistically look at the practices, history, and development of the region as well as who the comrades are who run things; and we have to make sure we’re taking an accurate lense to it as well. We also shouldn’t believe that just because a socialist project has made some mistakes that it is not, in fact, a socialist project.

    Besides, no socialists nations are known to exist, simply countries run by socialist parties who are trying their best to move from capitalism to the next stage of human development, socialism.

    • YearOfTheCommieDesktop [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      Not just for us as outsiders, I’d also reject conceiving of socialism as a statistically quantifiable thing. Human society does not and should not attempt to conform strictly to statistical definitions. They might be useful metrics for managing an economy as it progresses towards socialism, but only accepting “statistical proof” that a country is socialist is just not a good approach, as “socialism” is more of a philosophical concept than it is a numerical one.

      • Lemmygradwontallowme [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Edit: I know every country doesn’t have exactly socialism a la Cuba or DPRK (read more on my edit addendum)

        I just want evidence that there are systematic upholding of certain progressive policies and models within these countries, or perhaps more, in the expanding sphere of AES countries.

    • spectre [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Personally, I would say that the listed countries’ politics align more with mine than the one that I’m a citizen of, to varying extents. I don’t exactly care to cleanly define them as “socialist” (but we could talk about the extent to which they represent the interests of the global socialist movement if desired, of course), it’s honestly not that improtant to me.

      If someone is engaging in a genuine discussion, then I would extend your statement to include “because a project is nominally socialist, it is not, in fact free of errors, problems, or mistakes”. If it’s just a random “[country] isn’t socialist” then it’ll just be met with a “stfu liberal”