Socialism is properly defined by social or state ownership and control of the means of production, not merely by high taxes, extensive welfare spending or redistribution; under this definition, Scandinavian countries operate as welfare-capitalist market economies, while Cuba, North Korea and (to a large extent) Venezuela more closely match traditional socialist models. 

Nearly all modern economies are mixed: even explicitly socialist systems develop informal markets, and capitalist countries contain substantial government-controlled sectors such as defense, public education, Social Security and portions of health care. 

Productive debate should evaluate specific socialist institutions within a given country (e.g., public schools versus private schools, Social Security versus private retirement accounts) rather than treating entire nations as pure experiments that either “prove” or “disprove” socialism.

Socialism is having another moment in U.S. politics. Politicians and activists increasingly describe themselves as socialist while their opponents use the same label as a term of condemnation. Yet both sides employ the word so loosely as to become meaningless. Sweden gets called socialist because it has high taxes and universal health care; Venezuela does because the government nationalized industries and imposed price controls. The rise of the phrase “democratic socialism”, which lumps together two unconnected words, adds to the confusion and makes debate difficult. Before deciding whether socialism works, we ought to determine what it actually is—and which countries practice it.

The traditional definition is primarily about ownership and control of the economy, not simply government spending. Under capitalism, productive assets—businesses, factories, capital—are largely private-owned and directed through markets. Socialism seeks to replace private control of this “means of production” with social ownership, be it direct government ownership, worker-owned........

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