I’m not looking for socialist theories, ideals, principles, values, pillars, essays nor any of that sort. I’m looking for projects, laws, statutes, policies, administrative, grassroots movements or any other socialist initiative that can be objectively claimed to have worked in the recent past or that is currently performing in accordance to socialist values.

I live in a capitalist country, and thus I have access to an abundance of examples of capitalist policies and initiatives that have succeeded (and failed). However, when it comes to socialism, most of the news filtering through the media tend to be overwhelmingly negative and pessimistic. With the small exception of certain Scandinavian socialist initiatives, I haven’t come across any other good examples of socialist practical initiatives that would convince me that socialist ideals (both pros and cons) ought to be preferred over capitalist ideals.

In fact, as of me writing this, it is my subjective opinion that the most compelling socialist “success stories” are heavily tied to other sister-capitalist initiatives, and would’ve never succeeded if not for the financing and excess wealth generated by the capitalist initiatives. As an example, state of the art universal healthcare as offered in many wealthy EU countries is only possible because of the tax revenue derived from excess wealth generated by capitalist private practices. Could the same universal medical attention be provided in a poor capitalist country, such as South Sudan or Somalia? Absolutely not. Could it be provided in a purely socialist state without any capitalism in its system? Maybe, I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem likely. China and Russia today have some wonderful social programs, but they only came about and are sustained by both countries joining the WTO, opening their markets and implementing capitalist practices.

My biggest fear when it comes to socialist ideals and theories is that on paper they sound fair, just, and desirable, nevertheless when it comes to implementing them into the real world they just don’t perform as expected and sometimes are even counterintuitive.

I ask this request with an open mind and I am genuinely eager to learn about socialist success stories and hopefully learn something new in the process and adjust my beliefs accordingly.