[quote=@Derpestein] 10/10, accounts first post is discussing the differences in socialism and capitalism, in spam. What a way to start. [/quote] If that was such a good first impression for you I'll try the same topic the next time I go to a party... [quote=@Dinh AaronMk] Who wants to bet he signed up merely to plug into the argument because he somehow happened to find the debate? [/quote] I'd already made an account but apart from that, pretty much. I'm a pedantic arsehole. [@Vilageidiotx] "In theory, though I suppose you could argue that in practice social democracy is socialism since it's as close as we've ever came at this point in our development" If we're being pure in our examples: Paris Commune 1871 Free Territories of Ukraine 1918-21 Catalonia 1936-39 Rojava 2012-present But you could even argue that, at some points, China under Mao and Russia under Lenin and Stalin were socialist. While Lenin did move to state capitalism as a intermediate measure, they were controlled democratically by democratic centralisation of the means of production. "Real free market economics is ridiculously unstable and unworkable, anytime we get close to putting it in practice damaging bubbles always arise" I wouldn't disagree with your analysis but I think when most sane people mean free market economics they refer to the state not being involved in any subsidies/tarrifs rather than simply not enforcing private property which would lead to the destruction of the system. "we've never really had a worker-controlled economy on a large scale " See examples above. While they didn't last long, this is largely because the entire forces of reactionaries (and Bolsheviks) were ranged against them.