this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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That's a decent write-up, but has some issues like:
"[China, Cuba, North Korea, Laos and Vietnam] can be classified as communist because in all of them, the central government controls all aspects of the economic and political system. "
Uh... in every country the central government controls all aspects of the economic and political system. In a standard western democracy like say the UK, the government passes laws which regulate the economic and political system. They may choose to be hands-off when it comes to certain things, but ultimately they're in control. At any point a law can be change, or a court decision can be changed so that what was once hands-off is now regulated.
What would it even look like for a country to not fully control all aspects of the economic and political system? IMO that only happens in a failed state when the government simply lacks the power to enforce laws. The difference between China and the USA is just a matter of degree. In China there are more regulations in general, and there are more state-owned enterprises.
Also, Social Democracy describes the US. It's again a matter of degree. Yes in the Nordic countries there are more state-owned things, and more public benefits. But, in the US, even though ambulances are mostly private and for-profit, fire trucks are not. Privately owned toll roads exist, but they're rare. The government pays for and runs schools. Potholes are filled by government employees. Mass transit is almost always city-owned. And, instead of the Pinkertons, cities use police forces where everyone's a government employee. There are a lot of things that could be privatized in the US, but almost nobody actually wants everything to be a privately-owned for profit capitalist enterprise.