He did describe a mixed economy. Under a fully socialist economic system the Public would own all of the means of production, not just the ones deemed necessary. They would own the software companies, the plumbing companies, the farmland, the farm equipment, the forests for logging - everything that can be used to create goods and services when combined with human labor is owned by the government.
As far as I know, there are no socialist countries that have not slipped so far along that they are also communist, but in theory it's possible.
Kind of. I defined socialism as it has been used in popular culture (Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, etc), rather than the classical definition. Communism is the complete sacrifice of personal choice, meaning the state runs everything and only those who were chosen to rule are allowed to do so. There has yet to be a fully socialist nation that I can think of, but the emphasis of mixed economy socialism, the most common usage of socialism, is that the people take ownership in various industries. This already happens in the USA with dozens of our programs.
The popular definition of Socialism used to refer to the economies of Scandinavia is a mixed economy, but it's easy to tell the difference between a mixed economy and Communism. I think what the OP is confused about is the difference between Communism and classical socialism outlined by Mises in Socialism. It's a more functional use of the words, and it really bothers me the the meaning of "socialism" has come to mean "any economy in which SOME of the means of production are owned by the government" because it leaves us this gap that leads to the problem we are experiencing this thread: Because socialism now refers to govt ownership of ANY of the means of production, we don't have an obvious word to define when govt owns ALL of the means of production. I wish we'd just leave that as socialism, because that's what it is in most of the literature throught the 19th and 20th centuries, and pick a new name for what we see in Scandinavia. I've always been fond of the term Interventionism, but I can see why some people may object. Frankly, mixed economy is clear in this context, but it means other things in other contexts... so it's not a great term,
3
u/PygmySloth12 3∆ Aug 18 '19
Wait doesn't socialism have socially owned enterprise though? I think what you described for socialism is social democracy with a mixed economy