Ultimately, the answer comes down to what you mean by socialism. Socialism and capitalism are not really terms used in the field of economics; they’re terms used in the field of [political economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy), a branch of political science/sociology which revolves around economics.
Since both are descriptors attached to various political and social structures, rather than used to describe more objective facts, people’s meanings of them differ – often radically, and in mutually exclusive and internally inconsistent ways.
If “socialism” just means “more welfare” or “every worker gets a portion of company stock”, not much changes; under that definition lot of countries these days count as socialist and haven’t failed. If “socialism” means “central planning of the economy” or “shoot everyone with glasses”, yes, that tends to be why societies break down or even collapse. But you have to define what socialism means first to draw any economic conclusions from it.
As for the question itself: China and Vietnam are doing pretty well economically these days, because they transitioned away from a planned economy to a market economy (albeit one where the government owns some firms and has outsize influence over the ones it doesn’t, unlike many market economies). The other ones didn’t and in several cases their leaders paid the price.
EDIT: SPAG
RobThorpe on
We have a great answer. I’m locking this thread because it breaks rule V.
Unless you define “Socialism” then this breaks rule V.
2 Comments
Ultimately, the answer comes down to what you mean by socialism. Socialism and capitalism are not really terms used in the field of economics; they’re terms used in the field of [political economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy), a branch of political science/sociology which revolves around economics.
Since both are descriptors attached to various political and social structures, rather than used to describe more objective facts, people’s meanings of them differ – often radically, and in mutually exclusive and internally inconsistent ways.
If “socialism” just means “more welfare” or “every worker gets a portion of company stock”, not much changes; under that definition lot of countries these days count as socialist and haven’t failed. If “socialism” means “central planning of the economy” or “shoot everyone with glasses”, yes, that tends to be why societies break down or even collapse. But you have to define what socialism means first to draw any economic conclusions from it.
As for the question itself: China and Vietnam are doing pretty well economically these days, because they transitioned away from a planned economy to a market economy (albeit one where the government owns some firms and has outsize influence over the ones it doesn’t, unlike many market economies). The other ones didn’t and in several cases their leaders paid the price.
EDIT: SPAG
We have a great answer. I’m locking this thread because it breaks rule V.
Unless you define “Socialism” then this breaks rule V.