I appreciate your explanation, my definitions might be half-baked in some ways, but "capitalism" and "regulation" in the same sentence is a paradox-- the whole point of capitalism is that a deregulated market can find its own way (invisible hand). I dunno if there is a truly "socialist" country in the world today (even china has rudimentary free markets in some sense), at the same rate there isn't a truly "capitalist" country either.

Socialism doesn't work for the same reasons regulation of the free market has never yielded beneficial change in the long run... there simply isn't a person, or group of people, a committee if you will that can accurately predict economic causes. When left to its own devices, a free market is self-regulating.

In all, I wouldn't call any country on this planet "successful" socialist or not... we're in a global crisis right now with very few if any indications of positive change happening soon... caused in my opinion by decades of socialist leaning around the world. The true capitalist countries have faltered recently only because of their adoption of socialist principles, which has in a sense put them on the level with other truly socialized countries. Otherwise all the capitalist countries would by pwning the fuck out of socialist countries right now.

oh jesus bloody christ... seriously? socialist? are you completely mad? if socialism worked, then we'd still have a U.S.S.R. -- and if we would stop implementing fundamentally idiotic socialist reforms to our capitalist society, that would be a start in the right god damned direction. i don't understand how so many people out there, hate the direction our government is going, and then blame capitalism, and pray for more government sponsored programs and interventions (that is the definition of socialism my friends)... are you completely stuck in the clouds? we may as well have called the past 2 or 3 decades in the United States the "Socialist Era" (for that matter you can go back even further to the late 19th / early 20th centuries) Oh, btw. libertarians would not likely be "nutbags, racist nutbags and homophobic racist nutbags" -- and they aren't a party (lo siento) -- its a term for a view that is socially liberal and fiscally conservative.