15 Examples of Socialist Countries

The denomination of the socialism is a specific concept to define the economies in which the property of goods is collective, and therefore the mode of production does not consider people as sellers of their workforce but precisely to that workforce as a means at the disposal of good common.

Marxism and the critique of capital

The idea of ​​socialism comes from the theoretical contributions of Karl Marx, who throughout his work during the nineteenth century devoted himself to characterizing the way of capitalist production explaining the separation that this system produces between people and the product of their work, between people and the activity they perform, and between people and their own human potential, as a result of the two previous.

It is by virtue of this that Marx proposes the collectivization of all means of production, and the replacement of societal life in classes, which implied the overcoming of the capitalist mode of production and with it the suppression of the State.

A worldwide mode of production

The Marx's work, one of the most important of his century, concentrates almost solely on characterizing capitalism and explaining its tendency to collapse, rather than proposing the alternative situation.

The mode of collectivist production (called communist) is characterized by being global, but there are no further clarifications regarding its implementation, which will be through the struggle between the two classes in which people are divided within capitalist society: businessmen (or bourgeoisie) and workers.

The truth is that, once the capitalism as a global system, the visions that considered the communist exit as opportune they had to adapt their program to some categories of the capitalist world, such as the unity of the countries wave democracyThus it is that the socialist experiments that have been made throughout the twentieth century were limited to a country or a handful of them, without acquiring the indispensable global character under Marx's criteria.

Socialism in the 20th century

The fact that collective economies have been an exception in a capitalist world implies, in part, that they have not fulfilled their original mission: although within those economies productive relations were not those of class during capitalism, the goods produced there were exchanged under the criteria capitalists with the outside, joining the totality of human production in the capitalist sense, but with centralized production state.

In any case, there were several countries that opted for socialism throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, and few ties could really be established between all of them: most had to use authoritarian and repressive political regimes, canceling the free elections.

Most received a aggressive response of the nearby capitalist blocs, and had to face armed violence or other. The limited character of socialism meant that most had to face the limitations that it gives the persistence of ambition and private selfishness, such as corruption and bureaucracy exaggerated.

Examples of socialist countries

Here are some examples of socialist experiences in different countries, clarifying the type of socialism used:

1. China. A single party socialism since 1949. (Although with components of the market economy)
2. Vietnam. With a single party since 1976.
3. Nicaragua. With a government tending to socialism within capitalism, since 1999.
4. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The closest experience to expanding the socialist program around the world, between 1922 and 1991.
5. chili. Under the democratic presidency of Salvador Allende, between 1970 and 1973.
6. Bolivia. With a government tending to socialism of an indigenous character within capitalism, since 1999.
7. Iceland. The last five, with market economic models but that have a state involved in the organization and financing of well-being in a very high way.
8. Cuba. Single party socialism since 1959.
9. Venezuela. With a government tending to socialism within capitalism, since 1999.
10. Laos. With a single party since 1975.
11. North Korea. A socialist dictatorship since 1945.
12. Denmark
13. Norway
14. Sweden
15. Finland