If one considers "Capitalism" and "Socialism" as the two extremes of an economic organization continuum (which is reasonable), Finland is indeed "more socialist" (or better yet, less capitalist) than the US.
However, no European country is socialist in that sense. They have a lot of state involvement, or other public institutions, but they do have private property especially for means of production. That’s all there is to it, and calling Finland socialist seems rather inappropriate to Europeans. Indeed, to describe these different systems, other names are used, for example social democracy, or social market system etc.
For Americans, socialism is just the opposite of capitalism in every particular dimension, not just means of producing. So you can be more socialist in healthcare and so forth, even by having just more state control of things that are still privately owned.
Neither is wrong. It is a semantic misunderstanding.
Americans convey a lot of meaning by using single words. For example, just yelling socialism can now bring forth associations of all kinds, from Sweden to Stalin. Political discourse seems highly polysemic.
Europeans here are to some degree confused. It is not easy to keep up with the context of what socialism all means in the US, and how that meaning constantly shifts and gets new nuances.
But the vividness of it all is linguistically rather interesting.
Anyhow, no one is inherently wrong here.
I would however mention that we converse in English, on a US website. So there is that.
The real difference between capitalism and socialism is that capitalism requires voluntary action whereas socialism embraces compelled action. Socialist "cooperation" and "coming together to solve problems" are euphemisms for a politically powerful group to harness the productive output of the governed for its own purposes, without regard to if the perceived problems or the perceived solutions are real or not. Unless, of course, true socialist policy allows dissenters to opt-out of participation, in which case I withdraw my characterization. Assuming I'm right, I find the notion of "cooperate or else" far less appealing or moral than capitalism with all of the competition that comes with it.
Finally socialism doesn't eliminate competition... it only moves it from the marketplace to the seat of government. There is no grand collective, there is no "public good": there are individuals with differing beliefs, interests, and objectives. Once you put sufficient power in the government: the most ambitious individuals will compete for privileged positions within political movements rather than businesses, political movements will compete with alternative political movements for the reigns of government. Socialism doesn't remove fundamental human desires for prestige and power, it only redirects the energy into the mechanisms of state; and no that's not necessarily a benefit to the poor, or the underprivileged, or any other banner of victimization that you might fly to justify that state. The inability of a government program to fail means that the real world effectiveness any given government program (assuming that it's even a "right program") is secondary to its ability to attract political support. In capitalism, the voluntary aspect allows for failure if the business isn't producing the product efficiently or it isn't producing something that someone else actually wants or needs.
That's also what "market socialists" believe, but still they are very different.
The central underpinning of capitalism is the protection of personal wealth, ad infinitum. Thereby allowing capitalists a.k.a. billionaires to exist.
But only those who have capital get to participate (and even then the system is antagonistic between traders. everyone is trying to extract maximum value). Everyone else is forced into slavery (in everything but name) or left to die on the streets. Your value, as a person, is literally defined by the amount of money you have. If you have none, you are none.
> capitalism requires voluntary action whereas socialism embraces compelled action
This is an illusion. Under capitalism, you can choose to starve, sure. But what choice is that? When your value as a human being is tied to a monetary competition, you are either rich and alive or poor and struggling to survive.
Maybe people should be compelled? Any and all forms of government are essentially that, a force that compels people to behave in certain ways (under democracy, it's people compelling each other). Usually to do no harm as a baseline for civil society. Is that not a desirable quality of human civilization - people compelling each other to do good, or at least do no harm?
> euphemisms for a politically powerful group to harness the productive output of the governed for its own purposes, without regard to if the perceived problems or the perceived solutions are real or not.
Funny, because that's how I see capitalism. The capital elite (who own most capital) force those who don't to work for them (because their value as people is tied to their wealth which they can't survive without) and then barrage them with endless advertisements for consumer products scientifically engineered to be as addicting and rapidly obsolete as possible while offering little actual utility.
> Socialism doesn't remove fundamental human desires for prestige and power, it only redirects the energy into the mechanisms of state
Neither does capitalism. There the energy is directed into profit maximization at all cost and with limited liability for the consequences. And when costs are considered, a money-less person has zero value and is completely ignored.
------------
It's an interesting discussion. Yes I'm caricaturizing. I'm not a communist, nor completely opposed to capitalism. There's merit in what you say. But just like with communism, we can't look at the idealized version. Capitalism has given us a lot. But it's also destroying the planet, which we didn't know about until fairly recently in civilized history.
Ideally we'd move competition up to a planetary level where we all work together to colonize space. There it probably causes the least harm.
This is unsubstantiated in that it posits the "politically powerful" as having nothing but their own interests in mind. Ignoring the possible retort I could make that then interests of the politically powerful can not only coincide with the will of the people but also be the will of the people - reformation would remove a significant monetary interest which is exposed time and time again behind the politically powerful. The drive to be politically powerful is thereby lessened, or at least changed.
>The real difference between capitalism and socialism is that capitalism requires voluntary action whereas socialism embraces compelled action.
There's plenty of scholarly work both from libertarian socialism, anarchism and defences of socialism from liberal principles; I'd recommend G.A. Cohen on this point.
> Socialism doesn't remove fundamental human desires for prestige and power, it only redirects the energy into the mechanisms of state
It's worth questioning to what extent fundamental human desires really are so fundamental, isn't it? I'm also not convinced prestige and power are bad things; arguably, that drive is how we have democracy in the first place, never mind the American revolution.
>and no that's not necessarily a benefit to the poor, or the underprivileged, or any other banner of victimization that you might fly to justify that state
There's a whole area of philosophical and economic research dedicated to what extent this is a good question - distributive justice and the theory of exploitation. If the only argument is that it's "not necessarily" the case, we'd have just as much of a case against some forms of markets in that they may satisfy consumer preferences as they create those preferences, not to other advantages.
> In capitalism, the voluntary aspect allows for failure
Democracy also allows for failure if the people do not see their will adequately reflected.
The good old 'those noble and good hearted revolutionaries get to be the politically powerful and the "will" of the plebs better align with theirs, or else...'
In the end, there is only IngSoc!
The central philosophy is capitalism sure isn't competition. It's the accumulation of wealth. It's usually accomplished by taking it from those who create it. Reducing competition enhances that accumulation, so effectively competition is the enemy of capitalism.
What about the other extreme (apparently equally ideal) case of a capitalist state in which every single person controls an equal share of the market? Doesn't that sound the least bit socialist to you?
Exactly. And I believe that the fact i have to explain this constantly is due to the very good PR of capitalism. "Capitalism is just free markets". No, it is not. Markets are not free, and capitalism needs more than "reasonably free markets", they need protection of wealth, no matter how much.
Take e.g. healthcare. You can have all private healthcare (capitalist), a public and private sector coexisting (mixed), or exclusively public provider (socialist).
And that's just a sector. You can have socialist healthcare but capitalist manufacturing. Every economy is mixed, but it can balance to one side or the other.
(btw, all modern economies tend to be capitalist, but social democracies in Europe are definitely less capitalist than the US)
If your definition of socialism is that absolutely all sectors of the economy are non-privately owned, then even places like Cuba don't qualify.
If your definition of capitalism is that absolutely all sectors of the economy ARE privately owned, the U.S. isn't a capitalist country.
France for example, has mostly public funding, relatively heavy regulation (prices are fixed), but practice remains mostly private (though mixed in hospitals).
Switzerland has mostly private funding, even heavier regulation (insurance is mandatory and you can't be refused for pre-existing conditions, for example), and most practice is private (some public hospitals).
The big elephant in the room in US healthcare is that funding is 50/50, yet you can only benefit from the public part by being old or extremely poor.
they are at odds.
currently most nations have capitalism, often with some social policies in place (mainly to prevent uprisings).
They do coexist is most countries, just in different sectors. When a country collectively owns most of the healthcare means of production and protects it by law (e.g. by requiring emergency ambulances to go to public hospitals), how is that capitalism?