For example; are the Nordics or most of Europe socialist?
If they are and are functioning it means it can work. If they are not, maybe people have differing opinions of what socialism entails.
What usually is a "no true scotsman" argument is when someone only calls something socialist when it's not working, because if an implementation is working that would deflate the argument. See a few posts above.
Absolutely not. They are primarily market based with a relatively large welfare state. How is that even a question?
The socialists I am aware of are openly anti-capitalist, and want to focus on oppression above anything else, placing race and gender based oppression at the top of a hierarchy to be countered.
They are explicitly opposed to many aspects of the Scandinavian model which is largely market based, for example School Vouchers which are used in Sweden, would unthinkable to an American socialist.
That has been a disaster in Sweden. With increased segregation, corruption, and inflation in grades to please "customers".
Regardless, the point is that Scandinavian countries are not “socialist” in the way leftist Americans think of socialism.
Not true at all. Why are you making shit up?
They were introduced to "give choice". And marketed - by the right-wing government at that time btw - like small teacher-led "idea-based" companies or similar would be the primary result, rather than the large stock-market school corps that have been the natural result.
> Regardless, the point is that Scandinavian countries are not “socialist” in the way leftist Americans think of socialism.
Just because Scandinavia (Sweden in particular) too has suffered with a massive wave of neo-liberal privatizations the last 30 years or so doesn't mean that the former more "socialist" way was in any way shape or form worse than the corrupt mess that we have here now.
I don't disagree with you that most "socialists" want what is essentially a government modeled on the Nordic states. But its highly problematic for those people to delude themselves into thinking that is socialism. I think it boils down to a bunch of lemmings who essentially want social democracy who don't realize a fraction of their comrades genuinely want to abolish private property and install an authoritarian government. At the very least it makes one doubt how seriously their loud opinion should be taken when those opinions are completely internally inconsistent.
Some socialists, such as Marx, argue that the logical endpoint of socialism is communal ownership of the means of production at some point in the future when the average worker produces more than their need.
So the issue becomes that for socialist-structured companies to become effective and commonplace extensive government intervention is required. At that point the line between "worker" and "communal" means of production becomes pretty thin. Like a large amount of socialist theory, there is a lot of verbiage and effort devoted to theoretical concepts that, when the rubber meets the road, boil down to irrelevance.
This is not extensive government intervention, it boils down to a simple change in property ownership laws.
Also, loans are fully compatible with worker-owned companies, so you can still have capital transfer.
So I disagree very strongly that this "boils down to irrelevance".
Market socialism is a thing, and the form of socialism that most of the more thoughtful socialists prefer.