Socialism in real life = Biggest Government, Biggest Tech monopoly, forced uniformity, no self-agency, no authenticity for anyone who slightly disagrees with any aspect of the agenda, etc.
Source: I fled Venezuela because I lived in it.
Socialism brought a lot of good things all over Europe in the 1900s
Almost as if it was a spectrum, almost as if it was a balancing act between two opposites
Almost as if we should not think in term of black and white definitions of ideological systems that cannot be 100% implemented
It really makes you think doesn't it ?
That's one way to put it, the other way to put it is that your corrupt government seized the industries and put their cronies in charge, which I would say is more accurate.
Radicals tell the masses what they want to hear, and then seize radical power, take their weapons, and force their will upon the people, while claiming it's for everyone's benefit. People who haven't witnessed it firsthand believe the insane pink-powder theory that "if I were in charge, I would be able to implement it correctly", daydreaming they are superior and able to handle dictator-level power. Why else would Carl Marx and others admit it has to be forced upon an unwilling population?
The US and Russia aren't under any kind of socialist system right now but suffer from the things you just described as socialism shortcomings.
France was socialist for a long time and did not suffer any of what you just mentioned.
The only thing that isn't validated by reality is your over simplified mental model of what socialism is.
Just ask Poland!
No wonder we can't have any serious discussions on these topics...
- Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: operated under the Communist Party's centralized control, with state ownership of production, suppression of dissent, and looked more like communist authoritarianism than democratic socialism.
- CCP, Cuba, North Korea: they call themselves socialists while being led by communist parties.
- Democratic socialism like Sweden, Norway, Denmark: very different from the above.