epic fail

Yeah, France is a global super power.......... sure

Because welfare people like getting money-for-nothing.  They don't want to work.  THAT'S why they are on welfare.  There are plenty of jobs to be had, but they choose free money, instead.

You really should make sure that you know the meaning of words prior to using them. Socialism is a political-economic theory that calls for the government ownership or control of the means of production and distribution of goods. Areas such as education, fire protection, and national defense are function of all modern governments, and have nothing to do with the production and distribution of goods.

If you are advocating socialism, you only need to look at the USSR, Eastern Europe ,and North Korea to see how well such a system works. I should say worked, as all those countries (except starving North Korea) abandoned the system when it proved bankrupt.

AS to France - since the 1970s it has been faced with chronic unemployment of about 10% (double that of the US). Most economist blame that high rate on the generous benefits you describe. Employees are just too expensive, so businesses would rather be short-handed than hire additional staff that are almost impossible to lay off during a slow down. An interesting comparison between the economies of the US and France is each countries per capita GNI (the amount of income per person produced in a country). The US $46,040, France $38,500. The numbers speak for themselves.

hastings, love ya, but you didn't mention that communism and socialism are two different things (though related). There are also many forms of communism, which is what most the countries you mentioned practice. And China is doing quite well economically with their government. I don't approve of it or like it, but just look at how much Chinese made products we import.

Communism is a socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership of the means of production and property in general.

Socialism is the politico-economic theory of social organization advocating that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be regulated or owned by the community.  The community could be government or the people themselves.

No seriously, I never read your entire posts because your run-on sentences, zero facts, and your penchant for your posts being all over the place really give me a headache.

OMG what a lame a$$ analogy.

That's like saying, this guy got run over by a car. Let's be democratic and all get run over by a car.

This is not a viable sentence. Also, I have to listen to left-wing conspiracy theories often, yet I can still write clearly. In fact, I do it for a living; some people have skills like that.

If you study the history of China over the past few decades, you will find that its economy only took off when they gave up on strict socialism and allowed people a greater degree of economic freedom. It has been capitalism that has enabled China's economy to grow so greatly in recent years. Socialism kept their economy in shackles for decades. They still call themselves a socialist state but that is only so the Communist party can keep its dictatorial control.

In practice, the primary differences between European socialism and communism as it was practiced by the USSR and its Eastern European satellites were two fold. The first difference was political. Communist states set up dictatorships (some might say oligarchies) to run the socialist economic system. In Western Europe democratic governments were maintained. The second difference was the degree of government control over business and industry (when people euphemistically talk about common ownership or community ownership, a more honest description would be government ownership). Communist states took direct ownership of almost everything. Socialist governments allow various degrees of private ownership but under a high level of government regulation.

 If you read your above definitions carefully, you will note that they are almost interchangeable. That is why Russia became The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, not The Union of Soviet Communist Republics.