>...Otherwise, we would have a Socialism. And Socialism is very bad, believe me, I have seen it.
>
>Are we confusing Socialism with Communism? As you well know they are not the same thing.
>Doesn't Sweden, Norway and Israel (maybe Canada in health services) have some form of socialism? We are not talking Marx/Lenin/Mao here. Please clarify.

By theory, communism is the ideal society some time in the future. Socialism is what can be made real in present times.

But then there's a lot of diversity in the latter - and many ways to get there. One was the hardline communist approach, that there's no way the exploiting class will give in had they lost elections (which they were proven to be right, though - happened in Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the thirties, happened in Chile, and there was also a lot of pressure for elections in Italy 1974 when they nearly became a two-party system, communists vs demochristians), so the power must be taken by force.

Then there's the other theory that capitalism can be fixed from within - that's what most of socialist parties in Europe are trying to do. Of course, this is overly simplified, and I haven't refreshed my reading on the subject... well, pretty much since I discovered Fox :).