>No, we are not confusing Socialism with Communism. Communism is a virtual (that is, something that never can become reality) utopia <g> Socialism is a real utopia. Some three basic principles of socialism (that I remember) that make it very bad system are:
>1. From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.

From what I remember, that was also for some distant future. For the present, there was either the "everyone's belly is the same", i.e. a just distribution of poverty, or some sort of motivational pay (per piece produced, quality bonuses or points system), depending on times and version of the system.

>2. You can't hire (in their terms "exploit") people.

Actually you did hire people, in the case you were elected into the hiring board. But they didn't work for you, they worked for themselves, society and the enterprise. You couldn't own means of production, unless it was your personal property (i.e. self-employed). But you couldn't hire people to work on your machines. Later that was amended that you couldn't hire more then five, so we did have an extensive servicing sector - majority of restaurants, cab drivers, trucks-for-hire, garages, barber shops and such were in the private sector.

>3. You can't own property.

Again, not true in Yugoslav self-management - there were limitations, but you could. I owned a house, for one. My father inherited some land and planted a forest on it. Peasants were limited to 10ha of land per household, and many of them had combine harvesters, tractors, farms where they grew hundreds of pigs or whatever. The system just took care you don't get too rich :).

>All the countries you mentioned about do not fit the above formula of socialism.

And there are other formulae.