You&#x27;re thinking in binary of countries as either socialist or <i>not</i> socialist.  In reality, socialism is a spectrum, and not exclusive of capitalism.  It is also a system used to different degrees in different sectors. Canada, for example, is extremely socialist in some respects, such as healthcare.  The UK&#x27;s welfare state has raised and buried multi-generational families whose members have never had a job in their lives, yet the country&#x27;s finance sector is the most influential in the world and, quite probably, more libertarian than it really ought to be.<p>Even today, with the affordable healthcare act, the U.S. is one of the least socialist countries in the world, but it&#x27;s never been completely free of socialism, even in the &quot;better dead than red&quot; era.  Take public infrastructure such as power generation as an example.  Some sectors are so big and require careful planning decades in advance, and doing things the socialist way (i.e. Taking short-term market interests out of the equation) is often the best way.  If we left scientific research entirely to the free market, where would the funding be for curiosity driven, long-term, core science that is typically decades from producing anything remotely commercializable?  How would corporations justify the research that led to lasers or carbon nanotubes to a corporate board only interested in the bottom line for the next quarter?<p>Socialist policies make sense in certain areas.  Americans are unusual in having turned &quot;socialism&quot; into a dirty word, and most have turned a blind eye to the many benefits it brings them.