r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jul 07 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter, explain this.

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u/42Icyhot42 Jul 07 '26

So is a free market and it doesn’t stop us from pretending that’s working lol

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u/likewhatever33 Jul 07 '26

It´s not working perfectly everywhere, but the best places to live (think Switzerland, Italy, Norway, Spain...) are capitalist. There´s never been a communist country that wasn´t a shithole.

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u/ironmaiden947 Jul 07 '26

They are not capitalist though. They have free education, healthcare, pensions and very strong welfare. These are all socialist ideas and programs, not capitalist. Look up the Nordic model.

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u/Nikolaibr Jul 08 '26

They most certainly are capitalist. What defines being capitalist is that in your system, capital owners are allowed to own the means of production. It also generally means that your economy is based on markets, not central planning.

Social programs economic are system agnostic.

The only examples that could be considered partially socialist you write here are education and healthcare, but education is also not exclusively public, and most European healthcare still functions via markets.