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You are surely correct in saying that neither Biden nor Sanders are socialists in any meaningful sense of the word. However, the OED is a dubious source for understanding the meaning of socialism.

In general, the word has always been used in two different ways. In capitalist society it has been a label for any governmental attempt to restrain the ability of private capital to exploit labor, whether by law or by government ownership. However, capitalists have always supported government ownership of those parts of the economy that could not be constructed or operated at a profit.

Marx used the term to refer to a period of transition between capitalist society and a future classless (communist) society, during which the private ownership of the means of production for private wealth is terminated by force and social needs are prioritized. In Marx’s usage, there are no socialist countries in the world today, regardless of what leaders, parties, or states may call themselves.

Scandinavia is an interesting example of the misuse of the socialist label. The capitalist countries in Scandinavia exist at the top of the international food chain, without having to bear the military expense of defending a global capitalist suzerainty. That makes it easy to maintain welfare state capitalism while people of the Third World continue to suffer.

So what works best? That depends on who you are. If you are an actual capitalist, capitalism definitely works best for you. If you are a worker at Saab, Volvo or Bofors in Sweden, you are better off than 90% of humanity. But if you work in a sweat shop in Bangladesh or China, if you are a poor farmer in India or Kenya, or a miner in South Africa or Bolivia, your only hope—as well as that of humanity as a whole—lies with communism.

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