Scandinavian Countries Are Not Socialist
Just FYI, they’re capitalist with better social safety nets, which is like better than unregulated capitalism BUT IT’S NOT SOCIALISM.
Socialism means workers owning the means of production, no exceptions.
I respectively disagree with this statement. Scandinavian countries do practice a form of socialism, democratic socialism. There are definite elements of socialism in these particular nations but when integrated with a democratic and capitalist system, it changes the nature of the rigid definition of socialism set by the original poster.
Many of the most liberal European nations operate under a different streams of socialism but generally adopt a form of “democratic socialism”. There are so many strains of Socialism (or even Zionism for that matter) and it’s difficult to reduce an ideology to just one particular definition. There are many socialists with opposing views. Karl Marx and Bernie Sanders do not advocate the same values but have they considered themselves socialists? Yes.
The definition that the original poster provided is correct but the definition is far too narrow and absolute and does not encapsulate how socialism functions in capitalist and democratic societies (along with how socialism interactions with hundreds of political ideology). The original poster again provided a narrow view of this ideology by holding the belief that “socialism means workers owning the means of production, no exceptions.” No exceptions? NO EXCEPTIONS?!
Let me break this down. There are various types of socialism…
Main types of socialism: Anarchist communism, Anarcho-syndicalism, Communism, Democratic socialism, Eco-socialism, Libertarian socialism, Marxism, Syndicalism
Subsets of Marxist socialism: Autonomist Marxism, Bolivarianism, Council communism, Guevarism, Juche, Left communism, Leninism, Luxembourgism, Maoism, Marxist humanism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Titoism, Situationism
Reformist or revisionist socialism: Austromarxism, Bernsteinism, Evolutionary socialism, Fabianism, Kautskyism, Labor Zionism, Market socialism, Neosocialism, Social democracy, Socialism with Chinese characteristics, Titoism, Popular Socialism, Yellow socialism
Lesser-known types of socialism: African socialism, Arab socialism, Melanesian socialism, Guild socialism, International socialism, Popular Socialism, Religious socialism, Christian socialism, Islamic socialism, Socialist feminism, Utopian socialism
(x) I made my own list of about 15 from the websites I have shared and usually don’t EVER use wiki but I didn’t want to leave out lesser known socialism due to a Western bias in research.
It’s important to make distinctions when discussing socialism but there are exceptions unlike the OP argued. I respectively disagree for these reasons. I firmly believe that many of these Northern European countries practice many aspects of democratic socialism.
I would also like to note that socialism is not a bad thing and it often carries such a negative and unfortunate connotation where those with similar views to the original poster, want to distance themselves away from socialism even when a nation does practice socialism.
If you want to further educate yourself about different streams of socialism than here is some more information on the subject. Below are just a few interesting sources: