@Ladoga Well... It's way more complicated than that...
First off, there hasn't be a lot of countries experimenting socialism in history, as there has been a lot more of countries experimenting capitalism (and a lot of them failed miserably by the way). So you can't just say "oh we tried once, it didn't work so it never will".
Secondly, USSR was an experiment that kindof succeeded actually if you really examine the fact. The ultimate doomfall of the regime was perhaps due to its economic regime but more likely it was due to its diplomatic isolation and its tyrannical rule of its neighbours that all revolted ultimately. Now let's understand why I think it did work. Let's start with the examination of the late 20th century superpowers : USSR and USA. All started in 1917 when during WW1, russia (who was losing ground against germany, and was in both a political and economicall crisis) revolted ultimately leading bolcheviks into power.
Now let's examine the state of the 2 soon to be superpowers, USA had a very strong and industrialized modern economy (thanks to all the profits it made by selling stuff to europe during the war) and was already the first economic power of the world. Russia on the other end was broke, had still a mostly agricultural economy and even after the war with germany ended still faced a civil war (heavily funded by capitalistic countries) that lasted for 5 years until the whites were defeated.
15 years later, the country had to face WW2 and suffered the most during the conflict with germany (well, it's debatable that china or polland suffered more but they were not big powers at the time). Still by pure economic prowess and sheer numbers, USSR (granted they were helped by US funds) managed to defeat Germany who was the most powerful country in europe.
So if you just look at those 2 situations, it is amazing that Russia actually managed to rival the US during 50 years while having a smaller population, an incredible initial economic deficit and a very difficult relationship with all the big powers of its time (USA, UK, Germany, France and all of western europe). If socialism was such a bad economic system, it wouldn't have been possible at all and USSR would have fallen short during WW2 or even before. I would even argue that it was a better economic system for Russia at the time it adopted it as it allowed an economic growth that wasn't matched in the western nations.
And thirdly what every capitalist biggot seems to fail to see is that capitalism is defending itself, meaning when a nation is trying an other economic approach, it always result in civil war because rich people don't want to abandon their suppremacy. And that civil war is always constantly helped by foreign capitalistic countries (not necessarily the USA btw, the whites were mostly supported by France and the UK for example) so to make it out to a socialist system, a country would have to be stronger than its own olligarchy but also its close capitalist neighbours (and when you are close to the USA, you are doomed to fail).
So in the end you are right, it will fail, but not really for the reasons you think it will, and it could probably work (though it's not a certainty either, but it seems way more stable that capitalism is anyway) in a different world (one that hasn't been locked down by capitalism). When I say different world, I'm not necessarily talking about an other dimension kind of thing, it could be in the future as well (there are reasons to think that our current system is coming to an end soon, and with it so will the lock that capitalism has placed upon us).
PS : This is off topic. I don't know if you know about collapsology (I promise this is not a religion :p), but we have a lot of reasons to think that all capitalistic countries will fail (HARD - actually the longer it takes for the system to collapse, the harder the fall will be, worst case scenario may result in the disparition of almost all life on the planet) in the next 30 years or so, definitely making capitalism a worst economic system than socialism (by chance though, as socialism is a productivist ideology that would probably have failed the same way capitalism will - though probably slowly as it would not have burned all our energy resources at the rate capitalism is currenty going)
33
@Ladoga Well... It's way more complicated than that...
First off, there hasn't be a lot of countries experimenting socialism in history, as there has been a lot more of countries experimenting capitalism (and a lot of them failed miserably by the way). So you can't just say "oh we tried once, it didn't work so it never will".
Secondly, USSR was an experiment that kindof succeeded actually if you really examine the fact. The ultimate doomfall of the regime was perhaps due to its economic regime but more likely it was due to its diplomatic isolation and its tyrannical rule of its neighbours that all revolted ultimately. Now let's understand why I think it did work. Let's start with the examination of the late 20th century superpowers : USSR and USA. All started in 1917 when during WW1, russia (who was losing ground against germany, and was in both a political and economicall crisis) revolted ultimately leading bolcheviks into power.
Now let's examine the state of the 2 soon to be superpowers, USA had a very strong and industrialized modern economy (thanks to all the profits it made by selling stuff to europe during the war) and was already the first economic power of the world. Russia on the other end was broke, had still a mostly agricultural economy and even after the war with germany ended still faced a civil war (heavily funded by capitalistic countries) that lasted for 5 years until the whites were defeated.
15 years later, the country had to face WW2 and suffered the most during the conflict with germany (well, it's debatable that china or polland suffered more but they were not big powers at the time). Still by pure economic prowess and sheer numbers, USSR (granted they were helped by US funds) managed to defeat Germany who was the most powerful country in europe.
So if you just look at those 2 situations, it is amazing that Russia actually managed to rival the US during 50 years while having a smaller population, an incredible initial economic deficit and a very difficult relationship with all the big powers of its time (USA, UK, Germany, France and all of western europe). If socialism was such a bad economic system, it wouldn't have been possible at all and USSR would have fallen short during WW2 or even before. I would even argue that it was a better economic system for Russia at the time it adopted it as it allowed an economic growth that wasn't matched in the western nations.
And thirdly what every capitalist biggot seems to fail to see is that capitalism is defending itself, meaning when a nation is trying an other economic approach, it always result in civil war because rich people don't want to abandon their suppremacy. And that civil war is always constantly helped by foreign capitalistic countries (not necessarily the USA btw, the whites were mostly supported by France and the UK for example) so to make it out to a socialist system, a country would have to be stronger than its own olligarchy but also its close capitalist neighbours (and when you are close to the USA, you are doomed to fail).
So in the end you are right, it will fail, but not really for the reasons you think it will, and it could probably work (though it's not a certainty either, but it seems way more stable that capitalism is anyway) in a different world (one that hasn't been locked down by capitalism). When I say different world, I'm not necessarily talking about an other dimension kind of thing, it could be in the future as well (there are reasons to think that our current system is coming to an end soon, and with it so will the lock that capitalism has placed upon us).
PS : This is off topic. I don't know if you know about collapsology (I promise this is not a religion :p), but we have a lot of reasons to think that all capitalistic countries will fail (HARD - actually the longer it takes for the system to collapse, the harder the fall will be, worst case scenario may result in the disparition of almost all life on the planet) in the next 30 years or so, definitely making capitalism a worst economic system than socialism (by chance though, as socialism is a productivist ideology that would probably have failed the same way capitalism will - though probably slowly as it would not have burned all our energy resources at the rate capitalism is currenty going)