alt Hacker News> Socialism's track record is pretty bad
However the track record for developed countries communally sharing "intellectual property" is much much better. Universities, open source, and public domain all have some crossover with the ideals of socialism.
Yes, communism has repeatedly failed spectacularly.
The softer socialism of public welfare has worked (so far) for many countries including the US. Although I'm skeptical about the future given modern demographics and our governments' choices to appease a majority. The governments of most developed countries smell socialist to me. I'm from New Zealand and most private income/property is taxed up the wahoo to pay for our social welfare programs: it doesn't take much squinting to see my own society as broadly socialist.
Somehow I see people in the US complaining that the Chinese are beating the US at capitalism (regular complaints of price undercutting and monopolistic behaviours) - what's weird since the Chinese are supposed to be pinkos.
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As I see it, fully voluntary socislism where people share and cooperate because they just feel like it, works exceedingly well. It also naturally regulates itself as people will just abandon stuff that looks iffy and work extra on stuff that is well run, fair, etc
When you force people to pitch, share, cooperate, etc, things start to don't work out so well and you start getting people that takes advantage of a system that mandates others to work for a cause no matter what, as well as people that will do whatever they can to not do their work.
The Chinese switched from communism to free markets. Prosperity resulted.
I'm not a particular fan of intellectual property. It's a made-up form of property, and seems to be more of an impediment to progress than a help.
I'm not joking - the D language is as open source as possible. We give it away for free.