When People In The West Praise Socialism, It's a Bit Like...

...when children play wars, jump in holes with sticks they pretend are guns, throw pretend grenades & say they love war versus the real thing kids their age may have to witness, live through & suffer in actual war zones. Its not real, its not fun & whether its kids or westerners it is extolling the virtues of something and ignoring the messy bad bits.

Socialism vs Communism is another argument itself but seems a lot thing Socialism is the first step to communism.

First, don't forget the book people refer to "The Communist Manifesto" was jointly written between Marx & Engels & that was released in 1848. So now, in 2023 that book is 175 years. We're still yet to see a sovereign government anywhere now or since then that ran its nation, its economy, its society like that successfully & without mass theft, economic disaster, loss of normal human and individual rights, wide spread corruption, widespread false imprisonment (often without charge), abolition of the right to worship/religion and the big one...outright government sanctioned genocide. 

So Socialism vs Communism seems a point of conjecture for most but seems kind more than likely Socialism is the transition phase where capitalism still exists, personal ownership exists to a very limited extents and the government is (in theory at least) controlled not so much by the people, but specifically by the working class. Some might warm to a watered down version of that, some might want full communism, but even with that transitional socialist model the means of production & the ownership of that which we might consider to be a wealth creator...that's not owned by an individual taking risk or a group of individuals (called a company). Its owned, managed & controlled by the government. (We need to return to this point, jus tmarking it)

Its also worth remembering that The Communist Manifesto is considered, even by its critics to be "not all wrong" but that that doesn't mean there's enough kernals of good to outweigh the pesky parts of it that are diabolical & manifestly wrong. It means if you could delete all the bad & very bad & that which would lead to evil the 23 page book/pamphlet might be reduced to a very short half page brochure.

The other part worth remembering is The Communsit Manifesto is considered by some to be a philosphical work & by others to be a political work. Maybe. It's pretty clear when you read it & remember it was in the middle of the 19th century.
It was a call to revolution. They had decided what was needed & it wasn't going to be achieved in that age without armed struggle.
Was the accepted establishment at the time completely good?
Pick a country in the mid 1800s & the answer would likely be no. 
Was Communism likely to be the bright, good & fair replacement?
No and that's no as in never, not then, not now & not anytime in human history.

One other thing...its very badly written then & I think they as writers are very much like many of those who are its fans. Deeply committed, deeply passionate for that type of change, many willing to kill & die for a society model that they would learn to hate were they actually required to live under it. Its deeply anti-establishment & when the youthful angry, especially those attending higher learning come into contact with it as they're looking to form a mode of rebellious identity...yes it has appeal at the front door.
Many academics lean towards some sort of version of socialism. Outside unversities (lecturers & students) many working class on the tools have over the decades leaned its way. Irony being many people suffer under socialism & communism...especially the academics, the students & the working class.
The greatest advantage goes to the leaders of the military & police & those in political ruling class.
When there's a revolution all fighting for Marxist offshoot must think they're going to end up with a really sweet life at the top of the society heirachy. The bad news is, those most influential, those able to rouse fools to slaughter, those able to teach people to think a particular way have two paths. A very very small percentage are quickly brought into the ruling class the rest are rounded up, reeducated until they're broken and/or destroyed, imprisoned until they're broken and/or destroyed and don't forget, destroyed means murdered.

So there's that.

Then in the West it will eventually come, the claim that "If it weren't for Socialism you wouldn't have..."
In Australia I have heard the obvious one Medicare, but I have also heard old age & disability pensions, free university education, better wage out comes & sometimes (I kid you not) the wild ones pop up. The defence of the nation & society by the military & police and fire fighters, nurses...

None of these things are within the writings of Marx. Hospitals, soldiers, nurses pre-dated Marx.
Have government managing fire fighting is smart, not socialist. Medicare is not Marxist or we'd see incredible healthcare in non Western non capitalist nations. 

Here, hospitals are not built by government builders, fitted out with government plumbers, painters, electricians. Its not socialist.

The other big one that comes up is the Norwegian Fund.
To correct the most common lie, Norway is not a socialist country. Its a market based economy.
Government Pension Fund of Norway or Statens pensjonsfond is actually 2 funds but never mind that.
Its actually very non socialist in principle in that it is one of the largest investment funds in the world.
Yes. It invests its money in non Marxist things, like property & listed companies to earn an ongoing profit for their nation...although in 2023 it made a multi million dollar loss. Without capitalism no one would buy their oil reserves & they would not be able to invest any money earned of it if they did.
It being socialism stacks up like say a fat stack of dead cats is actually a chocolate powered device for mass transportation to the moon.

Its banged on about that we should do the same, that we bow to OPEC blah blah.

Norway - The Satens pensjonsfond has been going since 1967. Its a simple 55% Special tax on resource profits PLUS their 20% Corporate Tax. 

Simple as that is their share of the oil & gas returns will probably amount to a $209Billion of a 63% cut of the industry's revenue.

Australia - In the late 80s The Hawke Labor Government created the PRRT (Petroleum Resource Rent Tax)
It taxes oil extraction with a 40% tax and a 30% company tax rate that in theory at least turns out to be a 58% return.
So we have a sort of similar thing...in 2021/22 the PRRT generated a record low $900 Million & "continues to deliver only a circa-1 percent royalty - despite $11 Billion spent on fossil fuel subsidies"

So the very poor outcome in the Australian version, it looks like it is run by socialists or by those paying the taxes...