Dear apotheon: I've read your answers here at T.R., and generally I tend to agree a lot with most of what you say.

But here i have to disagree: you said "Socialism NEVER sounded like a good idea unless you're completely divorced from reality"
First of all: what is "socialism"? Is it the same as "comunism"? If your answer to this is "yes", then you know nothing about any of them.

I consider myself an utopic socialist (or perhaps an anarchist socialist), and I know the difference between the two. And regarding communism, I've *tried* (emphasis added) to read "Das kapital", it's not an easy reading and I've never been able to grasp much of its meaning - "the transformation of ape to man" is considerably easier, the same with "communist manifest". I've read Althusser, something of Bakunin, and others.
And while you may disagree with some or much of what those guys said, much of it is still valid in today's world, specially in the thirld world (there's even a book by a peruvian economist named "why capitalism triumphs in the west and fails everywhere else", where he, as i understand it, blames it all in our countries bad legal and educative infrastructure - i feel it's mostly a natural result of capitalist economies)
I find a lot of people criticising socialism or communism without at least the basic grasp of it, I very much hope it's not the case with you. Or to criticise it based on the Soviet Union or Red China's behaviour. But very few have ever managed to "read" what it's all about.
So, could you explain us, why you found socialism so disconnected from reality?
thanks in advance.