Nay
I would have absolutely no motivation to be successful if I lived in a socialist economy. The idea of everyone being on, or close to, the same level financially, sounds like the opposite of freedom to me.

Depends what kind of socialism.

Utopian is just that. Utopian. But no one has talked about utopian socialism in a long time.

Scientific socialism was neat until Lenin came along. Non-Leninist socialism is not really an ideology, but a methodology.

Nay
It's human nature to be self-centered.
Free markets are motivated by self-interests
True communism has people thinking the community is more important than the individual.

Socialist governments still have to have people to run them. Those people are still self-centered, just look at North Korea and the elite. Unless human nature changes, it's simply way more efficient to have a free market that actually thrives on self-interest.

You realize that Korea's government right now is much closer to fascist than socialist, right?

Calling Korea socialist is a joke.

nay

There will always be a few people in charge with way more money and power than the normal folks. Personal freedom is limited. People will never get treated equal, we've seen that so many times through history.

Socialism isn't the same as communism, you know.