In practice, socialism requires a ruling elite.

1. Governmental Elites and DemocracyI claim that a ruling elite that exists in a democracy is no ruling elite at all, yes. That is because democracy is more than just 51% of people agreeing with something, it covers things like freedom of expression, political freedoms, et cetera, because without those any choice one might have is an illusion. If democracy is political choice and self-determination--and in modern parlance, at least, it most certainly is--then it's rather contradictory to have someone like Putin, because Putin is known to repress dissent (and, of course, anyone who simply alternates with another person is running a country with a poorly structured constitution; why on Earth would you merely make it so that the terms can't be consecutive?).It's true that laws aren't actually voted on by voters, at least individually. It is also true, however, that the people actually making the laws and regulations are elected, or appointed by people who are elected, and can therefore be removed by the electoral process. Part of the problem the USA has is that both parties are pretty much identical in ideology and third parties aren't viable, a parliamentary democracy with preferential voting would not have that problem (at least not to such a great extent). There is nothing preventing such a system from being established other than inertia; other countries have a parliamentary democracy already, and preferential voting has already been implemented in several electoral systems.If the leaders of the bureaucracy are subject to vote, or are directly appointed by people who are subject to vote, then it is easy to reign in the bureaucracy and prevent it from becoming an elite.2. More On BureaucracyRidiculous. People in Apple, Android, and Blackberry factories must choose how many of each are produced, it isn't like the customer orders a phone, the phone is assembled, and then shipped to the customer. If this was the case, there would be no surplus, and no shortage unless it proved impossible to obtain parts. Stores would never be sold out.It's true that the number of phones produced does depend on the people buying them, but ultimately what is going on is that someone (someone in charge of production) is fulfilling orders made by the heads of individual stores, who are predicting how many of an item they will need. A governmental bureaucracy could do the exact same thing. And market forces can be performed on government-owned companies.3. Governmental CompaniesLet's run a scenario.Joe Shmoe has an idea that he believes will either be profitable or very useful to the people of the country. He's going to sell a product, or provide a service, or exploit a natural resource--something like that. Let's go with him managing an orchard.So, Joe Shmoe goes to the government and says, "I've got an idea for a fruit company, and I think I can do it better than ACME Fruit." ACME Fruit is, here, the default fruit company. Now, any logical person is aware that other people may have a better idea than they do. So, the government can say, "Okay, you can give it a shot." The government will own Joe Shmoe's company, but it will basically be a separate entity with Joe Shmoe in charge. A quango, basically.[9] The government does control whether or not the company can operate, and can lay down basic rules. It is basically under the same level of control that an entity like Amtrak is.Now, let's say that Joe Shmoe is correct and his company does better. It doesn't do better necessarily by making more money (and certainly wouldn't by making more money at the expense of quality), but it does sell better quality fruit, or sell more fruit, or they don't have the same ecological problems, or they make more money without ripping people off or lowering quality.So, now the government has some different options. They can get rid of ACME Fruit. They can give ACME Fruit to Joe Shmoe. They can study what Joe Shmoe did and make ACME Fruit do the same thing. Or, they could study what Joe Shmoe did, funnel more money towards Joe Shmoe's agency because it is doing better (and Joe Shmoe would gain wide recognition for his success), and challenge ACME Fruit to either match or exceed Joe Shmoe's success or be absorbed by Joe Shmoe's agency.By applying this universally, you have created an economic environment where anyone can create a company (albeit a government-owned company), and competition is strongly encouraged, but the standards success is judged on is not necessarily profit (in line with basic socialist principles on what economic activity should be done for). Obviously, in practice things would be slightly more complex than this, but it gets the basic idea across. An economy where all companies are government-owned does not mean the end of competition.4. PoliceNo, we don't agree on that. We agree that pay must be sufficient, which is different from saying that it must be enough to set them apart and above from the populace. What Pro is basically trying to argue here is that the police in a socialist state must be paid so much that they are in a very high percentile of income earners (and have the other traits commonly associated with an elite). What I am disagreeing with is that part.I stand corrected. That puts them in the 66.3 percentile.[10] This is hardly an "elite." Moreover, they are putting themselves at substantial risk of being threatened, shot, stabbed, et cetera. If we are to reward those who put in more effort and take more risks, then a police officer should have a higher salary than the median.Pro then claims some stuff, which I don't have room to quote.If one is going to bring Animal Farm and the Soviet Union into this, then it is worth pointing out that it wasn't a matter of making rules, it was a matter of having rights that others did not. In both these cases, these policies only survived due to repressive policies--dogs and police, respectively. The leader built up a cult of personality,[11] used show trials,[12] and generally imposed a reign of terror against those who would speak out against the rulers.This, needless to say, does not exist in democratic socialism. If a member of the government who actually has the power to make rules is acting in an elitist manner, he or she can be replaced, either by direct voting or voting in someone who will replace them.5. On The Matter of The EliteYes, it's true that the only people who earn less at the most highly educated ones (who, it should be noted, would be the ones who would form the elite). People who are in the middle are paid the same, which Pro doesn't mention, and people with a high school diploma or less are paid more. In otherwords, the "elite" here is made of people who never entered college.I honestly have a hard time calling that an elite, and would feel pretty safe betting money that they aren't in the top 25 percentile of individual earners.As far as the most educated, when one factors in benefits they are still paid 18% less.[8] And before Pro argues that there is a job guarantee, I would point out that there is constant political pressure to downsize the government, which usually means that some people will lose their jobs.6. ScandinaviaMuch of that quote is irrelevant to whether or not socialism is practiced (ex. freedom from corruption)... and the Index does not mean that there is little regulation. For example, business freedom measures how difficult it is to start a business.[13] If there are strong environmental regulations, for instance, but these are clear and streamlined, the country could have a high business freedom score. Monetary freedom measures inflation and price controls.[14] Labor freedom is the only one that is useful as an argument.Sources:9. http://tinyurl.com...10. http://tinyurl.com...11. http://tinyurl.com...12. http://tinyurl.com...13. http://tinyurl.com...14. http://tinyurl.com...