Socialism

I agree 100%. You could have a regulated market in economic sectors where that makes sense. But is it socialist, or is it capitalism? If it works, does it matter?

The relationship between economics and ideology is basically the same as the relationship between engineering and marketing. I guess you have to have marketing to sell the engineering to people, but sure as hell don't want marketing people making engineering decisions. That's how you end up with doors popping out of airplanes.

I don't really believe in the left/right/centrist paradigm. It's only useful as shorthand to describe political parties. I can say in my country party X is left, party Y is center-left, party Z is right and you'll get a general idea of the politics of my country. But it's just a made up thing. Different generations face different issues, different countries face different issues and those issues just get grouped together somewhat arbitrarily and the grouping that feels like it's left wing get called that and those that feel like it's right wing get called that. But taking that left/right thing too seriously just results in people opposing something simply because the other side wants it. Or voting against their own self interst simply because they identify as left or right or socialist or anarcho-libertarian-marxist-anti-colonialist or whatever. It's all really silly isn't it?

We have serious problems these days and it feels like people spend more time debating which team they're on rather than actually discussing the actual issues.