Socialism has for a long time been presented as something new, a radical idea on how to govern a nation. But I have for about fifty years contemplated one mystery: why does the promises of socialism never deliver the promised benefits. Not in Sweden, and not in any other nation where socialism has been attempted. I do not want to accept the common whitewashing, that "it was not real socialism". In Wikipedia there are listed 63 existing and former socialist states on this page. Simple math tells me that if 63 attempts has been made, and 63 attempts has failed, the odds for a success with a new attempt in any nation is less than 1/63. Socialism clearly has to go back to the drawing board.
When I continued to examine the ideas behind socialism, and the consequences in the nations who has tried to crate a socialistic society, I came to realize that there are indeed a historic precedence. The reputation and cult of the leaders in these nations receive the same veneration as absolute monarchs did 200-300 years ago. And other party officials are venerated as much as dukes and counts was, also 200-300 years ago. The socialist nations of today tend to create other privileges for party members as well, like shops where only they can shop.
Party leaders also tend to be elected for life, they rarely have to step down from the pinnacle of power.
So, in reality a socialistic state of today is very much like a medieval elective monarchy. In some nations, like North Korea, they even appear to have done away with the "elective" part, and made themselves into hereditary monarchies. They make a show of "electing" a new leader for the party, but when new leaders are elected they always elect the son of the newly deceased leader for two or three generations the shamble of "election" is reveled.
Socialism is nothing new, but something old and something that has been proven to not work very well. It is an underhanded way of centralizing as much political and economic power as possible in the hands of someone who plays the same role as a medieval monarch, and hes feudal henchmen.