If you don't like socialism, then your complaint should be with Republicans who overplay "socialism"

[Farmer-Rick]

11. People really don't have an understanding of what socialism is.

They get it confused with communism but then so do countries that want to practice it. The old Soviet Union and China switched back and forth from calling themselves Socialist to calling themselves Communist.

At its basic Socialism has 3 common features:

The people own the means of production not capitalist. Usually that means the government owns big corporations and factories like in the old Soviet Union and China. But even there, people owned their own farms and small businesses. There are other ways aside from governmental ownership where the People could own the means of production. There could be huge co-ops or worker owned corporations. There are some interesting ideas about employee run businesses if you do a google search. All sorts of worker and owner partnerships and practices.

Economic Planning the magical hand of the free market is really no way to run a country. It creates imbalance, concentrates wealth and is inefficient. Which is why corporation are constantly trying to become monopolies. Because allowing economies to run without restraint usually means the rich eat the poor. Planning so that everyone one has a roof over their head, or has food, or has heat in winter is not a bad thing. It makes for less crime and fraud. It makes happy citizen and a rich nation.

Equality the bounty of a nation should be shared equally. If the government takes control of the means of production, the profits should be distributed to everyone equally (which obviously did NOT happen in Russia or China). All the workers should get a part of the corporation's profits. The profits of the factory should be shared with all the factory workers. It should be shared equally with no accounting for race, sex or religion. Yes, you can pay some people who do different jobs different amounts. It does NOT mean the doctor gets paid the same as the stay at home mother.

Many add other features but I think in these 3, the basics of the economic model is described and accounted for.