Many people have difficulty understanding exactly what socialism is because they don't understand the nature of the society we currently live under: capitalism. We are coerced into believing many social myths under capitalism, such as hard work being the primary source of wealth, or of possessing "freedom" of some ambiguous sort, usually from dictatorial oppression. Most people don't understand that capitalism is an economic dictatorship, with a small owning class controlling all of the services and industries for the purpose of personal enrichment, and a far larger working class who does all of the useful work but receives in return only a tiny fraction of the value of what they create.
Perhaps we should start with a basic questiion: what is a capitalist? A capitalist is an individual who owns such a sizable portion of productive or distributive property that he/she doesn't have to work in order to receive wealth. A capitalist produces no wealth at all but simply owns. Now, what is a worker? A worker is an individual who does not own enough productive property to live off of, and therefore must work for a capitalist (or group of them), or for the government that they control, in order to survive. A worker does not receive the full value of the work that he/she creates, which makes him/her dependant upon the capitalist. Therefore, the amount of an individual's income doesn't make them a capitalist or a worker; rather, their relationship to the means of production does. For example, doctors and computer technicians are considered to be well paid, but they are still workers...they must perform a service in order to make a living. Yet, the income they receive is still far less then that of most capitalists, who need perform no service to live, but simply survive by "owning."
Now we can get to the question of what capitalism is. Capitalism is an economic system in which production is carried out for profit, and in which goods and services are distributed across a market for sale. No one can have these items if they can't produce enough currency for it, regardless of their need. Production need not be socially relevant, it simply has to earn a profit for its owners. The primary feature of capitalism is that its industries and services are privately owned by individuals. These individuals are capitalists. The capitalists run the industries solely for the purpose of earning a profit...the needs of society at large never enter into the picture. This is done exclusively for the acquisition of personal power and might, and the capitalists control the political state and make all of the important decisions of production. There are always a small number of capitalists compared to the other social class, the working class. Workers perform all of the useful labor in society, but they do not own or control the industries. They receive a tiny fraction of the wealth that they create in return for their services, and they have little power or voice in any of the decisions made in production. The capitalists control the political state, which is their executive body and which they use to impose their class rule down upon the workers. Their military and police force is established to forcibly maintain order in a system that breeds disorder. There are always far, far more workers then capitalists.
Capitalism tends to work well for agrarian societies, since it has the function of industrializing society. However, once a society becomes industrialised, as the U.S. has, it no longer needs capitalism, and the system begins breaking down. Capitalism allowed the greatest advance for society ever...the Industrial Revolution, just as feudalism before it created the material basis out of which capitalism could emerge. We now have the technology to provide an abundance for everyone. Capitalism, however, doesn't allow this. It creates artificial limits on production, and it disposes and destroys food and other items which cannot be purchased, despite the need for these things by the people. It is an oligarchy, a system of government in which a minority decides everything for a far larger majority. True democracy cannot exist under capitalism, but only a nominal one, and only so much rights as the capitalist class allows. Capitalism is also the world's source for racism and sexism, as the limited opportunities it produces cause different groups of people to blame each other for their misfortunes and to seek to monopolize those limited opportunities. Capitalism inevitably leads to either socialism or to fascism, and it seperates the world into conflicting nations controlled by seperate ruling classes all with the same goal: to outcompete the other nations for the world market, and to acquire as much power for itself as possible. This is the modern cause of war. Capitalism naturally means no end to wars.
Socialism is Industrial Democracy, since it leads to economic freedom and full control over the world's resources by all of society, whereas fascism has been described as Indusrial Feudalism, as it is a social step backwards, and strips away even the nominal freedoms and civil rights from society.
Which system capitalism ultimately leads to as its successor is up to the working class, for their daily operation of the industries gives them the potential latent power to organize to make any change needed to create a new society based on serving the needs of everyone, and not just a fortunate few.
