I sorta think your conflating authoritarian socialism (aka communism) with democratic socialism which is as large a mistake as conflating pure democracy with corrupt representative democracy where a minority of the population is used to rubber stamp an oligarchy.

Similarly, capitalism in its purest forms is basically feudalism because the people won't have any dollars to vote with. And time and time again it seems the benevolent Henry Ford style capitalists are proven to be the minority. So, one might say that without the socialist scare in the late 1800's early 1900's which forced the hands of the capitalists all those quality of live improvements everyone likes to go on about probably wouldn't exist. We might all be working 80 hour weeks and scraping by in company hovels eating whatever gruel the company store gives us. But then again, a large portion of the US population is wildly unaware of how the bottom 30% live, while ignoring their own debt slavery. So enjoy your bread/circuses while the rich take an even larger slice of the economic pie.

edit: How about some George Carlin, RIP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyvxt1svxso