There is a great deal of confused discourse at present about the large and growing number of Americans who express a preference for socialism over capitalism. In these discussions, the terms "socialism" and "capitalism" are usually employed in ways that do not correspond with their meanings in careful usage.

Socialism is a politico-economic system in which all the major means of production are owned by the state and managed by state functionaries. This is not what most self-identified U.S. socialists are seeking, (Indeed, if they had to get by with state-provided goods and services -- with a Post Office style of service, rather than with what they receive from Amazon, Apple, and Starbucks -- they would be horrified.) What they really want is simply more goods, services, and money delivered to them by the government via transfers, subsidies, and official privileges at someone else's expense -- usually, they fancy, at the expense of "the rich."

Capitalism is a politico-economic system in which most, if not all, of the major means of production are owned by private parties and managed by them via markets in which consumers' free choices provide the ultimate guidance as to how resources will be used and distributed via profit-seeking actions. This is not, as a rule, what self-identified U.S. socialists are complaining about. In most cases they are confusing the actions of companies and "the rich" in the present participatory fascist system with "capitalism," even though this economic fascism is light years away from a true private-property/free-market system. Their complaints about "inequality" similarly fail to understand that a great deal of the inequality they bemoan is the result of government interferences of many types in the economy.