Socialism is an ideology, plain and simple. So is capitalism. And no ideology is absolute in practice. No matter what, holding on too tightly to any one ideological set, so that one refuses to recognize the benefits of others, causes problems.
Some countries have clung too tightly to socialism (in various forms--USSR to Communism and Europe today to social democracy), and we have been made very well aware of how they have suffered.
But my country--the US--tends to cling too tightly to capitalism, and this has caused us problems as well: Excessive and irresponsible lending, monopolies, lobbyist government control, shoddy products that don't stand up in the world market because our own poorly educated consumers will go ahead buy them here while many better products from lesser known brands get overlooked. The list could go on... but the point is that both issues with socialism and issues with capitalism have caused economic turmoil.
Things that people point fingers at and say "Socialist" are sometimes things that have done this country a lot of good. Yes, police, firefighters, public schools, government grants for education, and the EPA--all stem from socialist ideals, and these things all do the country good: we need police and firefighters, we need an educated and well-informed population, and we need some regulation to make sure that companies remember that some things are more important than the financial bottom line--things such as clean air and water and public safety. "Socialist" shouldn't be synonymous with "enemy." Its just a label for an ideology--some of it works and some of it doesn't, and you can say the same for capitalism.
To me, pure capitalism is basically, at its root, unbridled greed--survival of the fittest. Pure socialism, on the other hand, is basically charity mixed with social and economic indistinction. Obviously the concepts are much more complicated than this, but the point is, too much of either is not good. I think socialism is the yin to capitalism's yang, or vice versa. I think people should realize that in government, we try to use ideas that work, no matter where they come from. Labelling something as "socialist" shouldn't be sufficient enough to debunk it--we have a lot of social programs that work.
And actually, any dogmatic viewpoint is an enemy of democracy--that includes both capitalism and socialism. If an ideology is dogmatically is adopted by a party, and that party gains near complete power (like the Nazi party did), that could very easily lead to fascism or totalitarianism--which is what we are all truly afraid of in the end. Pure capitalism could so easily turn into a totalitarian aristocracy (just a few of the wealthiest fat cats running the show). And on the other side of the spectrum, if unregulated competition really did prevent monopolies, I think that eventually that "survival of the fittest" mentality would eventually turn to all out anarchy. Because there really is no heart or caring in capitalism--nothing to offset the greed--just as there really is no individuality in socialism--nothing to drive the society to progress.
