The issue is one of equality.
Democracy brings legal and hopefully social equality.
Socialism attempts to take that a step farther and ensure economic equality. That is, of course, a step too far, and can never be achieved.
Attempts to do so only result in the loss of freedom and of social and legal equality, without doing much to bring economic equality any closer.
Our Pledge of Allegiance tells all in the words ... "... and to the Republic for which it stands."
Our nation is not a democracy.
Socialism attempts to take that a step farther and ensure economic equality. That is, of course, a step too far, and can never be achieved.
My opinion of "Democracy" is the same as that of James Madison, widely labeled as the "Father of the Constitution." Like Madison, I favor the rule of legal principles, not counting the noses of the mob.
Let me go a step further. The idea of "social equality" is as absurd a goal as is "economic equality," and for precisely parallel reasons. Just as an economic leveling denies productive families the fruits of their unique labor and ingenuity; so social eguality would deny those families the legitimate consequences of their behavior down through the generations. Socialism stifles material incentives; and social egalitarians stifle cultural, moral & spiritual incentives.
As the cultural, moral & spiritual may ultimately be more important than the material, social egalitarianism may have a more disastrous effect on a people, in the long-run.
I would suggest to you, that Americans have never embraced social egalitarianism. What we have embraced, particularly in the Old South & West, was an appreciation of the importance of mutual respect among all productive elements of a healthy community. What is destroying America today, is a blame & envy culture, which over-turns that concept of mutual respect, and reduces us to seething jealousy & antagonism.
See Blame & Envy.
William Flax