link to original reddit post by /u/mrpenguin_86
I've seen a lot of stupidity on social media, more so than usual, when it comes to defining socialism. Some shill pages, sites, and commentators are attempting to declare basically "Is it good? It must be socialism". This goes all the way to saying things like freely donating money to a non-profit is socialism, despite the fact that the free movement of capital without coercion by the state is the hallmark of capitalism.
I have decided that I'm not going to tell people that socialism is bad but rather should define socialism in the context of its use. For example, as we all know, the violent take over of private property for use by the government in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, China, etc. are textbook definitions of socialism.
In contrast, being able to freely start a business to provide a new brand of soda, regardless of what the government says, to provide greater consumer choice is a textbook example of capitalism.
I think more people, when they understand what socialism actually is, can be converted to capitalists because telling people that something is bad when they are using the wrong definition of that something doesn't help: they just think you're a bad person because their definition of socialism is the kindergarten version that is getting perpetuated these days.