No, we don’t. But we have it nonetheless in spades.
Socialism is a symptom, not a system. A trait that appears in any system in violation of real freedom. Our current implementation of capitalism, in violation of the most fundamental principles that establish universal freedom, socialism is oligarchically controlled by the private sector rather than public sector controlled socialism in other systems.
In either case, socialism is dangerous and must be minimized, for it restricts the recognition of outliers responsible for reinventing our world anew. Socialism also destroys the uprising of a dynamic meritocracy and limits us from detecting the full scope of human diversity and ingenuity we need to evolve.
Now, the favorite opinion floats around that socialism cares for the weak, and an opponent to socialism must, therefore, be heartless. I understand that presumption stemming from the dysfunctional systems of our past in which socialism is used as the safety net for those who fall through the cracks of capitalism. The hypothesis is accurate only because we failed to subjugate capitalism to real freedom.
More stringent implementation of freedom (rather than laissez-faire), in which the paradoxical rules of collective freedom guide and protect the development of individual freedom will drive a meritocracy in which more people can play an active role in the evolution of humanity. Many more than a static implementation of capitalism stuffed with private sector oligarchic socialism will ever be able to achieve.
And thus the need for socialism will diminish (yet not disappear entirely) as we develop systems that are subjugated to a more modern proxy of freedom.
