a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole, in its purest form, socialism was a political, social, and economic system meant to empower the working class. In the U.S. today, though, it's often used as shorthand for "the services that government provides and which are paid for by taxes." Depending on who's talking, that idea is either a goal or a target. In truth there are many variations, but no one cares anymore. and the government is not "we the people"