Socialism is not a form of Communism. Socialism is a variety of Capitalism. It is, in fact, the form of Capitalism that developed following the economic crash of 1929. It was at that time that the "Free Market Capitalism" that many industrialists espoused was exposed as a failed system.

Of course, Roosevelt couldn't come out and say "Free Market Capitalism is dead" openly, or the moneyed interests would have succeeded in lumping him in with the godless communist horde in the minds of the simple wage earner. So he launched the New Deal, which was socialism on a pretty big scale, but acceptable because the frigging economies all around the world were in the frigging toilet and everybody was frigging desparate.

After things began to get rolling again, the money guys got their pet Supreme Court Justices to roll back a large portion of Roosevelt's programs. Then the GREAT WAR began and the revamped US economy was able to do what it does best - churn out lots of disposable stuff. And so was born social security, unemployment insurance, deposit insurance, free public education for all, government pensions, the military industrial complex and all the other trappings of the modern welfare state. The End.

We are ALL socialists. Some more, some less. Or we are in denial. Even the so-called "self-made men" don't make it without some form of social/economic protection or lever. The latest display of this? The airlines. Just one more example (added to farm subsidies, the Dodge bailout, the savings and loan fiasco, etc.) of an industry that benefitted from capitalism's need to prop up it's failing institutions.