A lot of people mix up “socialism” with “people being good neighbors.” That’s not actually what the term means. Socialism is specifically about who owns the big stuff, the means of production. In a socialist setup, people still work jobs, they still get paid, and daily life still involves employment and compensation. The difference is that major industries aren’t privately owned by large corporations. They’re controlled collectively by the public or by the workers themselves.
Small private businesses can still exist; they’re not eliminated outright. What changes is the ownership of large-scale systems: energy, manufacturing, transportation, resources, things on that level. These are shifted away from private corporate control and toward collective control.
The fundamental issue of socialism and why it doesn’t and has not worked historically is because of human nature. A corporateocracy or a capitalist based society aligns much better to human nature than socialism does which is why it’s significantly more “successful”.
You’re referring to social democracy there are several social Democrats in office right now in the United States they are among the politicians I would vote for for president.