Understanding socialism: Part One
Social ownership is the one common theme of all versions of socialism. If you asked 100 socialists what that means, how far that social ownership should go, or what should stay private, you would get 100 different answers. But the basic concept is that the people own the means of 'production.'
So if one only cared about themselves, they would do the exact opposite. They would fight to keep all forms of power and control to less people. A socialist wants that power and control spread out.
Now a capitalist wants that power and control to be under private ownership. Meaning that everyone looks out for themselves.
So I think you are talking about a capitalist.
However, both of these terms are very general and vague. There are many forms of both. Although I lean pretty far to the left, I believe in a balance of capitalism and socialism. We need business to thrive to have a strong economy, but if business is allowed to go unchecked it turns sour. It turns to what we have now, which is crony capitalism. It's an unhealthy form of capitalism.
But if we put regulations in place to make sure that the workers get a fair piece of the proverbial pie, we have a more stable economy.
We have tried trickle down economics for most of my life. It has failed. But more and more economists are pushing for trickle up economics. Meaning that you feed money to the people at the bottom, then let it trickle up to the people at the top.
Imagine if every hourly worker that you know is given $10,000.00 to deal with any way they want. What do they do? They spend it. They pay off debt. They travel. Maybe they even party it up a little. But that causes a great thing to happen. Money is moving. That is what you want for an economy. For money to move!
Now imagine if we give that $10,000.00 to the 1%. What do they do? They save it. They invest it. They put it in offshore accounts. It doesn't cause the money to move at all. That's bad for the economy.
That is the difference between what Bernie is pushing for, and what many in the GOP have been fighting for. Crazy Bernie wants to help those at the bottom because he knows that will get money moving. But that is because Bernie is not a 100% socialist. He's a Democratic Socialist. He wants balance to return.
But yeah. In short, a socialist wants to spread out the power, control, and wealth. A Capitalist wants to privatize everything. You are thinking of capitalism.