Can someone simply define what socialism is?

Its when individual liberty and rights are subjugated by the state. The state makes the decisions for you.

Income taxes, taxes on socially undesireable goods (e.g. alcohol, tobacco...), social welfare, labor protection laws, medicare, tariffs, anti-monopoly laws, anti-price fixing laws, free education... are hallmarks of Socialism

The point of Socialism is try to reduce wealth gap in the country as much as possible with minimum compromise on personal liberty. That's the definition of Socialism. Some countries succeed at it, some fail at it.

Governments that focus more on the above can be considered as leaning more Socialist, such as Singapore, Australia, Sweden, Japan...

Some countries take Socialism to the extreme and try to achieve Communism, it is a more extreme form of Socialism where more equality is achieved at the expense of liberty, but it is not practical because people are selfish in nature.

Socialism is when the workers own the means of production. It is when democracy is implemented in the workplace, and autogestion, solidarity, & cooperation reigns in the industrial and political sectors. An example of Socialism is a cooperative. Look it up if you don't know.

The main concept of socialism is when the means of production is owned by the government or collectively by the workers. However, there are tons of variations. You should read it up on wikipedia.

Its where the government controls the means of production removing grotesque corporate profits and using the savings to help the PEOPLE.

A system of society advocating government ownership and

administration of production and distribution of goods, and

no private ownership. A stage of society in Marxist theory

between capitalism and communism. (Websters)

Most people I've talked to about it have no idea what it really is. They just know it must be something super evil because that's what fox news is reporting.

The good kind that would fix the corrupted capitalism.

Well some would argue that personal income tax is unconstitutional.

its a word the right used to scare people.