I'm taking a sociology class, and we just started talking about Marx. My professor asked us for examples of socialism, and quite a few people mentioned welfare.
I pushed back on this, saying that a redistribution of wealth isn't the same as "redistribution" (shared ownership) of productive means. My professor replied that socialism is a commitment to equality, which welfare provides.
Now, I wasn't sure exactly what to say next without denouncing capitalism. I'm also aware that my response could have been better. How would you respond to this?
EDIT: I'm not trying to convince my professor. I'm trying to present arguments that get my classmates thinking in hopes of radicalizing a few of them. One of the TA's actually pm'd me later saying that they agreed with me.
Do the people who do the producing (aka workers) control the means of production or not? That is literally the deciding factor in whether you have socialism or not. Everything else is obfuscation and lib shit.
Control and own. It is also theoretically possible that the workers could democratically control production, but the surplus value would still be reaped by a someone else.