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.
Straight from Engels in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
“... a kind of spurious Socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkyism, that without more ado declares all State-ownership, even of the Bismarkian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the State of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism”