Just finished watching The Big Short.

It reminded me of Dr. King's observation. Socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.

Democratic socialism would be 'capitalism with a heart.'

A mixed economy, with employees owning the companies they work for. The latest info I have, 2007, said there were about eleven thousand such companies in the US.

It used to be the tax structure was set up to encourage reinvestment in the company and workers to avoid otherwise onerous taxes. That has gone out the window resulting in supervillian level wealth.Health benefits and other perks came about during WWII to get around wage caps.

It is clear to me that capitalism is embodied in the observation, "To a capitalist, the forest only has value by cutting it down."

The choice is not capitalism and socialist. It never has been. All countries that are remotely democratic, including the US (remotely) have mixed economies, public and private enterprise, regulation, business enterprise, and government intervention into the economy. The point is getting the balance right. In the US the balance has been skewered against the population in favour of big business and wealth. The choice is not between capitalism and socialism, but getting a better fairer balance in the social democratic mixed economies we now have. It's conservatives who foster this false socialism - capitalism debate. They hijacked the political debate back in the 1970s and are still doing it, constantly attacking government while all the time ruthlessly pursuing political power to use the levers of government to enrich their class and class interests.

For models, try western "European nations. They, in general are viable mixed economies, including both regulated capitalism and social democrat economies and governments.