Let me relate a story from my younger days, when I was a technician.
One of my tasks was to fly regularly to a town called Mwanza, on the shores of lake Victoria, where a German aid project was building a huge hospital.
In this town was a friendly Asian grocer, whose dream was to own a hotel. To this end he had scrimped and saved, and when I first met him he proudly showed me a small plot of land, which he had just bought, on the fringe of the town.
A year later, in great excitement, he showed me the foundations of his hotell being poured.
I would stop by and talk to him on my inspection visits, and a year later he was ecstatic as he told me his hotel was about to open and gave me a guided tour of his dream.
It was on 2 levels, the bottom level comprising a kitchen, a dining room, a lounge with a primitive bar, and a minute reception desk.
The upper level comprised 6 simple rooms, accessed via an outside corridor, itself accessed by an open staircase to one side of the building.
From then on, I regularly booked a room in his "hotel" for my visits, rather than staying in 4 star comfort. I liked the man and felt he had worked and scrimped so hard for his dream, primitive though it was.
The hospital project was finally completed, and with it my regular visits came to an end.
Then, in 1971, the government of Tanzania nationalised all buildings with a value that exceeded 100,000 shillings. ($14,400) People woke up to discover they now had to pay rent to live in their own house.
My friend was given the job of hotel manager, at a low salary, and had to answer to a government official.
Where was the world outcry? Nowhere
"It's unimportant, it's Africa" was the world's concensus.
This is the type of Socialism I fear. The one that dictates and takes for its own ends, rather than attempting to improve the lives of its citizens.
By all means tax the better off, proportionally to their wealth, to help the worse off. I approve the concept of free, basic universal health care, I approve the concept of free, basic education, in fact I approve many concepts that are for the general good.
However, I do not support Socialism when It becomes extreme, as it did in Julius Nyerere's Tanzania.