The only group in America that could remotely resemble a “Socialist” society is the Amish.
The Amish achieve this by being a community of relentless hard work, modest expectations, faithfulness to each other, and the understanding that they have to create their own means of survival.
They are the polar opposite of an American Socialist.
The modern “socialist” wants every little gluttonous thing capitalism produces without having to produce any of it. They find generations of other people’s hard work, invention, and sacrifice to be meaningless and see themselves as entitled to more.
As The Amish thank God for a modest standard of living they went out and earned for themselves, the "Socialist" would feel imprisoned to spend one day with their quality of life and abused to experience their labor.
The "Socialist" is a self centered, non-starter with the highest demands for modern comforts, willing to bite the hand that feeds them out of their own stupidity and endless desire for more.
The Amish sacrifice to build a community of basic necessity and dignity for one another.
The modern "Socialist" are ironically the absolute least capable of building, maintaining, or even tolerating Socialism.
Dear socialist friend,
Nothing is stopping you.
If collective ownership works so much better, you can prove it by next Tuesday. Pool your savings with your comrades. Elect a planning committee. Run a bakery, a farm, a repair shop – shared ownership, equal pay, decisions by vote. All of it is fully legal, today, everywhere in the West. No revolution needed.
And yet.
You want the workers to seize the factories – but you won’t open a food truck with three people from your group chat. You demand collective housing – but you won’t sign a joint lease with people who agree with you about everything.
People have tried voluntary socialism for two hundred years. The communes keep dissolving – the members simply walk out. The only socialist countries that lasted were the ones that locked the borders.
That’s the whole story. Where leaving is allowed, everyone leaves. Socialism only survives where leaving is banned. The people voted – on foot.
Just do it. Or admit that "collective" was always just a word for other people’s property.