In conventional (old-time) Socialism, the government owns all the 'businesses', and hires all the workers. That's the broad outline of Socialism, but the devil, obviously, is in the details. Furthermore, just like economics, Socialism also has a lot of technical terms (a.k.a. jargon) which is a problem when we have to understand what people like Hilary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders, and Nomi Konst start talking, which Tucker Carlson found out when he started trying to interview her (Nomi Konst). Some of the jargon is essential (otherwise, every sentence will take about a week), but some of the jargon is actually unnecessary, so just having seen the words is probably enough; we can always come home and Google them.
Some hard-ass Socialists, when asked about how they would proceed, would say that they would confiscate all the businesses, and run them efficiently for the good of the country. That will be totally repugnant to almost everyone; we would naturally think that the government will next come for our stuff. (Business owners would probably sneer when we talk about our stuff, but hey, it's just as important to us as their damn factories and oil rigs are to them.)
That's---probably---not going to happen. But I'm willing to bet that things like oil companies, (which are the certified big polluters, as well as major recipients of government subsidies), perhaps the Internet, electric companies, those will be likely prospects for takeover. Or maybe the government will not takeover anything. There are more delicate ways in which the government can take control of key business---including the most polluting businesses, and deal with retraining the displaced labor. GM, for instance, does little more than token rehabilitation of their former workers.
Let's halt the speculation (which might be completely out in Left Field), and go straight to the source. Here is an NBC report of the Democratic Socialists, right after the election. The article is very clear; there are some five bulleted items, ranging from abolishing ICE (the border police), to opposing war. Note: historically, socialists have identified with working-class people everywhere. American Democratic Socialists might be different, but typically, a socialist in any country would consider every worker a brother. The folks coming in across the Mexican border are our brothers, and so keeping them out by force would be something that is anathema to socialists. Bear in mind that the USA is partly responsible for the failed governments in Central and Latin America; the CIA interfered with the governments of those countries since the nineteen fifties. You cannot do that without those problems coming home to roost. It is too late now to go back into South America to help make those nations stable; for evermore, fed-up Latinos will head here for a better life, just as those from former British Colonies head to London, which is one reason why they tried BREXIT.
Some things to think about.
The mentality of left-leaning Americans, and socialists everywhere, is that they're aligned with workers, that is blue-collar folks. It always puzzled me that the typical American seemed to regard blue-collar workers with some suspicion. But it's time to get over that; blue-collar folks are just as likely to help anyone as your supposedly friendly neighborhood white-collar worker; it's just that college-educated folk are uncomfortable with those who have not had a college education. (This is a major problem with college education; a situation which has to be corrected in some creative way.) It is these workers who suffer the brunt of business hostility, and so when the Democratic Socialists say workers, you have to think: that's us. If you're a business owner, I suppose, you will probably think: oh, that's THEM. Well, what can we do.
Going straight to the website of the Democratic Socialists of America, you get to a sort of FAQ about them, and I'll try to paraphrase the ones that I was most interested in.
Doesn’t socialism mean that the government will own and run everything?
Their bottom line is that Socialists have long given up the idea of running everything centrally ("from Washington"). Supply and demand methods work best with consumer goods, such as food commodities, clothing, etc. (In contrast,) Public Transport, Housing, Energy, and things like that are best administered by the government. (In other words, the time of the real-estate barons is going away; which makes sense, because they made insane profits, and then the Banks stepped in to crash the economy.)
Won’t socialism be impractical because people will lose their incentive to work?
"We reject the idea that the only reasons for people to work is either greed, or starvation. People enjoy their work if it is meaningful and enhances their lives. They work out of a sense of responsibility to their community and society. Although a long-term goal of socialism is to [get rid of] all but the most enjoyable kinds of work, we recognize that unappealing jobs will always be there. These unappealing tasks would be spread among as many people as possible rather than assigned on the basis of class, race, ethnicity, or gender, as they are under capitalism. And this undesirable work should be among the best-paid, not the least-paid, work within the economy. Temporarily, the burden should be placed on the employer to make work desirable by raising wages, offering benefits and improving the work environment. In short, we believe that a combination of social, economic, and moral incentives will motivate people to work.
(I thought that was a wonderful paragraph; it tackles a central problem of the economics of labor, which Capitalists have never dealt with properly. Work is a sort of take-it-or-leave-it thing in the Capitalist world-view; oligarchs never believe that workers need to enjoy their work.)
Aren’t you a party that’s in competition with the Democratic Party for votes and support?
No, we are not a separate party. Like our friends and allies in the feminist, labor, civil rights, religious, and community organizing movements, many of us have been active in the Democratic Party. We work with those movements to strengthen the party’s left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
There are many other Q & A items, all chosen very well, which do address a lot of the questions that people have, from: Isn't "Socialist" too discredited a word to call yourselves? and questions about the failed Russian Communist experiments, and the European Union, and the absence of established successful Socialist governments elsewhere. There is no core 'manifesto' anywhere; which makes me sad, because as a mathematician, I like to have my axioms where I can lay my hands on them.
But bear in mind that in the US, the Media is very powerful, and clever. And easily won over by money. The onslaught from the Media against Democratic Socialists has already begun, with people trying to pick apart what the spokespeople for the DSA say; them being attacked both from the ignorance of the attackers of the reasoning behind their statements, as well as the newsmen's innate resistance to anyone who even calls herself or himself a socialist. Prejudice is going to be hard to overcome.
So, at least for the moment, Amazon and other monopolies are not going to be interfered with, but the specter of regulation is very real. Similarly for banks, which includes credit cards. Just because a citizen is not very clever does not give banks and credit-cards the right to swindle them. Financial organization have taken it to be axiomatic that if you don't read the fine print, it's open season. Elizabeth Warren fought this, and it looks as though the Dem Socs of America are in her corner.
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