In much of what we broadly term the Western world, the place is awash with it - and thank common sense for that.
But one of the problems is that, even though they eat, drink and are generally immersed up to their eyeballs in socialistic practices on a daily basis, many remain deluded that socialism is some sort of communistic plot they wouldn't ever have a bar of.
Definition comes into it a bit. Happily, things have moved on since the hirsute Karl was scribbling away at Das Kapital in the reading room of the British Library - a bonny socialistic institution in itself.
Then it was all about bloated cigar-puffing factory-owning moguls with diamond tieclips on the one hand, and the downtrodden proletariat toiling 18 hours a day on unrelenting production lines with no toilet or tea breaks. Hmm ... maybe things haven't changed that much after all.
Let's try another tack. Every time someone tried to kick in Karl's dictum that the state owns and controls the means of production, distribution and exchange, things invariably turned to custard. It was always way too complicated for a centralised body to make the myriad daily decisions needed to make society a happening thing.
So, by and large, people got sensible and put mixed market models in place.
The state was considered the appropriate entity to run core structures like the legislature, currency, defence, justice, basic education, health, and transportation infrastructure and so on, while everybody else could more or less get on with business.
But at essence, the provision of these core state structures is socialism in action - usually these days referred to as democratic socialism. It just makes better sense for the social collective (ie the state) to be the key player here, both to promote a certain degree of equity and deter excessive exploitation.
When you are driving on public roads, when your kids are attending school, when you're visiting museums and national parks, when you're checking into the local hospital (sometimes), when you're picking up a benefit or your Super, then you're eating a piece of socialist pie in the best traditions of King Dick Seddon, St Michael Savage and Rob Muldoon.
In fact, if Karl had still been around, Piggy would have been one of his poster boys. Word had it that during the Muldoon years the only country with more state intervention was Albania - and even that was a close-run thing. National Socialists might even have been a more accurate name for the party if Hitler hadn't already queered the use of the term forever.
And, ironically of course, it was the post-Muldoon Labour Government which instituted the subsequent right-wing economic policies so loved by Ruthless Ruth.
Naturally, National Party members would rather wear horsehair Y-fronts than admit to any association whatsoever with bogeyman Socialism.
The same with Americans - but, despite their apparent worshipping at the capitalism altar, their nation too is awash with all manner of public service socialist stuff.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt is counted as one of the great American presidents. But his New Deal programme that kick-started the American economy from the detritus of the Great Depression was nothing less than an exercise in creative state-funded socialism that sponsored legions of Americans back into employment and infrastructure building.
And Mr Corbyn? What's he advocating, again? Nationalising the railways? Oh, didn't we re-do that one not so long ago, with the present National Government pumping in extra funds to keep it happening?
Quantitative easing? Oh, didn't Barack Obama recently do that one, too?
Combating obscene economic inequality? Oh, wasn't that the pride of our nation not so long ago - remember the much-touted and admired Egalitarian Society?
Maybe they should give Jeremy a break.
