We keep comparing socialism to capitalism without understanding what either is. Bernie calls himself a "Democratic Socialist" (when he isn't running or campaigning on the ticket of the neoliberal Democratic party), but what that means is a free market system that backs up the people with a strong safety net and tightly regulates capitalists.
He has never called for the means of production to be taken over by the people or government, only that regulations promoting better equity be installed. He is simply calling for a "kinder, gentler" neoliberalism that provides a bare minimum of economic support for workers, really only a subsidization of employers, like giving underpaid WalMart workers food stamps instead of demanding they get a more honest share of the benefits of the policies that originally took their jobs and sent them overseas.
If one throws around meaningless labels in countries like Denmark or Norway, considered by Americans to be socialist, they would get regular reprimands for it. Most American corporations happily do business in both countries and they take turns switching the top spots on the list of "best place to start a business". This is a direct result of the people having more spendable income and the time to enjoy it, in spite of their higher taxation rates. Both also, as do most countries we consider socialist, rank very high on the list for "happiest people".
FDR initiated the New Deal and claimed it was intended to "save" capitalism, not destroy it. This is substantiated by the quick reversal of the recovery when he was convinced his programs went too far and backed off from them. The downturn that resulted was only halted by renewed spending on the public purpose and his jobs programs that many had come to rely on in the absence of investment by private sector companies.
WWII was a reprieve for capitalism. It furthered the move toward government programs with generous VA benefits while also providing for a vast new workforce needed to supply the world with manufactured goods after most countries were bombed into oblivion. Prior to the war, America was a barely third-world country with an agrarian economy, but the soldiers came home to a country ready to put them to work in places mostly paid for by fiat US dollars during the war.
The American worker could make a fairly good living by simply knowing how to run a machine or two and the concept of the nuclear family was an affordable luxury. It wasn't until the rest of the world caught up that s/he had any real competition and the buttons and levers s/he made their living from were exported.
The move to overseas manufacturing provided capital it's way back into the driver's seat of the American economy as it was always an available threat to workers if they demanded too much of their own productivity. Trump wasn't entirely wrong about tariffs, and if they were properly used from the start of the import trend in manufacturing they could have leveled the playing field for American workers considerably.
