Some of what you're saying is true or partly true, but there are also claims in your comment that are not accurate or far too absolute.

“Socialism” means different things to different people because it is not one single, universally agreed system. It is a broad family of ideas with a long history. Marx developed one influential theory, but there have also been democratic socialists, social democrats, market socialists, revolutionary socialists, and many others, often disagreeing about what socialism should look like and how to achieve it.

The term is also used in different ways. It can describe an ideal economic system, a political movement seeking such a system, or individual “socialist” policies, such as public ownership, welfare programs, or worker-owned businesses. Supporting one such policy does not necessarily mean wanting to replace capitalism entirely.

On top of that, many parties and governments have called themselves socialist while pursuing very different goals. Some genuinely seek major changes to ownership and the economy; others mainly support regulated capitalism and a strong welfare state. And some leaders have used the label while creating systems quite different from traditional socialist ideals.

Finally, especially in American political debate, “socialism” is often used as a catch-all for almost any government intervention; taxes, healthcare, welfare, regulation, and so on. This can create a straw-man definition in which socialism simply means “the government does things.”

So before arguing about whether something is “socialist,” the first question should be: what do you mean by socialism, and if I mean something else, is it even helpful to use the term?

I use the term 'socialism' that is close to the original theory of Marx, but I don't care about that. I care about a modern version, that is constantly updated to the current state of the world, while keeping true to the ideals. I am an active member of the Dutch Socialist Party. The SP's socialism is as a living political tradition, rather than a fixed blueprint. Its principles are rooted in human dignity, equality, and solidarity, but its goal is not to mechanically reproduce an old model. It is about continually asking how much democratic control people have over the forces that shape their lives, and how that control can be expanded. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people”, which emphasizes democracy BEYOND just elections.

That makes it fundamentally pragmatic. The world changes, so socialism has to change with it. Climate change is a good example: the question is not simply what an ideal future economic system should look like, but how we deal with the reality that climate damage already falls disproportionately on people with less power and wealth. If an economic system repeatedly puts profit above the conditions needed for a liveable planet, then changing that system becomes more than a desirable political project, it can become a necessity.

This is also why socialism shouldn't be reduced to individual policies such as public healthcare or welfare. Those can be socialist policies, but the broader idea is democratising economic and social power. Sometimes that means public ownership, sometimes regulation, sometimes collective or worker ownership, and sometimes entirely new solutions that fit circumstances we haven't encountered before.

In that sense, the SP can be understood as pragmatic in its methods but principled in its direction: it adapts to reality without abandoning human dignity, equality, solidarity, and the continual expansion of democracy. That is quite different from treating socialism as a rigid system with a predetermined endpoint.

The problem with this description is that it treats “communism” as if it has one fixed meaning, when in reality the word has been used for both an ideal and for very different political systems that claimed to represent that ideal.

The description you give is largely a description of authoritarian communist states of the 20th century and their centrally planned economies: one-party rule, state ownership of major industries, political repression, and central economic planning. It is understandable that someone would associate communism with this, because those governments often called themselves communist. But that does not make those characteristics the definition of communism itself.

In the tradition associated with Marx, communism was conceived very differently: as a classless society based on common ownership, in which the enormous inequalities created by the division between owners and workers had been overcome. It was not simply “the government owns everything.” In fact, a state that permanently concentrates economic and political power in the hands of a ruling party is difficult to reconcile with the idea of a society in which class domination has actually disappeared.

This is an important distinction between an ideal and a particular historical attempt to achieve it. You can reasonably argue about whether communist ideals are achievable, desirable, or internally consistent. But it is not accurate to define the ideal entirely by the systems that claimed to be building it.

That is why statements such as “communism means one-party government” or “communism means the government owns all the factories” are too narrow. Those describe particular forms of state socialism and historical communist regimes, not communism as a political and philosophical ideal.

And this is precisely why the word can become almost useless without clarification. At one end, someone may mean a theoretical classless and ultimately stateless society; at the other, they may mean the political-economic system of a particular authoritarian state. Those are enormously different things. A serious discussion therefore has to distinguish between communism as an ideal, communist movements, and governments that called themselves communist rather than treating them as interchangeable.

I have a problem with you defining utopia primarily through altruism and self-sacrifice. If utopia is an imagined society of justice and human flourishing, why would sacrificing oneself be its defining feature?

A utopian vision seems better expressed through unity, acceptance, equality, abundance, empathy, generosity, and human possibility. The goal is not for people to constantly give up their own wellbeing for others, but to imagine a society where one person's wellbeing does not have to come at another's expense.

Perhaps “sacrifice” means giving up selfishness to you, the belief that our interests must always come before everyone else's. But that is very different from sacrificing our happiness or prosperity. In a society of abundance and opportunity, why assume people must remain selfish?

I therefore see empathy rather than altruism as the more fitting principle. Helping others does not necessarily mean acting against our own interests, generosity and cooperation can themselves be fulfilling.

Utopia, then, need not require people to become saints. It can be the aspiration toward a society where people flourish together, with enough freedom, equality, security and opportunity that cooperation becomes natural rather than something imposed through self-denial.