> I for one am against any form of socialism at all because it takes the desire to better yourself, and by extension your society, out of the equasion.

I agree, pure socialism doesn't work for exatly that reason, and that has been proven over and over again. But pure capitalism doesn't work either, it creates too much misery for some people. The amount that welfare costs the rich is small, the benefit to those that need it large. There are those who abuse it, but there are a lot of people who do not have a lot of choices in life, no matter how driven they are.