I’m sure Clement Attlee would want me to point out that socialism and charity are different in kind, not in degree.
The right has always lurved to paint socialism as a system of bribes paid out by the government to the mob, both to smear the left and because (for once) they are projecting. In fact, handouts are a tool of right-wing governments. They do it for businesses all the time, but they also give handouts to regular people when it serves them transactionally. (Like Turmp putting his filthy name all over those stimulus checks, and very nearly getting reëlected on the back of it).
Lots of center-left types fall into the same trap, and want to give charity to the needy, which gives ammo to the right and salves the bourgeois conscience without really addressing anything. And hard-left types are often preoccupied with punishing the rich, which you could think of as “negative charity”.
But the kind of socialism that works, and that everyone likes in practice, is when economic support is framed as a right, not some dog treat for people to deserve or not deserve. That’s why FDR mythologised (and Attlee strongly endorsed) “Freedom from Want” as a fundamental pillar of the Allied moral case during and beyond WWII.
You don’t have to get everyone in Birkenstocks to make the case for socialism (in fact that’s counterproductive). The case is: if you don’t want to be invaded by poor and desperate countries, start by ensuring that you don’t have a poor and desperate country surrounding you on every side within your own borders.
