It amazes me how many people are OK with communism, but because of the negative connotation of the word communism, they call it socialism or the more palatable version "Democratic Socialism". In order for this philosophy to stick, people must be convinced of a massive problem (wealth inequality) and then become slowly indoctrinated (poisoned) with the tenants of socialism (Universities) until one day it clicks in their young utopian mind and they say "Ah Ha! I have the solution!" And a new Commie zealot is born. @ironshield
Communism and Socialism are different things.
And Socialism can have different sorts, one of them Democratic Socialism.
And wealth inequality is a big problem too. The higher the inequality, the more unstable the society gets. Seen that again and again.
Also it is a simple mathematical problem that inequality, without counter, gets worse and worse. Pure randomness does it.
If you don't want people to become commies, then solve that problem.
Forgive my lack of understanding, what is the practical difference between Communism and Socialism? @ironshield
Practical - Now that is hard ^^
You see Socialism is a wild field and very unclearly defined, also changing through the times.
The Definition I "experienced" when I was a child is: S. is the step before communism.
The most commonly held basis is that S. is the socio-economic form after capitalism with social ownership (and democratic rule) of - and here comes the communist part - the means of production. That is Marx/Engels definition.
But as I said there are a wide range of definitions - hundreds - and as some include communism, others include anarchy.
You may be surprised by that, but don't forget that Marx/Engels also defined communism as "without ruler and classes" (while Socialism still has those, in "real existing socialism" countries even placed a lot of worth that you are from the worker class) - which is not far from anarchy ;)
tl;dr
The main difference is that Socialism still has a ruling class, Communism not.