See, I'm not a fan of democratic socialism. As long as you have lobbyists and people trying to take money away fro everyone else, there will be corruption. If we could vote on the budget and where our tax dollars go instead of a voting for a person in a political party to do the bidding for us, I think we'd be much better off.
But a lot of the problems we have come down to one simple issue. Over-consumption. The vast majority of people spend their earnings in ways that leaves virtually nothing left to give back. Without going into a tirade about my life, that's one reason my wife and I are going the minimalist route. We'll be in a much better place to give back without feeling strained and stressed about our own lives. We won't have to spend our lives working 40-50 hrs a week to pay our bills. Our plan is that in 10 years, 50% of our income will be free money. Our debts and student loans will be paid off, our house will be paid off and we'll have no car loans. We'd literally be able to work part time and volunteer part time and still be able to donate money and live a "comfortable yet simple" life.
If people learned to focus on living and appreciating what they have, they'd end up spending far less money on trivial things. they'd end up not needing to live paycheck to paycheck making $100k / year. They'd be able to give back and donate, and their taxes would be able to go down. But that's a tough lesson to learn in a country where people are captivated with the latest shiny object.