Ever notice how socialists ... never discuss real-world socialism? They only discuss what goes wrong with others (and of course all gets lumped together, when of course it is absolutely forbidden to draw the connection between western socialism and Soviets, or especially North Korea or Iran. But that the Saudia Arabian and the US economy work the same way, and have the same level of authoritarianism, that you can just state as gospel)

But here's one stat I think illustrates how well it goes in practice: the Taliban in full-blown war caused less victims in Afghanistan than communists did in peacetime (in fact less than half. This, incidentally, is the actual reason the Taliban started fighting the west, not CIA support. Communism is STILL one of the western influences that they state they try to eradicate, and I doubt that part of their agenda is very controversial in Afghanistan. And, of course, western socialists never mention this, and especially don't discuss why or how socialism came to Afghanistan, and how it is the direct cause, not CIA support, of the current situation in Afghanistan and Iran)

And this is not an exception in communism. For instance: "peace" in the Soviet Union killed more people than WW2 did worldwide, including the holocaust, hell, include all conflicts the Soviets ever had and it's still true. Hell, include all conflicts in Europe of the entire 20th century and it was still more. Same in China.

So I feel all rational people can honestly say "even if you're right, capitalist authoritarianism is still better", and given that authoritarianism is almost a basic principle of socialism, certainly in practice, I don't understand where they're coming from in the first place.