Socialism is a more mild version of Communism with both being on the Left to Far Left respectively. However I find Communism to be too extreme since it usually means total government control while Socialism has strong albeit not total government control over the people. In Socialist countries you usually will find big government and high taxes but with free benefits like education, vacation time, health care etc. Plus wealth is distributed so everyone has a pretty similar paycheck. In Communist countries like China, North Korea, 20th century Romania and Soviet Russia, wealth is often distributed equally with high poverty rates, few freedoms and strict laws. If you pay attention to Communist countries you'll often notice they have a very Totalitarian style government. In my opinion, a government that's too far to the left or right usually doesn't work.