I don’t believe capitalism or communism ever succeeded in a pure unfettered state…

First of all Communism is every bit as socially conservative as Capitalism. Communism is an economic system where the means of production are owned by the state even if they say it’s owned by the people it’s still controlled by authoritarian politicians.
Under socialism, all citizens share equally in economic resources as allocated by a democratically-elected government.
So yes any country having a military is a socialist concept, but while serving in that military you are in an authoritarian Communist environment.
Having freeways and fire departments and municipal trash service and police are all socialist types of concepts.
It’s the authoritarian conservative politicians that cause the bulk of the problems, like dictating what women are allowed to do with their bodies, especially while actively opposing public health policy and claiming it takes away their rights by having mask or vaccine mandates or not allowing unvaccinated people to enter various events.
Purified ideological concepts are as volatile as purified chemicals. Table salt is good, necessary even, but split it up and you have a poisonous green gas and an explosive metal. Just so pure Capitalism or pure Socialism is unhealthy for a nation. You can’t be so into capitalism that you privatize prisons or the military as we have privatized prisons and history shows how Blackwater was a crime against humanity.
Here in the US everyone seems to be demanding one “simple” solution that will work on every problem and anyone suggesting there’s more to it because life is complex immediately get put on a shit list of some kind.
I’m all for people owning their own business and even getting rich by doing so, however certain industries fail under such a model, like the insurance industry. Health care should be a right and if under government control it could be about the public welfare just as it is in every civilized country on Earth. Don’t tell me the US is civilized when Texas and Florida are two of your member states and people die of preventable diseases because they can’t afford health insurance.
Risk should be illegal to gamble with. When the Mississippi flooded thousands of homes the flood insurance companies just declared bankruptcy and closed their doors without paying off any claims and those home owners were forced legally to buy that insurance because they lived on a flood plain. So the government took over for years and everyone’s flood insurance rates dropped to their lowest rates in history because the government didn’t do it for the profit, they did it for the public good and they paid out all those claims and still the government made money despite the fact they weren’t screwing the public. The same should apply to ALL insurance and yes that’s socialism, socialism that lets people in the public keep more money to open other businesses to promote more capitalism with a happier, healthier, and wealthier public.
That was my issue with the ACA, mandating that everyone has to get screwed by an insurance company is in my mind the opposite of good capitalism or good socialism.
That’s what liberalism is all about. There’s no form of conservatism that’s healthy as a single solution.

first understand that socialism is an economic construct, communism is a form of authoritarian government that uses government control to force socialism on the masses not for the mass's benefit but for the ruling class's benefit.

Socialism exists on a spectrum. So no single definition will give you a complete picture.

Try this...

[en.wikipedia.org]

Look up the Jacobin magazine online