The mentioned article describes nicely some ideas with respect to socialism and democracy.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/12/13/can-socialism-save-democracy?cd-origin=rss
Commondreams
And it’s also about the relation of both terms and also societies to capitalism and communism.
For the time being it seems that you don’t know what is the best approach how state is managed. I think it depends a lot on the people with their history and environment, and on the other hand also on the current situation.
Behind this view is also the moral justice and philosophy behind like nicely described by Michael Sandel.
And to which group of people you belong. If you are owning a company you can (not must) go into the capitalist view. For sure will try to care for your company. But depending if you care also for the people working in your company or if you are just caring for you, you are acting completely different.
The same is true, if you have the power in a state. Of course the more democracy is already existing in your environment, the more is already „controlled“ by other people. So it’s not so easy to make bad things because there are always control systems acting.
But also here there are chances to move from a democratic system to a more dictatorship system. And this dictatorship system can be of different types like capitalism, communism (where a few people are controlling everything) and dictatorship.
Often in such controlling system there is not just one person but a group of people, either based on family relationships or other bonds like money in capitalism or dependencies in communism.