Socialism !== central planning. Perhaps you were thinking of communism. Sure, you can simply privatize everything, and use taxpayers money to line the pockets

Socialism !== central planning. Perhaps you were thinking of communism. Sure, you can simply privatize everything, and use taxpayers money to line the pockets of private shareholders. Taxpayers don't like that much, so in that kind of system people tend to oppose public services in general. And it involves the government handing out contracts for everything, which inevitably leads to corruption.