Yes, I am implying that Socialism is better over the long term. Although, it's still not good enough.
The people have to choose to give or the system will fail. Government-sponsored socialism, via taxation and regulation of lifestyles, is always going to fail over the long-term. This is because corruption, hypocrisy, fraud, dependency/laziness, etc. inevitably eat at its foundation.
Voluntary socialism, however, does work. We forget that it is ultimately the individuals that shape how happy we are - not any forced government or economic model. People give and feel good about themselves, encouraging them to give more. Those who receive are lifted out of poverty and eventually gain enough self-respect to move up (assuming social mobility is available in the economy). I know it sounds like it's straight out of an old Sunday School lesson from church to some, but it IS that simple.
(One could carry this to an even more extreme, basic truth - that the unadulterated basics of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer to all of society's economic ills. Too many people, however, just see the words "Jesus Christ" or "Gospel" and are immediately repulsed - without any critical thought about its base principles. They start yelling about "freedom of religion", child molesting priests, hypocritical televangelists, "religion is the source of all war", anti-"God Hates Fags" rhetoric, "separation of church and state", weird religious cults, etc. Just getting to those basic truths about faith in God/yourself/others, hope, charity, honesty, the Golden Rule, etc. that would lead to happiness is surrounded by too many stumbling blocks.)
And economics is an attempt to quantify philosophy (with numbers and theories). Since religion is just a subset of philosophy - usually with an all-knowing, all-powerful deity or two mixed in, they are a lot alike - especially when you try to convince someone else that their Keynes/Marx/Greenspan economic theories are wrong.