On the other side of the equation are the owners, heavily invested in the capitalist system. They say democracy is the same as capitalism. That fascism is the same as socialism and communism. They don't want any workers getting the least bit interested in what socialism and public ownership is all about. Fascism is terrorist rule by the capitalist class.
Socialism is an expansion of democracy by the working class.
Control of the wealth and resources of the world is the major class battle and the major democratic battle at the close of this century. If democracy means power to the people, then the concentration of power into a handful of super rich individuals and corporations constitutes an assault on democracy. The laws of capitalist economics are in contradiction with the expansion of democracy. The fundamental contradiction of capitalism is that production is social, involving many people at work, but the fruit of the workers' labor is privately owned and controlled at the whim of the owners. In today's advanced, global stage of capitalism, the struggle for democracy has greatly sharpened.