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Really, there's long been this sense that socialism and communism are one and the same, and bad. That's to an extent true. But the reality of the situation is that most modern American socialists are not socialists. They are "democratic socialists". I realize that's a slippery label, but the core idea is that capitalism is good (they would rather die than say it, but it does underpin their worldview) but you can use central government power to accelerate a certain level of redistribution (providing a floor for quality of life, but not necessarily any more than that) on top of that system. Also, you can "tame the beast" a little bit if you have enough smart rules in place for how capitalism works. And you know? I feel like that's a valid and defensible worldview/proposal, even if you disagree.
So in that lens, I'd say that modern lefties are on some level aware that socialism doesn't work. Many prominent lefties do try and think about ways to make capitalism better, even numerically! (There's a reason modern monetary economic theory is popular on the left, because it allows a capitalist framework way of making the numbers work out - oversimplified, you can just print money to uphold high social spending, as long as you are still the world's reserve currency and you take certain tax actions). It's true that you don't always get this vibe, but that's because the loudest people online are the most recent college grads who haven't followed the trajectory of economic thought maturation yet to its leftist local resting place, and still might be Marxists (for now). In short, the American political system provides a capitalism off-ramp other than actual Marxism: AOC, Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, all are variants on exactly this idea, and they have started to get a portion of power because their ideas are less crazy than the actual Marxists. They still mimic the language, because they have the heritage, and don't want to alienate young supporters, but those are not intrinsic to the voting-public appeal.
A defense of the PMC is essentially a defense of this added layer. You really do become more capitalist in the minds of progs by gutting layers of management and HR that work to offset pure macho entrepreneurialism. Or by undermining NGOs and non-profits, which they'll happily concede are private sector manifestations. Size of the state or public vs. private are not really where the action is anymore. Left vs. right all takes place within a permanent indispensable and inescapable capitalism.
The right that wants to woo the left by going after a portion of the private sector, i.e. engaging political economy on the left's classic terms, can't get any traction, because the left has moved on.
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