I agree that it's a pointless argument, but that goes both ways. Plenty of people use the term "socialist" in ways that don't connote planned economies. Moreover, there are examples of state-run economies that are neither socialist nor communist.

The trouble is that when we talk about the positive aspects of socialism, we have an annoying tendancy to exploit the word to make Sweden an apology for Venezuela: we confuse "socialized services" with "command economy" and end up ignoring the real public policy failures of places like Venezuela.

And when we talk about its negative aspects, we tend to make Venezuela a cautionary tale against, say, single-payer health care.