What is the difference between socialist programs and social programs?

I think that the term "social programs" is etymologically related to the nineteenth-century "social question," that is, the question of what to do with or about a new class, urban wage-laborers working, often, in large factories (large, that is, compared to what was known before the industrial revolution), a class that was alternately (or simultaneously) perceived as pitiable and threatening.  Dickens's The Adventures of Oliver Twist is perhaps the archetypal novel of the social question. Responses to the social question could range from harshly repressive (the Poor Laws) to integrative (Bismackian social provision).  "Social programs" can refer, then, to all kinds of programs on the integrative end of spectrum.  That in Germany they were inaugurated under Bismarck indicates that conservative politicians can sponsor social programs, so social programs are not per se "socialist".  On the other hand, there certainly is a long history of socialist parties promoting the extension of social provision.  Think, for example, of the 1945 Labour government under Clement Attlee and its creation of the modern British welfare state, most notably the NHS. The NHS, once established, though, became the property of all British governments, Conservative or Labour, and none of them have dared to try to kill it outright (although Cameron may be trying to do so indirectly). And this, of course, brings us to Obamacare and its putative role as the advance guard of a socialist agenda. Certainly, Obamacare would rank as a social program. But is it a socialist program?  Surely not.  By now its pedigree is well-known: it closely resembles the program once proposed by the Heritage Foundation, the 1990s Republican alternative to the Clinton health care program, and Romneycare in Massachusetts.  Socialist?  Oh, hell no!  For that matter, is Medicare socialist?  It is, after all, basically a single-payer program for everyone over 65 (though with supplemental private insurance and, since the Bush years, a nose under the tent for private insurers). Single-payer advocates in the US refer to their proposal as "Medicare for all".  Surely Medicare is far more "socialist" than Obamacare?  But is Medicare socialist?  Really?  Because no one in the US, even the people who are really trying to strangle Medicare quietly in the night (Paul Ryan et al.), dare oppose it outright.  Medicare in the US is like the NHS in Britain.  Everyone claims it. This suggests that while "socialist" parties advocate the extension of social provision, "social programs" alone are not "socialist" independent of their political context.  That context, as Joshua Engel and Judith Meyer suggest, relies on a history of both mass-based socialist parties and the post-1917 division of those parties into social-democratic and communist wings.  Social-democratic parties have by and large given up on the fight for collective ownership of the forces of production.  The last serious attempt by a social-democratic party to achieve this end was the failed Maidner Plan of Sweden's Social Democratic Party in the 1970s-80s, or perhaps the widespread (and later reversed) nationalizations in the first years of the Mitterand presidency in France.  By now, social-democratic parties don't even bother to pay this goal lip service.  The Labour Party's repudiation of Clause IV in the late 1990s may be taken as emblematic of this retreat.  So, if social programs were ever "socialist" in virtue of their promotion by parties that had a socialist agenda, that day is now long gone.  Since the United States never had a mass socialist party (Eugene Debs, in his best year, got something like 6% of the vote), the claim that any social program in the United States is "socialist" is a laughable fantasy.

In America, the two terms seem to be used interchangeably, or based on your opinion: whether it's good (social) or bad (socialist). Some people also use 'socialist' for things they approve of. I taught German to some people from the FSI and one thing I had to cover is how 'social' and 'socialist' are distinguished in Europe, where it makes a real difference and people can easily get offended if you use the wrong term. The idea of 'socialism' may be at the root of 'social democracy' as well as Communism, but by now, 'socialist' is used as synonymous with 'communist', because the Soviet Socialist Republics and their satellite states used the term for every single thing they did. So socialist = extreme left-wing and authoritarian social = what is good for the broad masses of society / left-wing In Europe, the word 'social' is mainly used to charactize mainstream left-wing policies, but even right-wing parties sometimes use this term when they want to highlight how kind and good their policies are, because the term has only positive connotations. On the other hand, it is also possible for a left-wing party's policies to be deemed unsocial, for example chancellor Schröder's efforts to decrease the social net, make it easier for companies to fire people, decrease the amount of social money and so on. So the word 'social' is not limited to one party, but it is limited to efforts that maintain or strengthen the social net (or pretend to).

Social programs are functions that would typically be associated with charity or aren't intrinsic to the economic system.      Socialist programs are functions that are typically associated with the market and are intrinsic to the economic system.      Some programs are harder to square in either category. Healthcare is associated with both charity and private enterprise. Thus the big argument over whether it should stay private or be socialized.