Benefits of socialism?

Disclaimer: I am a right-wing fiscal conservative, though I run fairly liberal on social issues.

From the reading and research I've done, I just don't see the benefits of the socialist agenda. I figure many of the posters here lean left, so maybe you can explain it to me. How does socialism help a society? What do you think are the costs, and how do you justify those costs?

I'm not trolling and am going to try to be as open-minded as I can. I tried reading through r/debateacommunist but I think communism is an extreme form of socialism, but not necessarily socialism. I also ask that other right-wingers be cool about this, though it may be too much to ask.

EDIT: Thanks for everyone who has responded so far. The different points of view have been interesting and enlightening. I never really thought of roads as being a socialist activity before but I see that it is a good one! I'm picking up that limited, cherry-picked socialist policies like roads do help a society and even set a foundation for capitalism to flourish in. But I'm not really getting the advantage past these few places. I've been asking questions where appropriate to get clarity.

EDIT2: There's a lot of clarity on this now. It seems socialism has multiple threads including the degree of socialism from lightweight government intervention like what the US has to outright communism. Also, there is economic socialism which strives to put more power in the hands of the workers and squeeze out the need for profit in favor of community strength. And then social socialism which is more a way of life and philosophy and more about the "feel good". I appreciate the candor of peoples thought processes here, especially when they admit the weaknesses they see. It doesn't sound like socialism scales very well except in limited applications.