Sam, I think that technological advance itself can pose an enormous danger to society, irrespective of whether capitalists or socialists "control" technological advance. I thoroughly agree with Jacques Ellul (The Technological Society, 1954) that "technique" -- i.e., "the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given state of development) in every field of human activity" -- threatens to swallow humankind whole. Ellul loathed capitalism, but he saw efficiency-driven technological determinism as the greatest social threat of all. IMO, he makes a good case.
Carl Remick