Socialism would take away all of our freedoms. Socialism is the opposite of American values. Socialism would take away private property. Socialism would take away the things I worked hard for and give it to lazy people. Socialism would make the government too big. Socialism would destroy us.
These sentiments are common in the US. The lingering effects of the Red Scare and the interests of corporate media owners are to blame. The biased landscape in our social, political, and educational realms leads to uninformed perspectives of the subject (I never learned about socialism in my government and economics classes in school).
A topic this large and divisive is impossible to tackle in a single blog post. However, I believe there’s light to be shed on some important terminology and concepts that tend to bleed together in the common discourse. A prime example is socialism being equated to authoritarian communism.
Let’s start by seeing what in the world socialism actually means. The Merriam-Webster definitions of socialism are the following:
- any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
- a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property or b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.
- a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
One immediately interesting takeaway is that definition 2a describes the communal life depicted at the end of Acts chapter 2:
“44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts…” NIV
Were the early Jesus followers socialists? According to this definition, yes! They at the very least had behaviors that we can describe as socialist.
Definition 3 might raise red flags for some by referencing Karl Marx. Without endorsing or rebuking Marxism, I think it’s important to make a historic observation that Marx lived in London at the height of the industrial revolution. His political and economic theories were heavily influenced by the worst of the capitalism in place at the time (dangerous working conditions, child labor, extreme wealth inequality). His work was a critique of this capitalism.
The later half of this third definition is where the real substance lies: distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done. Does this sound familiar? This is a view of wages that many free-market capitalists share; that people should be paid proportionately to the work they perform. It’s the type of thinking behind, “I don’t think someone flipping burgers should make as much money as the CEO of the company.” Guess what? Socialism doesn’t disagree.
Definition 1 from Merriam-Webster gets to the main focus of socialism: the means of production. Socialism advocates for collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods*.
This is where it’s important to compare and contrast the different ways socialism can exist politically. The Soviet Union had state-controlled means of production. With its authoritarian state, this meant the government owned the means production and chose how to distribute the goods among its citizens.
There are three problems with socialism in this context: it is authoritarian in nature, it is based on government ownership, and it failed. All three of these characteristics are not unique to socialism. But the association of the baggage surrounding this specific example of socialism with socialism as a whole contributes to the conflation of “socialism = authoritarian communism = bad”.
Conversely, more democratic models of socialism advocated for by the modern UK Labour Party and Democratic Socialists of America envision worker-ownership of the means of production. Democratically controlled examples like REI co-op (collective consumer ownership), or Chattanooga’s city-owned gigabit internet service (government ownership) are close to this ideal, but not perfect examples.
Another example of government ownership is fire departments. They were originally private organizations with membership programs and only fought fires for buildings that were paying members of their brigade. Your building could be covered by a fire brigade, but the one next door might not be covered, threatening your building and the lives of those in it anyway. It was a public safety nightmare. Nowadays we understand fire departments to be a public need and therefore use government ownership instead of private entities in a competing market to run them.
There are some notable democratic socialists, some of whom might surprise you. To list just a few:
- Albert Einsten
- Helen Keller
- George Orwell
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
- Rashida Tlaib
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Bernie Sanders
Capitalism Good
So is socialism inherently bad? Clearly, the answer is no. Terrible things are done in socialist countries. However *cough*, the same can be said *cough* about capitalism *cough*. But I’ll leave critiquing capitalism for another time.
The axiomatic ideas that socialism is bad and capitalism is good really irk me. We need to be able to see beyond these false dichotomies of good and bad for any meaningful discourse to take place. If we want a government and an economy that work for everyone, we need to be able to see beyond the limiting stories we tell ourselves and each other.
From my mind to yours,
Quinn
*Democracy At Work is a great resource for information about this specific aspect of socialism. In short: the idea is that if we have a democratic government, why do we have an authoritarian employer/employee system at work? Instead, we should strive for a more democratically owned and operated workplace.
Quinn Out Loud 