This commentary is by Elayne Clift, who writes from Saxtons River, Vt. www.elayne-clift.com.
Now that we’re well into 2021 and breathing a sigh of relief under new leadership, it seems like a good time to understand what socialism is, and what it’s not, given worries already bubbling up about the midterm and 2024 elections.
With Republicans revving up the S-word, Socialism, a familiar fallback strategy when they have little to offer in the way of policy, we are yet again tasked with understanding political systems that include socialism, communism and social democracy. It’s probably useful to think about these three economic and political ideologies calmly to avoid a reprise of confusion and angst before another election rolls around.
With help from several useful websites, I explored socialism, and how it aligns with, but differs from, communism as a good starting point.
The first thing I learned was that both of these political ideologies represent economic philosophies that advocate public vs. private ownership for specific economic aspects of society. Both are disenchanted with capitalism, which they believe exploits the working class, especially in a 99% vs. 1% world.
But whereas socialist theory — derived from the Industrial Revolution’s struggles among workers in factories owned and run by wealthy industrialists — sought to relieve those struggles by establishing a fair distribution of wealth that would close the huge gap between rich and poor and provide safety nets for the working class, Karl Marx’s communism viewed socialism as a utopian fantasy.
Marx believed that unending class struggles could be avoided only if the working class had complete control of the means of production. Marxist communism, also influenced by the realities of the Industrial Revolution, allowed Marx to argue that solutions to economic and social disparities needed to be revolutionary and not simply transformative expressions of socialist ideas.
Notably, communism allows no such thing as private property; all property is communally owned. Basic needs are met by the state, which controls all aspects of the economy. Socialism, on the other hand, includes the right to own property, although industrial production is meant to be communally owned and managed by a democratically elected government.
Another key difference between socialism and communism is that socialism disallows revolution. It promotes a less dogmatic, rigid approach as it seeks reasonable reform. It doesn’t advocate overthrowing an entire system or political structure and it believes societies can reward individual efforts and ingenuity.
Social democracy, embraced in our own time, draws from socialism’s philosophy but focuses on achieving necessary social reforms, including wealth distribution, through a democratic process that does not reject free-market capitalism. While no country has yet achieved a state of pure socialism, there are many countries that demonstrate effective and desirable social democracies.
Scandinavian countries, for example, are well-known for enjoying both capitalism and social policies and programs that are aligned with basic human rights, such as universal health care and subsidized child care.
Many European and some Latin American countries have also embraced social democracy as a guiding political philosophy for instituting humane, egalitarian, functional programs, and citizens have often elected leaders who support those ideals.
Increasingly, many Americans have grown comfortable with programs once tagged as socialist, even as they reject the idea of “socialism,” which they confuse with Russian-style communism. But who among those critics would be content to forfeit Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, along with other crucial benefits provided by government? This point was made, humorously, in a cartoon of a snowy day with naysayers remarking, “Oh, no! Here comes the socialist snowplow!”
Social democracy advocates seek implementation of a human rights agenda that establishes appropriate programs that include universal health care, food security, education, decent housing, and a clean environment from a government that doesn’t endorse or represent a country divided by wealth.
No one exemplifies democratic socialism more than U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents working-class people in her community. “When millennials talk about concepts like democratic socialism, we’re not talking about ‘Red Scare’ boogeymen. We’re talking about countries and systems that already exist that have already been proven to be successful in the modern world,” she has said. Excoriating her critics, she wrote on Facebook, “Can we please get people stimulus checks, [and other help] in the middle of a pandemic, or is that too socialist?”
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s progressive platform highlights, as Sen. Bernie Sanders’s does, a single-payer health care system that has proven successful in countries like Finland, the UK and Canada, clearly not countries that cling to communism or pure socialism. With Sen. Sanders and other progressives, she believes a living wage should provide “basic levels of dignity so that no person in American is too poor to live.” Who can argue with that?
In short, social democracy provides a blueprint for a world in which economic inequality, racial injustice, poverty, discrimination, violence in the home or in the streets, and other travesties are no longer part of a country’s landscape. That is neither a socialist nor a communist landscape. It is one of blossoming possibilities, well-planted seeds, and a flourishing environment free for all to contribute to, to be safe and secure in, and to enjoy.
