What’s in a name? Would socialism by any other name be less controversial?
When millennials hear socialism, they think Scandinavia. Tiny countries with less ethnic diversity than my extended family. Iceland is smaller than Hawaii. The largest, Sweden has less people than Los Angeles. Their economies are capitalist though, home to corporations like Volvo, Nokia, LEGO and Ikea. They do have excellent social services, the good part of socialism, but very high taxes.
When Boomers hear socialism, they think Soviet Socialist Republic (aka Russia) a system of state capitalism, or marxism. The government-owned everything, the means of production, including land and even every home. They could take anything away too. A system so overreaching that where you lived, where you worked and even who you could marry might be determined by a party committee. That system collapsed of its own inefficiency, but instead of a republic it degenerated into a thugocracy where you can’t tell the government from organized crime. No wonder this image of socialism is scary. Pre boomers remember when Stalin starved half the Ukraine to feed Moscow, then sacrificed what was left to conquer Nazi Germany.
Nazi-ism National Socialist German Workers Party. No wonder it’s scary. China copied Russia with some changes. Forms of fascism. A system where all the people are subservient to the state, not really unlike classical monarchy where all the people were subservient to the King who owned everything but let vassals manage portions, like Kingdom of Hawaii once was.
Pure socialism, where everything is owned in common has never been successful on a large population. It has to be small enough for everyone to know everyone else, or at least think they do.
Civilization as we admire it could be called socialism. We all pay our taxes and expect the government to spend wisely on things called — commons — that we all benefit from. Taxes are somewhat proportional to our ability to pay, but our scale is far from perfect. In turn the government at several layers provides things in proportion to need. Like public roads. The Constitution provided for Post Roads, what we call highways today. In the 18th century country roads were on private land, and the land owner might put up a turnpike (a gate) and charge toll. This is why so many intercity roads in the east have a name that ends in Pike.
The U.S. Constitution authorizes Congress to impose taxes to support things that might have been considered socialism, if the word existed at the time, like courts, police, post offices, elections, standardized money, a census, the patent office, licenses and a military controlled by civilians. The Constitution forbids titles of mobility, another concept socialists would approve, everyone is equal, sort of. Several early states have the official name commonwealth, a concept fundamental to socialism; there are some things we own collectively, like parks and schools.
As a true democratic republic, we try to balance the common good with individual initiative. That structure is fragile. It needs common acceptance to exist because by definition, government by the people, requires the consent of the governed. A nation is in some ways is an extended family. We institute laws to prevent people from harming one another. We also facilitate the advancement of those who have little. We do this, partly out of empathy, but also out of desire to help them be able to contribute to the common good. It is in our own best interest to have neighbors who are healthy in body and mind. It is in our own best interest to have neighbors who are able to support themselves and help others in need. This in turn frees them to be their best, whether it’s sports, entertainment, starting a business, or just showing up regularly to do a fair day’s work, and get a fair day’s pay.
Socialism can mean whatever you want it to mean so instead of calling something socialism we need to be more descriptiv
Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer, now safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. Send feedback to obenskik@gmail.com.