I’ll admit, the word is somewhat ambiguous. It has been all but scrubbed of meaning. In the classical sense, the workers would assume control and ownership of the means of production. The employees of Apple would own Apple.
Americans have been drowned with Cold War ideology, conflating Sovietism with communism. The poster boy here is Karl Marx. All of this is wrong. The Soviet Union was not a communist worker’s paradise. And Karl Marx would have detested what happened in Russia in the early twentieth century.
Nevertheless, the Soviets wore the black hat, and we wore the white hat. Of course. And now, that’s communism/socialism.
However, this has all passed through the prism of American politics. Criticizing socialism is an opportunity to be racist without having to say so. Criticizing socialism is also an opportunity to feel like a scholar, by (inaccurately) citing historical chapters.
We are a nation that believes in boot straps: working hard, being smart, and making good decisions. If you’re poor, you have failed in life. If you’re a millionaire, you’re really smart and the embodiment of success. And socialism, the thinking goes, rewards the losers and punishes the winners.
Never mind that this is false. Never mind that poverty does not mean failure. Never mind that many wealthy people in this country receive free money all the time. And never mind that most of the population doesn’t really understand what capitalism even is, and therefore have no idea what they’re cheering for. (I thought being smart was held in high regard.)
Would poverty alleviation, universal healthcare, and universal basic income be so bad? And we could have those things and still remain “capitalist”—which we are not.
. . .
https://gregoryharms.blogspot.com/2018/08/more-socialism-than-socialism.html
[I have also included a 2023 essay on the subject.]
https://gregoryharms.blogspot.com/2023/01/random-thoughtsocialism.html
