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In his 2019 State of the Union Address, Donald Trump proudly proclaimed that “America will never be a socialist country." In his nomination acceptance speech the following year, he denounced rival Joe Biden as a "Trojan horse for socialism." Biden, for his part, emphatically denied the charge:
"I beat the socialists. That's how I got elected. That's how I got the nomination. Do I look like a socialist? Look at my career, my whole career. I am not a socialist."
Biden’s disclaimer was aimed in part at appeasing moderate Democrats such as Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), who exhorted caucus members last November to “not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ again” if they wanted to avoid being “torn apart” in 2022.
What Does “Socialism” Mean in America?
So what’s in a word? A lot, apparently. In 1888, the New England author Edward Bellamy published Looking Backward: 2000-1887, a utopian socialist novel depicting the benefits of a fully nationalized economy where production and distribution are controlled by the government. The book was a national bestseller, owing in part to Bellamy’s prudent use of the word “nationalism” in place of “socialism.” He wished to avoid the foreign (German and French) associations of the latter, fearing it would alienate his domestic readers.
Well over a century later, the s-word still evokes fear and distrust. It does so now because many Americans closely identify it with the failures of authoritarian socialist republics, past and present. Since the 1980s, this association has been reinforced by the Hayekian neoliberal argument that economic planning and control lead ultimately to oppression and fascism.
The continuing use of the s-word as an ideological cudgel is not surprising. Most Americans don’t like what (they think) it represents. According to a 2018 Gallup poll, only 37 percent of American adults hold a positive view of socialism, a number that has held roughly level since 2010. Other polls have produced similar results. A 2019 Axios survey found that only 39 percent of adults have a “positive reaction” to the word; a Pew Research Center survey in the same year found that 42 percent have “a very or somewhat positive impression” of it; and a 2020 YouGov survey revealed that 31 percent have a “favorable” view of it, while also finding that 71 percent of Republicans and 18 percent of Democrats believe that Biden is a “socialist.” A Monmouth University poll in 2019 was less charitable, finding that only 10 percent of adults hold a positive view of socialism, and 57 percent judge it to be incompatible with American values.
Notably, these polls did not define socialism for respondents, leaving them free to answer on the basis of often vague or confused understandings. The range in meaning appears to be quite broad. A separate Gallup poll in 2018 found that 23 percent of Americans define socialism as equality, 17 percent as state control of the economy, 10 percent as social welfare and public services, 6 percent as “talking to people, being social, social media, getting along with people,” another 6 percent in “non-specific” derogatory terms, and nearly a full quarter (23 percent) have no opinion, presumably because they aren’t sure what it is. This wild polysemy suggests that “socialism” has become more of a Rorschach inkblot than a precise referent in American culture.
None of this is especially surprising. Socialism is an umbrella term that covers nearly two centuries of utopian visions, political and economic theories, philosophical and ideological perspectives, reformist and revolutionary movements, and systems of national governance.
Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy
Most relevant to American politics today are the traditions of democratic socialism and social democracy, well-represented in labor parties and worker organizations around the world. Whether revolutionary or reformist, transformative or revisionist, democratic socialists and social democrats are committed to political action through the organs of representative democracy. They fight for a strong welfare state that can provide adequate health care, education, housing, and social security for all through the ameliorative redistribution of wealth. Their shared aims are to protect against the inequities and casualties of the market economy through government regulation and (to a greater or lesser extent) public ownership, establish fair labor practices, expand public investment, defend human rights, and pursue social and environmental justice at home and abroad.
In the short term, the common economic mission of democratic socialists and social democrats is to reform, rather than abolish, market capitalism within the context of liberal democracy. They differ in their longer-term aims and commitments. Presently, there are five members of the U.S. Congress who self-identify as democratic socialists, four in the House (Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman) and one in the Senate (Bernie Sanders).
As in most industrialized nations, the history of socialism in America is tightly interwoven with that of the labor movement. The legal rights and protections that workers count on today are in large part the result of strikes and political pressure by trade unions and labor organizations starting in the middle of the 19th century. The National Labor Relations Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, and Social Security Act of the 1930s were all denounced as “socialism” by many Republicans and business elites of the time. This foundational legislation, expanded and amended over the years, gave us the federal minimum wage, the 40-hour workweek and 8-hour workday, overtime pay, equal pay protections, unemployment benefits, the right to organize and engage in collective bargaining, and much else. It's highly likely that few American workers today, Republican or Democrat, would be willing to give any of this up.
Many socialists have sacrificed much over the years, often in the face of harassment and persecution, to achieve the rights and benefits that all workers and their families now take for granted. Socialists of all stripes—revolutionary, reformist, and otherwise—played active and prominent roles in the powerful labor federations of the late-19th and 20th centuries. These include the Knights of Labor, the American Federation of Labor, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and especially, the Industrial Workers of the World (“Wobblies”), co-founded by the outspoken socialist Eugene Debs. Some lost their lives and many were injured or jailed for their participation in the often violent conflicts between labor and management. The 1905 Chicago Teamsters strike and the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia are two tragic examples.
Does Democratic Socialism Lead to Ruin?
In April, the Florida House of Representatives adopted Resolution 145, formally “denouncing democratic socialism in favor of the true American values of individual liberty, private property, and constitutional democracy.” Aside from suggesting that public ownership, investment, and regulatory control are fundamentally un-American, the main justification offered was that “in many nations that have relied upon democratic socialism to improve the lives of their citizens, the result has been economic and social chaos.” One can only wonder whether the Republican writers of the resolution believe that this has also been true in the U.S. If so, Medicare has surely contributed to the breakdown of society and should be eliminated immediately.
In reality, democratic socialism is not associated with “economic and social collapse.” To the contrary, according to the 2020 World Happiness Report, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland are consistently among the ten happiest countries in the world, with citizens expressing the highest level of life satisfaction. These countries are social democracies, with mixed economies and extensive social welfare protections and benefits. The U.S. ranks significantly lower in happiness—18th according to 2017-2019 data, putting it just above the Czech Republic.
The happy Nordic countries are also among the highest in trade union density (membership rate), in contrast to the U.S., which ranks fifth lowest of all 36 OECD countries. Unionism in the U.S. began declining noticeably in the late 1970s and never recovered, due mainly to increasingly effective corporate resistance, lack of federal and state support, economic transformation, and adverse cultural change. The weakening of America’s labor movement also helps explain the nation’s ever-widening income inequality.
According to the authors of the Happiness Report, the higher life satisfaction in Nordic countries is attributable to “generous and effective social welfare benefits” and citizens who “trust each other and governmental institutions.” These are defining features of well-functioning social democracy, and reflect the broader collectivistic ideals it shares with democratic socialism. Far from threatening “chaos,” these ideals and the legislation enacted in their name appear to make for healthier and happier societies.
Is It Time to Redeem the S-Word?
President Biden is seeking Congressional approval on a $6 trillion budget that will increase federal spending to a level unseen since World War II. Predictably, Republicans have been quick to reject the plan in all-too-familiar terms. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) denounced it as a “radical vision” founded on “socialist daydreams.”
In my view, in responding to this cynical pejorativization of the s-word, the president should stop giving in to popular misunderstanding and throwing “socialism” under the bus. He would do better to reclaim and rehabilitate the word by highlighting the successful legacy of socialist activism within the American labor movement. He might also point to the contributions socialists have made in the political fight for social security and public investment, economic reform, civil rights, and more generally, the humanizing of market capitalism. This, not Stalinist repression, is what socialism has contributed to America’s way of life.
Joe Biden isn't a socialist, and likely never will be. But if his adversaries continue to equate ambitious public spending and investment in a sustainable future with socialism, he might do well to stop protesting the word. Instead, it may be more effective to educate the electorate on what they owe socialism in the shaping of actually existing American capitalism and liberal democracy. It may not hurt to also mention that Albert Einstein was a socialist. As were W. E. B. Du Bois and, arguably, Martin Luther King (although he was opposed to communism).
Harry Truman put it best back in 1952 while campaigning for Adlai Stevenson. Referring to his scaremongering critics, he claimed that “socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.” If so, here’s to socialism.
