Why is socialism bad

As the rich get richer, sea levels are rising, tribalism is flourishing, and liberal democracies are regressing. Even some of the wealthiest nations are plagued by job insecurity, debt, and stagnant wages. Ordinary people across the political spectrum are increasingly concerned that the system is rigged against them.

Trust in public institutions is near an all-time low. In response to these conditions, democratic socialism is enjoying a revival in the United States. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described socialist, is currently polling ahead of and raising more money than all the other Democratic presidential candidates except former Vice President Joe Biden.

His town hall appearance on Fox News was the most watched such event of the campaign season so far. With this surge of interest has come a renewed debate, often centered on historical and international comparisons, about what socialism actually means and whether it can succeed.

John Hickenlooper over the viability of a socialist in the race against incumbent President Donald Trump. Conservatives have applied the label to presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Progressives, forced to adapt to this framework, have long tried to distance themselves from the term, even when advocating for policies that clearly lean toward it.

Fear of being labeled socialist has narrowed their repertoire of policy options. Right-wing politicians tend to make full use of this leverage. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. Democratic socialists in the United States often point to Scandinavian countries for prime examples of their ideas in action. Scandinavia, broadly speaking, combines stable growth and prosperity with big governments that readily interfere in markets. The share of total U.

It has now reached 20 percent. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranks each Scandinavian nation among the top 10 with regards to both economic equality and absence of poverty. The United States is on the opposite end of both spectrums. Take Norway for example. Yet Norway, unlike the United States, enjoys universal health care, child care, and elder care, as well as tuition-free universities, around 12 months of paid parental leave, and a robust social safety net.

Could you be one already without knowing it? In fact, it can be difficult to answer the question of what precisely socialism is, because socialists themselves disagree over it. One popular perception, repeated by Republican Sen. What they have demanded is that ordinary working people get their fair share of the wealth. Some socialists have believed strongly in the power of government, others have believed that worker cooperatives or syndicates could give workers their share.

The specifics vary, but what all socialists have in common is a dislike for the class system, where some people work incredibly hard all their lives and end up with nothing, while other people get to make money in their sleep just by owning things. That commitment may seem radical: who wants to be of the criminal element? But socialists think in terms of universals: we think everyone deserves healthcare and housing, not just the people who prove themselves morally worthy.

This type of socialism rejects capitalism as immoral, along with notions of national borders and national sovereignty. It condemns American history, emphasizing only the darkest pages of the US experience, not the ideals to which the founding fathers aspired or which drew so many immigrants of all backgrounds over the years.

Neosocialism carries an ostensible moral appeal for young people who may know little about history or the nature of socialism, or who are disenchanted with the current state of the world. Nevertheless, although the new socialism differs from the Marxism of old, there are similarities.

Once again, individual humans matter less than structural considerations in the effort to achieve a utopia—which, being unattainable, is never achieved. The Marxism of old divided all people into two categories: the oppressors the bourgeoisie who controlled the means of production and the oppressed the workers or proletariat.

It did not matter how nice, kind, or charitable a person was individually; if he belonged to the bourgeoisie, he was condemned on the basis of his class identity. In a communist revolution, he was the enemy, against whom all means were justified. A similar division appears in the woke politics of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. People are viewed not as individuals to be judged on their own merits but as members of either oppressive or oppressed tribes.

Nothing matters but some intrinsic identity of the person, frequently an immutable characteristic such as race. These concepts have flowed outward from academic institutions and law schools to become embraced by celebrities, political figures, and protesters.

I fear it will not be possible to defend capitalism, either intellectually or morally, in this climate of increasing orthodoxy that marginalizes or silences dissenting voices. As woke intolerance spreads ever further into universities, newsrooms, and even large corporations that are fearful of diverging from the new orthodoxy, capitalism as a set of ideas will be increasingly on the defensive, in spite of its moral and economic accomplishments. The adherents of neosocialism have now racialized their worldview to such an extent that all white Americans have become morally suspect, while nonwhites are presented as victims of their exploitation.

I posit, to the contrary, that the new socialists are the true racists and exploiters. They misrepresent American and Western history. They exploit immigrants, ethnic minorities, women, members of the LGBTQ community, and children and poison young, impressionable minds through indoctrination, distortions of reality, and empty promises. What have they achieved? More often than not, they hurt the very people they claim to be helping.

Democratic capitalism, in the framework of the rule of law and respect for individual rights, has benefited billions of human beings. It allows for gradual, incremental progress to remedy legitimate grievances as they arise.

Until a better alternative can credibly be proposed, these are the institutions that we should celebrate—and defend. View the discussion thread. Image credit:. Memories of a Socialist Illusion To me, socialism is more than just an academic concept.

Human Activity in Motion Unlike socialist societies, societies with political freedom, alongside a capitalist or free enterprise system in the economic realm, have a prodigious capacity to adapt. About the Author. More from Defining Ideas More. People with positive views of socialism cite different countries, such as Finland and Denmark, as places where it has succeeded.

To find out, we asked people to describe — in their own words — why they had positive or negative impressions of socialism and capitalism. Some who view socialism negatively portray it as a serious threat to capitalism in the U.

And some who have a positive view of socialism express an explicit preference for a system that blends socialism and capitalism. The survey found that Republicans, in particular, viewed socialism and capitalism in zero-sum terms. But others mentioned history, the experiences of other nations, personal experiences or their own understandings of the terms in explaining the reasons behind their opinions of socialism and capitalism.

Among the majority of Americans who have a negative impression of socialism, no single reason stands out.